EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION: Inside Vladimir Putin's Hellish Prisons — How Torture, Starvation and Despair Make Them a Fate Worse Than Death
Vladimir Putin's hellish prisons reveal torture, starvation, and despair endured by inmates.
March 23 2026, Published 8:00 a.m. ET
Moscow butcher Vladimir Putin is lording over a secret network of gulags where prisoners are brutally tortured in dozens of macabre and unspeakable ways, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
According to both whistleblowers and former prisoners – as well as photographic and video evidence reproduced here – the he--holes are meant to inspire fear in the hearts of Putin's enemies – and, specifically, those from Ukraine.
'An Absurd Situation'
Vladimir Zhbankov said Vladimir Putin's prison network operates outside the legal system and uses torture methods like the electric shock device called 'Putin's Phone.'
More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians – as well as untold numbers of the nation's POWs – have vanished into this web of 180 sites scattered around Russia since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022.
"All of this exists outside the legal field," says Vladimir Zhbankov, of Poshuk.Polon, an organization that helps families find their loved ones once they fall into one of Putin's prison wormholes.
"It's an absurd situation; even in Stalin's time, there were always charges."
Ex-prisoners describe being subjected to a monstrous menu of bizarre and excruciatingly painful methods of torment.
In a horrific example of abuse dubbed "Putin's Phone," some had their bodies wired to – and shocked by – old Soviet-era battery-powered field phones.
Disturbing Acts Caught On Video
Viktor Biletskyi said guards electrocuted his cellmate Danylo with a gas mask to cause suffocation during torture in Putin's detention system.
Others report being beaten while hung, handcuffed upside down in a fetal position.
One disturbing video shows guards urinating and spitting on a man while his face is held in flushing toilets.
Several former inmates report being suffocated with "elephant masks."
"They put a gas mask on Danylo and electrocuted him to make him suffocate faster," recalls Viktor Biletskyi, a Ukrainian artillery soldier, of his cellmate, Danylo.
"But as soon as he started to lose consciousness, they took off the gas mask. They did not let him die: They wanted him to suffer."
Putin Accused of Prison Torture
Former inmates claimed prisoners in Putin's detention sites survived on tiny food portions and were sometimes attacked by vicious dogs.
The typical prisoner meal amounts to about four-and-a-half spoonfuls of food, sources say. In some cases, prisoners are literally thrown to vicious dogs who maul them.
Prisoners also recall being forced to recite patriotic Russian poems, endure political indoctrination, waterboarding and rape, and even being strung up with duct tape and used as "human furniture."
Putin presides over all this – literally.
One ex-prisoner recalled Putin's portrait hanging in the cells.
What's more, a whistleblower says the order for torture came right from the top very early in the war.
Orders for Torture ‘Understood’ by Troops
A whistleblower said orders encouraging abuse in Putin's prison network were passed down through Russian military commanders.
"It wasn't phrased explicitly as 'go beat them,' but it was understood," said the source.
"It was communicated down the chain, from the general and his deputy to the commander of the special forces unit and then to the soldiers, that we were to 'work hard, do everything possible.'
"That was the euphemism. But everyone understood what it meant. The message was: 'Do what you want.'"
While staffers from Russia's federal prison system run the sites, torture is doled out by members of the FSB, Russia's foreign spy service, the successor to the dreaded KGB.
Torture Program Approved at Top
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UN torture expert Alice Edwards said abuse of Ukrainian civilians and POWs in Russian facilities appears organized and approved at the highest levels.
The torturers are cycled through facilities every few months to prevent them from connecting with their victims, sources said.
"It is clear to me that torture is part of the Russian war policy and apparatus, both of Ukrainian civilians as well as of captured prisoners of war," said the UN's torture expert Alice Edwards.
"It's being applied across all regions occupied by the Russian Federation, in all types of detention facilities. That level of organization can only be approved at the highest levels."
Torturers concealed their faces with balaclavas and used call signs like "wolf," "shaman," or, simply, "death," ex-prisoners recall – all to dodge potential accountability.
Volodymyr Labuzov, the chief medic of a Ukrainian marine brigade, arrived in one infamous Putin gulag in the Russian city of Taganrog in April 2022. He says that during one of his many interrogations, a Russian asked him to state his rank and position.
"But he didn't even listen to who I was," recalls Labuzov. "I was immediately hit on the head with a wooden hammer."
