The rise of Isis in Russia’s prisons

On Friday, a hostage crisis unfolded at the IK-19 prison colony near Volgograd, the southern Russian city once known as Stalingrad. Four convicts – who declared themselves members of Islamic State – took 12 of their wardens and fellow inmates captive. In one video a guard can be seen lying in a pool of blood, his throat slit. Three more hostages lost their lives before special forces stormed the penitentiary and neutralised their captors with extreme prejudice.

Friday’s incident follows an earlier hostage-taking by Isis two months ago at a detention centre in Rostov, where all six jailhouse jihadis were gunned down by police. These events pose the question: what’s happening in Russia’s prisons?

In the past, Russian prisons were divided into ‘red’ and ‘black’ zones: red penitentiaries were governed by the authorities, black ones were ruled by ‘thieves’ law’ – the vory v zakone, a distinctive underworld subculture of tattooed mobsters with an elaborate convict hierarchy.