“It won’t be easy for you here!” That’s how the director of the Velsk penal colony in northwestern Russia greeted Kevin Lick when he began his prison sentence on June 23, 2023. On April 11, 2026, he testified before the ISHR annual meeting as a witness to serious human rights violations and appealed for the many other young political prisoners in Russia not to be forgotten.

Kevin Lick, witness at the 54th annual meeting of the ISHR © ISHR

Kevin Lick, born in Montabaur/Westerwald, moved with his single Russian mother to her hometown of Maykob in southern Russia, near the Black Sea, when he was 12 years old. There, they lived in a high-rise apartment complex with a direct view of a military base. He was fascinated by the military vehicles coming and going and photographed them. When rumours surfaced in 2021 that Russia might attack Ukraine, he shared the photos online. A man contacted him, claiming to be an employee of the German embassy, and asked him to share the photos. Kevin didn’t realize that this man was actually an agent of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and had lured him into a trap. His mother, a nurse with physiotherapy training, wanted to return to Germany because she was being bullied at the hospital due to her German son and saw no opportunities for advancement or career development with a salary of around 150 euros. On the day of their planned departure, Kevin and his mother were stopped by FSB officers on their way to the airport in Sochi. Kevin’s mother was detained for ten days, during which time the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, gathered evidence and confiscated around 700 photographs of the military base. Kevin was charged with treason, accused of attempting to pass photos of a military unit to a foreign power. His case attracted considerable attention, as he was only 17 years old and the youngest person ever to face such charges in Russia.

Because the prison administration had no experience dealing with a minor, especially one with a German passport, he had to endure the first two months of his pretrial detention in solitary confinement under the most unhygienic conditions. He was subsequently transferred to other cells several times and threatened by fellow inmates. Two Russian ex-soldiers who had fought in Ukraine and learned of the charges against him incited other prisoners to punish Kevin. He was beaten for several days; burning cigarettes were even stubbed out on his hand. After months of investigation, the court handed down its verdict on December 27, 2022: four years in a penal colony, to be served in the Velsk camp complex, 2,500 kilometres from his mother’s home in northwestern Russia. During the transport there, which lasted over a month and included stops at various prisons, he became acquainted with the brutal caste system that governs relationships among the criminal prisoners. This system consisted of a caste of untouchables—most convicted of child abuse and other sexual offences — a caste of henchmen, and the “male caste” who controlled and corrupted prison officials. Daily life at the Welsk penal colony complex was governed, among other things, by an internal “Catalogue of 500 Rules,” the violation of which, even for the smallest offences such as improperly greeting a guard, was punished with solitary confinement. It was a forced labour camp, and Kevin was assigned to the sewing workshop. However, due to a shortage of raw materials, there wasn’t much work to be done, so the inmates were locked away without any activity. Kevin used this time to read schoolbooks that his mother had sent him. The meals were monotonous: semolina porridge made with water for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, accompanied by bread – and at lunchtime, mostly raw fish with offal mixed into the porridge. Because Kevin had been diagnosed with malnutrition, he was entitled to a daily additional ration of 20 grams of meat, which was generally not provided.

Kevin was released from prison on July 27, 2024, as part of an international prisoner exchange, after serving a total of 17 months. He arrived in Germany on August 1, wearing prison clothes and with his head shaved. He is now in the 12th grade of a Gymnasium (academic high school), is a very good student, and will graduate next year.

The approximately 130 underage political prisoners known to the ISHR (International Society for Human Rights) in Russia cannot hope for release in this way. They lack the necessary qualifications, such as dual citizenship and the associated international interest. We can help ease their lives in detention by writing to them and offering encouragement, by helping their parents visit their children in distant prisons, by maintaining contact with their lawyers and supporting them with appeals, and above all, by regularly reporting on their cases and finding political sponsors for them so they are not forgotten and their names might one day appear on an exchange list. We would be happy to send you the full text of the interview (approximately 20,000 characters, including images and graphics) upon request via email.

To effectively monitor the fate of political prisoners in Russia – especially young prisoners – the ISHR employs two staff members.