The
Moscow Times reported the plans, citing a new version of Russia’s federal
target program, Development of the Penitentiary System.
The facilities will have a combined capacity of more than
20,000 people, according to the document. Of those, 5,380 places will be in
pretrial detention centers and another 15,120 in correctional colonies.
The multi-regime prisons are planned for Kaluga, Astrakhan
and Tyumen oblasts, Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai and Russian-occupied territory
in Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast. The first such facility is expected to open in
Tatarstan by 2030.
Russia’s Justice Ministry expects the use of multi-regime
facilities to “reduce the cost of holding prisoners and people held pending
investigation by 25–30%.”
Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko said the new “superprisons”
would use modern organizational and engineering solutions, including the latest
information technology. Federal Penitentiary Service head Arkady Gostev
previously said Russia had not built any new correctional colonies since 1984.
As The New York Times reported, the Kremlin has deployed
tens of thousands of prisoners into combat against Ukraine and has sharply
stepped up recruitment into its military. Under new laws, men and women no
longer have to be convicted of crimes to join the military. Suspects detained
by police are offered the dismissal of all charges in exchange for agreeing to
volunteer for military service.