Seven pre-trial detention centers, previously part of the system of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation, were transferred to the administration of the Federal Security Service. Data on this topic, as noted by The Insider, appeared in the database of legal entities in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
We are talking about:
- SIZO-2 “Lefortovo” in Moscow;
- SIZO-3 in St. Petersburg (known as “Shpalerka”);
- Pre-trial detention center No. 4 in Rostov-on-Don;
- Pre-trial detention center No. 5 in Krasnodar;
- Pre-trial detention center No. 6 in Vladikavkaz;
- Pre-trial detention center No. 7 in Chelyabinsk;
- Pre-trial detention center No. 8 of the attached city of Simferopol.
In most of them, with the exception of the detention centers in St. Petersburg and Chelyabinsk, the administration also changed at the same time. The name of the director of the Simferopol detention center is hidden from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
In the summer of 2025, the Duma adopted a law restoring the FSB the right to have its own pre-trial detention centers. It entered into force in January 2026.
The FSB had the right to have its own pre-trial detention centers until 2006. The decision to transfer the detention centers to the control of the Ministry of Justice rather than the FSB was part of the fulfillment of the obligations undertaken by Russia when it joined the Council of Europe. “Mediazona” wrote that after that, the FSB de facto kept pre-trial detention centers under its control – for example, the Moscow pre-trial detention center-2 “Lefortovo”, which is located next to the building of the investigation department of the special service.
Russia left the Council of Europe in 2022 after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.