Russia has closed the door to European monitoring in prisons. Moscow has officially withdrawn from the Convention for the Prevention of Torture.

Russia's detention facilities will no longer be monitored by the Council of Europe's independent body responsible for preventing torture and inhuman treatment. Moscow has officially withdrawn from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, having notified the Council of Europe of its intention back in October 2025. The decision ends the monitoring mandate on Russian territory, given that, over the years, European experts have documented numerous problems in prisons, psychiatric institutions and other places of detention in the Russian Federation, IPN reports.

The President of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Alan Mitchell, stated that, with the withdrawal from the Convention, the body's mandate to monitor the situation in Russia also ceases. Thus, places of detention in this country will no longer be subject to independent control exercised under the Convention.

The decision had been prepared as early as 2025. Vladimir Putin signed the presidential decree on Russia's withdrawal from the Convention in September, at the proposal of the Moscow government. Russian authorities did not specify the reasons for the initiative.

Kiev's reaction was harsh. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry described the withdrawal as a de facto recognition of the systematic practice of torture and an attempt by Moscow to avoid responsibility for serious human rights violations.

Over the years, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has published several reports on the situation in the Russian Federation. The documents have covered, among other things, cases in Chechnya, conditions in Russian psychiatric hospitals and prisons, and reports of torture of suspects in the March 2024 terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall, which left 149 dead and over 500 injured.

One of the most recent reports, published in November 2024, concerned the death in custody of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who had repeatedly complained about detention conditions he considered to be tantamount to torture. The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the Committee's criticism at the time, describing the issues raised as "politicized" and "ambiguous" and claiming that Russia was being "blackmailed".

Moscow's relations with the institutions of the Council of Europe have deteriorated radically since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In March 2022, the Committee of Ministers decided to terminate the Russian Federation's membership of the Council of Europe. At the same time, Moscow notified the European Court of Human Rights that it would no longer enforce its judgments.