January 23, 2026

Navalny's "Concentration Camp" Closed


Navalny's "Concentration Camp" Closed
Late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny on trial before being sent to the Penal Colony Number 2 in Pokrov in 2021. The Russian Life files.

On January 16, media outlet Chesnok revealed that a prison where former Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was once held has been shut down. The late lawyer described the compound as a "concentration camp a hundred kilometers (62 miles) away from Moscow."

On December 25, 2025, Penal Colony Number 2 in the city of Pokrov, Vladimir Oblast, was officially closed. The Federal Penitentiary Service said that convicts serving sentences in the prison were transferred to other detention facilities in Vladimirskaya Oblast. The penal colony began admitting inmates in 1996.

Navalny was held in this prison from March 2021 to June 2022. He once said about his time in the penal colony, "I must admit, the Russian prison system took me by surprise. I couldn't imagine that an actual concentration camp could be set up 100 kilometers from Moscow (...) I call my new home 'our friendly concentration camp.'" Navalny claimed that the rules inside the compound were so strict that even curse words and slang were forbidden. "Can you imagine a prison where they don't cuss?" he said. 

Navalny said the prison was heavily monitored: "CCTV cameras are everywhere, everyone is monitored, and even the slightest violation is reported." In December 2024, months after the opposition leader was found dead in a different prison, Navalny's team revealed that Pokrov's Penal Colony Number 2 had been secretly recording Navalny's meetings with his lawyers.

According to Meduza, former prisoners have described the penal colony as maximally isolated from the outside world, with harsh conditions, where inmates "are broken." Other famous inmates include municipal deputy Alexander Gorov, nationalist Dmitry Demushkin, and activist Konstantin Kotov.

In April 2025, authorities opened a criminal case against the head of the penal colony for taking bribes from prisoners.

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