News of the death of Aleksandr Kondratov, a 52-year-old Russian film and television production designer, emerged on October 26, 2026. Kondratov had spent months in custody on a treason charge. He was taken from a Moscow pretrial detention center to Botkin Hospital on October 23. His death was reported by the human rights group First Department and confirmed by lawyer Natalia Tikhonova.
By the following day, questions about his final hours remained unanswered. A lawyer representing Kondratov told Mediazona that he had not seen the body or received a medical death certificate. A doctor had offered a possible cause of death verbally, but the lawyer said he still did not know exactly when or where Kondratov had died.
The Work That Made His Name
Kondratov was born in Moscow on March 14, 1974. He spent many years as a production designer, building the settings and interiors of films and television dramas. His credits included Odessa-Mama, Bring Back My Love and House with Lilies.
His best-known project was Liquidation, Sergei Ursulyak’s 2007 television drama set in postwar Odesa. Kondratov won the Golden Eagle and TEFI awards for his work on the series. He moved to Kyiv in 2012 and continued working in film and television. His family remained in Ukraine.
A Passport Trip That Ended in Detention
In the spring of 2026, Kondratov traveled to Russia to renew his international passport. According to Memorial’s political-prisoner support project, relatives had urged him not to go. On May 5, he was detained at border control at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport. Rights advocates said the reason for the authorities’ initial interest in him was unknown.
A court first sentenced Kondratov to 15 days of administrative detention on a petty-hooliganism allegation. Further administrative arrests followed, one after another. Rights groups describe this practice of using successive short sentences to keep someone continuously detained as a carousel of arrests. Kondratov spent more than 70 days in custody before a criminal case was opened.
On August 5, authorities opened a treason case under Article 275 of Russia’s Criminal Code. Kondratov was placed in pretrial detention, and in September the Moscow City Court upheld the detention order on appeal. According to lawyer Natalia Tikhonova, the decision to open the case referred to “at least six publications” on the internet. Their contents were not publicly disclosed. No verdict was reached in the criminal case.
FACTUM.press reported on his arrest on September 10 (in Russian), when details of the treason proceedings and his prolonged detention became public.
What Rights Advocates Said About His Case
Memorial’s political-prisoner support project included Kondratov among people whose prosecution it considered highly likely to involve political motives and serious violations of law. The organization makes clear, however, that inclusion in this monitoring category is not equivalent to formal recognition as a political prisoner.
Kondratov’s case illustrates the risks that human rights advocates associate with returning to Russia after living in Ukraine. Successive administrative arrests prevented him from leaving the country even before the treason proceedings began. The later charge, reportedly linked to internet posts whose contents were never publicly disclosed, raised concerns about freedom of expression and protection against arbitrary detention. Without the posts themselves, there is no basis for attributing any specific political statements to Kondratov.
The Final Days and the Questions Left Unanswered
According to information a lawyer gave Mediazona, Kondratov arrived at Botkin Hospital at approximately 10:30 p.m. on October 23. On the morning of October 26, staff at Moscow’s SIZO-3 pretrial detention center told his legal team that he had died. At that point, the lawyer could not establish the precise time or place of death, including whether it had occurred at the hospital or during the transfer.
On October 27, a lawyer representing Kondratov met Nikita Chizhikov, the head of the hospital’s pathology department. According to the lawyer, the doctor verbally identified a type 2 myocardial infarction as the cause of death. But the lawyer was not given a medical death certificate or allowed to see the body, reportedly because he lacked authorization from the family. A doctor’s verbal explanation is not the same as a medical finding independently reviewed by the newsroom.
The lawyer sent requests to the hospital and SIZO-3 for records concerning Kondratov’s hospitalization, medical treatment and death. He also asked about any official inquiry into the circumstances. Kondratov’s brother, Aleksei, publicly questioned why relatives and the defense had not been informed sooner and why his brother had been taken to a civilian hospital.
As of October 28, the reporting reviewed for this article contained no documents that would independently establish the exact cause or time of death, or whether Kondratov had received adequate medical care. There is likewise no verified basis for alleging that detention-center staff deliberately caused his death. But the Russian authorities, who held him in custody, have a responsibility to establish what happened and to provide his family with essential information.
Kondratov died without a trial on the treason accusation. He had traveled to Russia in the spring to renew a passport and return to his family. He never made it back to Kyiv.