Danil Zalozny, a 20-year-old St. Petersburg resident, was detained by police, beaten, charged with a criminal offense, and placed in pretrial detention, where, under threat of physical violence, he signed a document that turned out to be a military service contract. His mother told ASTRA:
“On the night of October 19th-20th, he was detained by officers from the 52nd police station. They found hashish on him. Officers from the 52nd station beat him. He lay on the floor while they beat him. They tried to get him to confess to distributing large quantities, but he told them it was for personal use only. They forced him to give up his phone password. His home was searched. On October 23rd, the Krasnogvardeisky Court remanded him in custody until December 18th.”
Fearing for her son’s health, the mother first contacted the human rights ombudsman in St. Petersburg.
“They told me to get lost. I contacted the Public Monitoring Commission. They came to see him at Kresty on the afternoon of the 28th, examined him, and took a statement. They didn’t let me see the statement, saying his condition was satisfactory. It wasn’t until the 29th that a lawyer came to see him. He sat there from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m., and they wouldn’t let him in. At first, they said he was with an investigator, then that he was out for a walk. Just before closing time, they even said they didn’t know where he was: ‘Find out for yourself.’”
On October 30, on the way to the pre-trial detention center, the mother received a message from her son:
“Danil wrote from someone else’s VK account: ‘Mom, hi. I’m at the SVO.’ I wasn’t allowed to see the head of the pretrial detention center. The investigator in the court order didn’t answer my calls or texts. I was screaming really loudly, and other mothers suggested I contact the military prosecutor’s office, as they could stop the transfer of the suspect. Then my son wrote that he had a bus that evening and said they were being taken from the temporary accommodation center on Politruk Pasechnik Street, Building 6, Block 2. I made it there after the prosecutor’s office. To say goodbye… That night they were taken to Voronezh, and on the 31st, to military unit 72162 in Belovodsk, near Luhansk, 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade (assault).”
The mother contacted the Investigative Committee and the military prosecutor’s office, but received no response.
“I’m really afraid for him. You can’t do that to people… Investigator Kuks could have stopped the removal, but she didn’t answer her phone. After the incident, she texted that she wasn’t handling the case. We later found out she was.”
According to the mother, her son was forced to sign a certain paper in the pre-trial detention center:
“My son told me that in the pretrial detention center, a detective, either Artem Valerievich or Artur Valerievich, came to his cell and said, ‘Get out, go to the SVO.’ Daniil said he wouldn’t leave the cell. They took him out anyway. They took him in for a talk. The detective threatened him. Daniil refused. The detective said he’d shove a mop in him… Eventually, they took him back, but not to his cell. They put a prisoner next to him who tried to persuade him to sign a contract: ‘You’ll earn money there, you won’t have to go to prison.’ Daniil refused. Then this prisoner started threatening him: he said he’d torture him with a soldering iron and smash his head against a radiator. Eventually, the threats broke him: he signed something, but he couldn’t see what it was. They only showed him one side of the paper.”
On November 4, Danil was able to tell his mother that he had tried to give the commander a letter refusing to serve, but then said his mother “wouldn’t succeed and that he would be released once he completed the assigned tasks.” On November 5, he was able to report that they were being “sent to the training ground” on the 6th.
ASTRA previously reported on a Kazakh citizen who was detained in Ulyanovsk, accused of drug trafficking, and subsequently served in the army near Rostov-on-Don. The person who arranged his deployment told ASTRA that the foreigner’s relatives should be grateful to him. Following ASTRA’s publication, the Kazakh citizen was returned to Ulyanovsk. He is currently in pretrial detention.
