Over seven days, from September 26 through October 2, producer Elena Matushevskaya was sent to pretrial detention over seven alleged donations to Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation totaling 3,500 rubles; St. Petersburg resident Egor Gulyaev was sentenced to six years over three reposts; 20-year-old Ivan Shadrin received a 10-year sentence; and theater director Zhenya Berkovich was given 15 days in a punishment cell over “three candies” and an allegedly incomplete introduction to a prison officer. Mathematician Azat Miftakhov received another 15 days in SHIZO over “unwiped dust,” journalist Roman Ivanov was sent there for 14 days for a publicly unexplained reason, and new reports emerged about Alexander Kynev’s injuries and Tatyana Bagey’s deteriorating health in custody.
On September 30, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian authorities “categorically deny” that the country holds political prisoners. FACTUM has already examined that statement and the difference between the state’s position and the criteria used by human rights organizations.
This roundup covers seven days, from September 26 through October 2. The cases are legally different. Some concern donations, social-media posts or religious meetings; others involve charges of treason, terrorism or alleged links to Ukrainian organizations. The point here is not to equate those cases, but to document what happened to specific people over the course of a single week and what can be established from open sources.
Seven transfers totaling 3,500 rubles — and pretrial detention
On October 2, Tomsk’s Kirovsky District Court ordered producer Elena Matushevskaya, who works on educational projects, held in pretrial detention until November 29. She is charged with financing an “extremist” organization under Article 282.3, Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code.
Investigators say Matushevskaya made seven 500-ruble transfers to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, for a total of 3,500 rubles. The case was opened on September 29. She was detained in Krasnoyarsk on October 1 and taken to Tomsk. Matushevskaya had been living in Serbia in recent years and returned to Russia for work. Her defense plans to appeal the detention order, OVD-Info reported.
Four years over religious meetings
On September 28, the Sovetsky District Court in Chelyabinsk sentenced 58-year-old Elena Mironova to four years in a penal colony. She was taken into custody in the courtroom after the verdict was announced.
Mironova was convicted of participation in the activities of an extremist organization and financing extremism. Prosecutors said she took part in the activities of the banned Jehovah’s Witnesses organization and made her apartment available for meetings. Jehovah’s Witnesses describe the underlying conduct differently, saying the gatherings consisted of religious meetings and Bible discussions. The verdict has not yet entered into force. Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia published details of the case.
Six years over three reposts
On September 29, St. Petersburg’s Nevsky District Court sentenced Egor Gulyaev to six years in a general-regime penal colony on a charge of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian military.
The case was based on three VKontakte reposts of material from the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, published in 2022. Prosecutors had requested a 12-year sentence. The court also barred Gulyaev for four years from administering websites or publishing material online. Mediazona reported from the case.
Age 20 — a 10-year sentence
On September 29, the Arkhangelsk Regional Court sentenced Ivan Shadrin, 20, to 10 years in prison over an alleged attempt to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, which the Russian authorities have designated a terrorist organization.
Shadrin is to spend the first three years in prison and the remaining seven in a high-security penal colony. He was detained at Sheremetyevo Airport on March 2, 2025, when he was 18. Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners has published a detailed account of the case.
18 years in a case involving a Ukrainian Telegram channel
On September 30, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Igor Karlov of Krasnodar to 18 years in a high-security penal colony and a 470,000-ruble fine.
Karlov faced several charges, including treason, spreading “false information” about the military, justifying terrorism, calling for extremist activity and calling for activity against state security. Prosecutors said he contacted a Ukrainian citizen in 2022 and agreed to administer a Ukrainian Telegram channel. RAPSI reported the court’s account of the case.
14 years over transfers worth less than 3,000 rubles
A court created by the Russian authorities in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region sentenced a Tokmak resident to 14 years in a general-regime penal colony on a treason charge.
The official court report identified the woman only as “K.,” born in 1961. Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners matched those details to Svetlana Kramchanina, citing the same year of birth, place of residence and criminal charge. That identification is Memorial’s attribution, not a name formally disclosed by the court.
Investigators say the woman made 15 transfers between January and April 2024 to Ukrainian bank cards used to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The transfers totaled 1,250 hryvnias — about 2,980 rubles using the conversion cited by the source. The court also imposed one year of restricted freedom after the prison term. Memorial reported the case.
Berkovich: 15 days in SHIZO over three candies
On September 26, new details emerged about why theater director and poet Zhenya Berkovich had been given another 15 days in the punishment cell at Penal Colony No. 3 in Kostroma Oblast.
In a letter to her mother, Berkovich said the disciplinary punishment stemmed from an attempt to “take three candies to work” and from what the prison administration described as an incomplete introduction when she entered an office. She had already spent seven days in SHIZO and received the new punishment 10 days after leaving it. Berkovich also wrote about cold and damp conditions in isolation and said a psychiatrist was not coming to see her. Meduza cited the letter.
FACTUM has previously reported on Berkovich’s repeated placement in SHIZO and problems obtaining medication. She is serving a prison sentence in the criminal case over the play Finist, the Brave Falcon.
Miftakhov: SHIZO over “unwiped dust”
Since September 28, mathematician Azat Miftakhov has been held in a punishment cell at the Polar Owl penal colony. The disciplinary term is 15 days. According to Miftakhov, the formal reason was that he had failed to wipe away dust.
Miftakhov believes the punishment may be connected to recent litigation by his defense team against the prison administration. That is his account; there is no public confirmation of a causal link. SOTAvision reported the new punishment.
FACTUM has previously covered both a mathematics paper Miftakhov completed while incarcerated and a court ruling ordering authorities to address failures in the investigation of his torture allegations.
Roman Ivanov: another 14 days in SHIZO
On October 2, it became known that RusNews journalist Roman Ivanov had been sent to a punishment cell for 14 days. The reason has not been made public.
His lawyer said the prison administration may transfer Ivanov to stricter conditions after he leaves SHIZO. Ivanov is held at Penal Colony No. 6 in Kolomna and is serving a seven-year sentence in a case based on three posts classified by the Russian authorities as “false information” about the military. Mediazona reported the disciplinary action on October 2.
Kynev: two fractures and allegations of torture
Political scientist Alexander Kynev was arrested on September 25 and placed in pretrial detention on a charge of attempted large-scale drug distribution. He denies the accusation. FACTUM has published a detailed account of his arrest and the publicly available facts of the case.
On September 28, the Slovo Zashchite project reported that Kynev was in the hospital at Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina detention center with two fractures of a lower-leg bone. The next day, political scientist Yekaterina Schulmann said Kynev had also been subjected to electric shocks and pressured to confess to treason. She did not disclose the source of that information.
Kynev’s lawyer, Mikhail Biryukov, told Ekho that the defense had no documents confirming Schulmann’s claims. He did confirm that Kynev had been hospitalized after a beating and said materials concerning unidentified people who injured him during detention had been separated into another proceeding. Meduza’s English edition reported both positions. FACTUM also reported separately on the fractures.
Tatyana Bagey: two months without insulin, according to her letter
On October 1, reports emerged about the condition of 58-year-old Tatyana Bagey, who is being held at Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Simferopol. In a letter from custody, she said she had gone about two months without the medication and insulin she needs.
Bagey wrote that she has diabetes and serious kidney failure, that her blood pressure rises as high as 200/120 and that the condition of her leg has deteriorated sharply. She said she fears gangrene and the need for dialysis. These claims come from her letter; no independent medical records confirming them have been published. OVD-Info published the account.
Seven days in numbers
Between September 26 and October 2, the cases in this roundup include one new pretrial detention order in a donations case, four long prison sentences, three placements in punishment cells and two new reports of serious physical harm or deteriorating health in custody.
In several cases, the underlying figures are striking on their own: 3,500 rubles in alleged transfers followed by pretrial detention; three reposts followed by a six-year prison sentence; 1,250 hryvnias in transfers followed by a 14-year treason sentence; three candies and an allegedly incomplete introduction followed by 15 days in SHIZO, according to Berkovich; and “unwiped dust” followed by another 15 days in SHIZO, according to Miftakhov.
On September 30, the Kremlin again said Russia has no political prisoners. FACTUM does not independently assign that designation in its Political Persecution section: the database relays OVD-Info’s data and criteria with attribution, while formal recognition as a political prisoner is shown separately when a human rights organization has made that determination.