A prison official accused of torturing Alexei Navalny in the feared Polar Wolf jail has been promoted by Vladimir Putin.
Jail boss Valery Boyarinev, 53, was awarded the military rank of Colonel General of the Internal Service on Monday – just three days after Navalny’s ‘mysterious’ death in prison.
Boyarinev – then the first deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service – was revealed as the man behind Navalny’s shrinking food portions.
The fierce officer is believed to have ordered a big reduction in the food rations the Kremlin critic was allowed and also slashed the amount that could be spent on food.
In a move branded “torture” by Navalny supporters, Boyarinev made the chilling order at the Arctic IK-6 penal colony, it was revealed at a court hearing back in June 2023.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Mr Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, posted an image detailing the order today on social media.
Human rights group gulagu.net also alleged he was the “curator of torture conveyors” and had implemented special measures against Navalny and thousands of Ukrainian prisoners under his watch.
The group – headed by exiled Vladimir Osechkin – said: “Since July 2022, this experienced sadist from… torture school has held the post of first deputy and oversees all operational work of the Gulag of the 21st century.
“The Lubyanka (FSB security service) has been promoting this executive executioner for a long time.
“And now – for the murder of Alexei Navalny – dictator Putin assigns him the rank of Colonel-General.
“Boyarinev fulfilled Putin’s wish – the physical elimination of his main political opponent.”
Colonel Vadim Kalinin, 51, is the governor at the Arctic hellhole jail “Polar Wolf” where Navalny was being imprisoned before his death.
Former FSB colonel Gennady Gudkov, 67, an opposition politician said the jail was a terrible place to be for anyone opposing Putin.
He spoke about Navalny saying: “He was kept… in torture conditions.
“Either his organism did not overcome such torture (or) they might have given some medication that causes heart failure, they could have given a poison.
“We will only learn the truth when Putin is gone.”
Others have also been promoted including Alexander Rozin, 41 – a deputy director who becomes a Lt-General.
And Dmitry Sharovatov and Alexander Fedorov both got honoured with new Major-General roles.
The hellish Siberian prison where Navalny died in is allegedly known for torturing and beating prisoners.
A former inmate of the hellish gulag said beatings are rife soon after the prisoners enter the jail and are “impossible to dodge”.
They are beaten with batons, choked, pepper-sprayed, tied up, forced into awkward positions, and subjected to “humiliating procedures”, he said.
The colony staff explained that inmates are – illegally – beaten because “the prisoner must understand from the first minutes where he ended up”, but then the torture continues.
The jail is also known to locals as “the end of the world”.
