Rauf Arashukov declared a hunger strike in the colony.

Former senator from Karachay-Cherkessia Rauf Arashukov, serving a life sentence in the "Black Dolphin" colony, refused to eat, citing unbearable working conditions.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot", relatives of the life-sentenced Rauf Arashukov received a refusal in the spring to their request for his transfer from the Orenburg region to a colony in Mordovia. The former senator's defense promised to appeal this decision. Arashukov also demanded 100,000 rubles in compensation from the colony for the non-issuance of food, but the court refused to satisfy this claim at the end of April. It was revealed at the hearing that the goods that were not issued were absent from the store.

Rauf Arashukov declared a hunger strike in the special regime colony "Black Dolphin" in the Orenburg region, his lawyer Dmitry Trubnikov reported today.

According to the defender, Arashukov has refused to eat since August 1 and is only drinking water. The former senator is in a punishment isolation cell, and the demand of the hunger strike is to provide him with "normal working conditions," the lawyer's words are reported by the state news agency TASS.

A statement about the hunger strike was published this morning on a Telegram channel run on behalf of Rauf Arashukov. It claims that a colony employee took the former senator to work on July 29 and ordered to completely block the air access in his work cell.

"All air flows were closed. At the same time, the work cell itself is not equipped with either normal ventilation or exhaust, and does not meet the basic requirements for labor protection and safety. It is physically impossible to work in such conditions," the publication states.

According to Arashukov, on that day he "did not start working," and during an inspection, he informed the administration that he could not start working "due to lack of air and unbearable heat." The next day, July 30, the colony staff forced him to write an explanation for violating the regime. A day later, the window in the work cell was again "completely closed, and the handle was completely dismantled."

"Only after I demanded to call a doctor due to my deteriorating health did they return the window handle to its place. (...) I again informed the administration that it is impossible to work at a temperature reaching 40 degrees without normal air access. As a result, I was charged with two violations for not showing up for work and was given 10 days in SHIZO," the post claims.

Arashukov added that a colony employee who had previously closed the windows in the cells insulted him. "In protest against this lawlessness, I declared a hunger strike," he concluded.

Arashukov previously worked in a sewing production. On June 2, the lawyer reported that the convict had started working in an "individual" sewing workshop. The Telegram channel, where the statement about the hunger strike was published, has been run on behalf of Arashukov since November 2025, and in the first publications, the former senator wrote about the accusation of attempting to bribe.

In October 2024, it became known that the former senator from Karachay-Cherkessia Rauf Arashukov was accused of transferring three million rubles to the employees of the "Black Dolphin" colony in the Orenburg region for creating favorable conditions for serving his sentence. On January 13, the court found Arashukov guilty of attempting to bribe a colony employee and ordered him to pay a fine of 120 million rubles. The court also sentenced the life-sentenced former senator to an additional 10 years in prison.