The Prison Empire of Ukraine. How prisons add extra years behind bars to prisoners’ sentences

IX.

For a new prison term

At the end of August 2020, the prisoner Serhiy lodged a complaint with the Voznesensk сity district court in the Mykolaiv region. He complained about the actions of the administration of Voznesensk Correctional Colony No. 72.

The court returned Serhiy’s complaint, justifying its decision that he should have filed a claim rather than a complaint.

Meanwhile, at the correctional colony, they decided to teach the prisoner a lesson. After all, it is unheard of for convicts to expose the ‘kings and gods of the prisons’.

They began to pin Article 391 of the Criminal Code on Serhiy – wilful disobedience of the lawful demands of the prison administration. He was thrown into the disciplinary isolation unit, where they filmed him refusing to clean his cell.

For this, Serhiy received a new sentence – one year.

The Voznesensk colony doesn’t stand on ceremony with troublemakers. Twelve of its prisoners have received new sentences for disobeying the administration’s orders since 2021.

Roman, from the Rivne region, had been sentenced to ten years for murder. He would have had 7 months and 16 days left to serve. Roman must have made plans for the future. Find a job, make a family. The prospect of freedom was inspiring. Meanwhile, at Kolomyia Correctional Colony No. 41, a very different future was being planned for the prisoner, and arrangements were being made for his new sentence.

As a result, Roman was given an additional year’s imprisonment – just as in Serhiy’s case – for refusing to clean his cell.

The prison staff wanted to film the whole process of him cleaning his cell - he told the judge. As there are a large number of similar videos from various prisons on the internet, he refused. He didn’t want to be humiliated in that way.

The judge at the Kolomyia city district court in the Carpathian region listened to him, but still added a further prison term.

There have already been 18 men ‘trained’ in this way by the Kolomyia prison complex since 2021.

Human rights defender Andriy Didenko, from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, has been highlighting this issue for more than fifteen years, insisting on the need to abolish criminal punishment for such disciplinary offences committed by prisoners.

- This model of criminal punishment effectively amounts to holding a person accountable a second time for the very same offence. In legal terms, this is known as ‘disciplinary preclusive effect ’. In other words, a person is held disciplinarily liable for ‘disobeying’ the institution’s administration: for inappropriate behaviour, failing to follow the daily routine, not getting up at the appointed time, or not making their bed. As an example, they are sent to a disciplinary isolation cell for 15 days.

Then they are held criminally liable. The sole element of the crime, as far as the court is concerned, is that the person had previously been placed in a cell-type facility (CTF).

This is sufficient for the court. This is because the wording of Article 391 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is the offense is considered proven if a person has received a disciplinary sanction in the form of placement in a PKT.

The Kharkiv Human Rights Group has repeatedly demanded that this article be repealed without any alternatives.

The existence of Article 391 in no way contributes to the purpose of criminal punishment, which should be resocialization. That is, the creation of conditions and measures designed to change a person’s mindset. Basically a person who has committed a crime and harbors a negative attitude toward society should undergo a transformation and become law-abiding and conscientious.

“So this article of the Criminal Code has absolutely no impact on resocialization; rather, it is a repressive, punitive model,” Andriy Didenko explains.

The verdict was based on an incident in which Oleg refused to take his assigned sleeping spot in the ward when he was brought back from solitary confinement. And it appears that this situation was deliberately orchestrated by prison staff. After all, Oleg was ordered to take not his own bed, but another person’s bed and this bed was already taken. The lawyer’s argument—that the bed had been occupied by another person and this fact was documented during an inspection by prison staff, so Oleg was physically unable to occupy it and had slept in his own spot—did not refute the man’s guilt in the court’s view.

Thus, thanks to the efforts of the Raikivska Prison, Oleg received a new sentence and another year and a half behind bars.

This zone imposes new sentences on such people—because it takes into account the “criminal propensity of the individual.”

As in Vladimir’s case, who was also “punished” for refusing to occupy his assigned sleeping space in the ward and recived an additional one-year sentence.

It’s not customary to go easy on convicts in Zone 73. Here, people have been “broken” with extra years behind bars since time immemorial. Since 2021 13 inmates have received new sentences at the whim of the prison administration.

For example, last month after a failed appeal, a local inmate Oleksandr was sentenced to 1 year and 9 months. He did not admit guilt in court. He told the judge that he kept his cell clean, cleaning it regularly with his own supplies. He refused to clean only when prison staff were present. In other words, he cleaned it himself—but refused to do it when they were present and video recording was taking place.

Alexander’s position did not convince the judge.

Fedor also used this argument to justify his refusal to clean the cell. “They made me a scapegoat,” he protested in court. “I’m not a clown to be filmed while I’m cleaning. And then my kids would watch it on YouTube.”

Despite his assurances that he had no ties to the criminal underworld, and despite the fact that he has two young children and a seriously ill mother, Fyodor received a new sentence of one and a half years. The judge ruled that the defendant’s behavior significantly undermined the authority of prison officials in the eyes of other inmates, which severely hinders the normal operation of the correctional facility.

At the time this sentence was handed down, Fyodor had only 8 days remaining on his previous sentence.

Meanwhile, the inmate Ivan testified in court about the unlawful actions of prison staff and the physical violence he had suffered.

However, the judge took into account a letter from the Raikivska Penitentiary Zone itself, which stated that, according to the results of an investigation, no evidence of either physical or psychological pressure had been found.

It’s practically a satire—a convict complains that he’s being beaten at the prison, and the investigation is conducted by the prison itself. “Were you beaten?”—“No, come on.”

August 8, 2020, Ivan should have been released. By that point, the prison had already launched a full-scale investigation against him. So no one had any intention of releasing Ivan. The day before his release, he was taken into custody at the pretrial detention center.

The court’s initial verdict under “Article 391” was overturned on appeal. The case dragged on.

The second time, in June 2022, Ivan was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months. The appeal reduced the sentence by 6.5 months. By the time the Zhytomyr Court of Appeals issued its ruling, Ivan had already served all but two days of his sentence.

Murad enjoyed his freedom for less than 1.5 years. In February 22, the Berdychiv City and District Court “handed down” a new sentence to him—1 year and 10 months—for disobeying the administration of the Raikivska Zone.

Murad was convinceing the judge that the administration had developed a hostile attitude toward him because he was a vagrant, belonged to a different religion, and constantly criticized them; as a result, he was subjected to disciplinary action practically all the time, placed in disciplinary isolator, and spent almost his entire sentence there.

They cleaned their cell every day, as they were living there and needed it to be clean; they even brought water in jerrycans themselves for this purpose. He insisted that he had never refused to clean, but would not allow himself to be humiliated, and immediately stated that he would not clean in the presence of prison staff. Instead, they should have left him the cleaning equipment and returned in half an hour.

However, the prison management insisted that he had to clean in their presence and that it had been video-recorded. In such cases, he refused.

Obviously, for the judges of the Berdychiv City District Court, the interests of the Raikov Correctional Colony take precedence in such cases.

Murad had to return behind bars.

It is likely that the state tries to formally resolve the situation. So Government Bill No. 15003 is currently before parliament. However, human rights activists insist that the Cabinet of Ministers’ initiative amounts to a mere formal ‘repeal’. Although Draft Law No. 15003 is presented by the Government as abolishing criminal liability under Article 391, and is supposedly a measure of ‘humanisation’, it introduces a new concept of ‘malicious disobedience’ into the Criminal Enforcement Code.

Mykhailo Romanov, an expert on penal law at the Kharkiv Human Rights Group and a candidate of legal sciences, has analysed the draft bill in detail.

He concluded that the Government is engaging in “backroom manoeuvring”, which could result in a convicted person serving their sentence in the disciplinary isolation unit (karcer) of a maximum-security prison.

“Acording to statistic the vast majority of sentences in Ukraine are for terms of between 3 and 5 years so placing convicts in the disciplinary isolation unit for ‘malicious insubordination’ for a period of one year would result in the security level of their detention being raised, and, consequently, all other restrictions on their rights by 20–30 per cent of the total duration of their sentence.”

As we can see, the number of convictions under Article 391 is falling, but it is worth bearing in mind that, due to the full-scale war, a number of penal colonies have ‘fallen away’ as a result of the aggressor’s temporary occupation of territories. The total number of convicts has also fallen significantly, with a large proportion having gone off to fight voluntarily.

The only chance of avoiding a new prison sentence for ‘malicious’ insubordination lies with those prisoners who, at the time the sentence was handed down, had already served their sentences for previous offences and been released.

Since 2021, 17 out of 416 convicted individuals have received suspended sentences with probation. A further two were fined. Four convicted persons were sentenced to between 1 and 6 months’ detention (as they were being held in Detention center at the time).

It is worth noting that, alongside the decrease in the number of convictions for ‘malicious disobedience’, there has also been a reduction in the number of non-custodial sentences handed down by the courts.

There were no probation orders in the first four months of 2026. And only one each in 2025 and 2024.

However, it is worth emphasising that our analysis has also shown that even the mere fact of a person’s release and being at liberty does not always mean that such a convicted person will be given a suspended sentence. This is because, in a number of cases, individuals continue to have additional sentences imposed on them for ‘malicious disobedience’ towards the prison administration and are sent back behind bars.

X.

Conveyor belts of additional sentences. Prisons that lead the way in imposing new sentences on prisoners

Prisoners who have had new sentences added to their existing ones “for wilful disobedience of the prison authorities” complain that prison staff have fabricated incidents in order to “pile on” additional years to their sentences.

Operatives and trash

Last August, the Arbuzinsky District Court in the Mykolaiv region heard the case of an inmate at South Ukrainian Correctional Colony No. 83. Vitaliy’s refusal to clean the exercise yard at the temporary detention centre would have been just one of dozens of similar cases in other colonies – were it not for one detail. The prisoner told the judge that, immediately upon arrival at the prison, he had spoken to the head of the wing. The latter told the new arrival in no uncertain terms that he would take every possible measure to ensure that Vitaliy’s sentence would be extended. The main phase of this plan was set in motion at Prison No. 83 on 3 March 2025. Vitaliy, who had already been placed in disciplinary isolation, was taken out into the exercise yard for a walk that day. He didn’t have any cigarettes, so he didn’t smoke. He walked alone, without any other prisoners. But for some reason, five prison officers turned up at once to observe the proceedings. After his walk, he was taken back to his cell, whilst the five officers remained in the courtyard. Fifteen minutes later, a crowd of prison staff were already standing outside his cell; pointing a video camera at him, they demanded that he return and sweep the exercise yard. Vitaliy was told that he had left cigarette packets lying around there. Vitaliy refused to comply with this provocation.

The judge heard the application – and handed down a new sentence: 1.5 years. The case is currently being heard on appeal. However, given that over the past five-plus years, we have counted just two out of 416 instances where such sentences have been overturned by the courts of appeal, the odds are certainly not in Vitalii’s favour.

To be the ‘activist’ – or to have a new sentence

Stirring up conflict between prisoners who ‘don’t get on’ with the prison management and the so-called ‘activists’ who actively cooperate with the administration is a typical tactic used by prison ‘bosses’.

Serhiy encountered this very situation at Synelnykivsk Correctional Colony No. 94.

He refused to be transferred to another wing of the prison following this decision by the prison administration. Serhiy assured the judge that the prison staff had deliberately arranged this transfer, knowing about his conflict with another prisoner who was held in that wing. He also told the judge that he had refused to live in that wing because he did not want to commit any further offences. The inmates there were involved in fraudulent activities, and if he had refused, there would have been serious consequences for him.

Serhiy’s case was heard in court, and thanks to the efforts of the Sinelnikivka prison administration,two years were added to his sentence.

Відмовляєшся вичистити кабінет начальника?

По ще одному засудженому 94-тої колонії "організували" іншу комбінацію. У суді Вячеслав наполягав, що його змушували прибирати кабінет начальника відділення. Від такого замітання – миття він звісно відмовився, бо це не приміщення загального користування та до його прибирання не мають права залучати під приводом “благоустрою території”. Саме на таку відмову від прибирання, скоріш за все і був розрахунок в адміністрації зони. Вячеславу “намалювали” злісну непокору.

В час фінального розгляду справи у суді, Вячеслав відбув свій термін покарання та перебував на волі. Але наприкінці вересня 2023 року, Синельниківській міськрайонний суд вирішив, що Вячеславу “не пошкодить” ще два нових роки за гратами. І стараннями Синельниківської зони, чоловіка повернули назад до в’язниці – на новий строк.

Залишилося відбути 4 місяці, чи кілька днів, або й взагалі уже більше року на волі – це не зупиняє від нового строку по 391-ій, організованого стараннями “князів” колонії. А іноді тільки людина звільнилася - підписуйся за новий строк.

От Станіслав із Первомайської виправної колонії № 117 до вироку суду і нового терміну за непокору на цій зоні, встиг погуляти на свободі лише 13 днів.

Доповідь про чисельність засуджених

Сергію накидували нові строки по 391-ій уже тричі. Один із них – у січні 2025. Постаралася Олексіївська виправна колонія № 25. Йому “організували” типову непокору – у тому числі і за відмову, будучи черговим в камері ДІЗО, доповідати про кількість засуджених в камері.

Таку вимогу працівників адміністрації Олексіївської зони, у даному випадку, можна трактувати як провокацію. Так це і сприймав Сергій. Адже всі чотири дні підряд, коли його відзнімали на відео, у камері він знаходився один. Тож для працівників 25-ої кількість утриманців була очевидною.

Докинули ще й прибирання – в результаті Сергій стараннями колонії отримав нових 2 роки за гратами.

До слова, наприкінці 2025 року Сергію знову додали терміну. І знову по 391-ій. Як так далі адміністрація колоній буде прискіпливо ставитися до цього засудженого, то день, коли він зможе вийти на волю, відтягуватиметься з року в рік.

Аналогічно стосовно доповіді про чисельність засуджених документували і Родіона із згаданої Південноукраїнської 83-ої. Він теж був у камері один. Але те, щоб він “відчеканив”, що в камері утримується один засуджений – адміністрації колонії було, ну дуже, вкрай потрібно. Відмовився – все, злісний непокірник вимогам адміністрації. Ну просто злочин, який підриває під корінь існування та роботу всієї колонії

Додали йому, що ще ходив у власному одязі, відмовившись від форменного. У результаті – два нових роки.

Хвороба нирок - не завада

Та особливим цинізмом відзначилися у Коростенській виправній колонії № 71. Тут вирішили провчити та непокору “організувати” важкохворому.

Сергій у суді підтвердив, що відмовлявся іноді працювати, окільки має хворобу нирок, які болем його турбували.

У засідання викликали тюремного медика. Лікар підтвердив, що Сергій відбуваючи покарання в колонії, перебував під медичним оглядом та періодично звертався до медчастини за медичною допомогою.

XI.

Відмовився платити данину, доносити, скаржився прокурору. Кому в колоніях додають строки

Уродженець Білорусі неодноразово скаржився прокурору на дії працівників Житомирської зони. Юрій стверджував, що робив це усно, а письмово написати скарги не міг – бо працівники 4-ої колонії відмовлялися видати йому ручку та папір. І саме через його скарги, у адміністрації виникла особиста неприязнь до нього.

На такій версії подій наполягав Юрій у Богунському районному суді Житомира. Із подачі 4-ої колонії йому світив новий строк – за злісну непокору адміністрації установи. Юрій вину не визнав.

Одягали наручники, били дубинкою

- На мене одягали наручники, змушували присідати, били дубинкою – розкаже він судді.

Юрій наполягав, що не міг прибирати  за станом здоров’я. Погане самопочуття, проблеми з хребтом та шлунком, загострення язви перешкоджали йому виконувати роботи з благоустрою території.

Юрій систематично звертався до лікаря колонії, вживав пігулки.

Засуджений був оглянутий лікарською комісією, яка прийняла рішення про направлення на госпіталізацію. В послідуючому, був етапований до лікарні в Шепетівській ВК-98. Пролежав у стаціонарі терапевтичного відділення, де йому були встановлені обмеження фізичних навантажень, протипоказана важка фізична праця, призначено дієтичне харчування.

Згідно виписки із медичної картки, Юрію встановлено діагноз: наслідки перенесеної хвороби, кіфотична деформація грудного відділу хребта.

Але суд критично оцінив доводи Юрія, розцінюючи їх як намагання уникнути кримінальної відповідальності.

Суддя аргументував це тим, що з досліджених в судовому засіданні медичних документів засуджений має ряд хронічних хвороб, які звільняють його лише від важкої праці.

А роботи по прибиранню, начебто не впливали на стан його здоров`я і його не погіршували.

Неупередженому ставленню працівників колонії суддя підтвердження не знайшов.

Юрію, якому залишалося відбути 14 днів із 5 років попереднього терміну, присудили 1.5 роки за злісну непокору.

01.06.2026

Taras Zozulinskyy