Inmates in the women’s prison in Russia’s Zelenokumsk regularly threaten to kill unlawfully convicted Crimean journalist Iryna Danylovych, Krym.Realii reports, citing the human rights project Arkhipelag UFSIN and the journalist’s sister, Olha Novytska.
Novytska says that the threats are made in the presence of Federal Penitentiary Service (FPS) staff.
She adds that the prison administration has changed their tactics of applying pressure and are now deliberately encouraging other convicts to harass the journalist.
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“There are two women convicted of drug trafficking there, S. and Z. (the team knows their names). They clearly feel completely immune from penalties and are tacitly encouraged by the prison administration. In their threats against Iryna, they keep stressing that they’ve ‘bent the cops over’ and that there would be no consequences if they murdered her. They also constantly torment her with loud music from a radio, which is banned under the rules, but the inspectors somehow fail to notice that even when it’s happening right in front of them,” Olha Novytska said.
Arkhipelag UFSIN, an initiative by Pismo v Nevolyu (“A Letter to Captives”), has also reported that a prison inspector was involved in the cruel treatment of Iryna Danylovych.
“Galina S., a woman from Zelenokumsk born in 1992 (the team knows her name as well) who works as an inspector at the prison. Outside the prison walls, she has a happy family life, getting her younger son ready for first grade and her older one for middle school, visiting her parents and grandparents, who all live in one house, and meeting her husband from work at a car service centre… What is it that turns her into a beast with the prisoners is unclear,” the activists say.
As Krym.Realii remarks, the information reported by the human rights project needs more confirmation.
The Iryna Danylovych case
Iryna Danylovych was detained on 29 April 2022, in the occupied Crimea. She was detained on her way from work on the road from Koktebel to Feodosia. Her house in Vladislavivka village was searched, her phone and laptop were seized.
She was sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of storing an explosive device in December 2022. The sentence was later cut back a month, and the journalist moved to a prison in Russia.
Her health has deteriorated considerably while in jail: she suffered a stroke, lost hearing in one ear, and has repeatedly complained that proper medical assistance was being withheld from her. In 2024, she complained of heart pain and neurological problems.
It was reported in 2025 that Iryna Danylovych was in women’s prison No. 7 in Zelenokumsk (Stavropol Kray, Russia), in harsh conditions. She has addressed international institutions with a request to pay more attention to human rights abuse in Russian prisons.
In January 2026, Iryna Danylovych called on the international community to put more effort into raising awareness of the plight of Russia’s political prisoners in 2026.
On 28 April 2026, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) began trial in two lawsuits filed by Ukrainian journalist, Russia’s political prisoner Iryna Danylovych against Russia. The cases concerned unlawful detention and the journalist’s inclusion in Russia’s “foreign agents” register.
Reporters Without Borders and the US-based Human Rights Foundation handed Iryna Danylovych’s case to six UN special rapporteurs on June 19, asking them to take urgent action to free her.
Iryna Danylovych was a nurse and worked with Inzhyr Media and Crimean Process. She had a blog on social media and wrote columns on healthcare workers’ rights and healthcare issues in occupied Crimea.