64-year-old political prisoner Oleg Tyryshkin, convicted in a case of “justifying terrorism,” has died. RusNews and SotaVision reported this, citing his family and activists who corresponded with him.
As his common-law wife Galina Arysheva said, he died on February 4, 2026, in Detention Center No. 4 in Anzhero-Sudzhensk. She was informed of his death only four days later, on February 8. Before that, information had appeared in the media that he died “about a month ago” — probably at the end of March 2026.
According to the woman, Tyryshkin was transferred from the penal colony to the detention center after security forces announced that a new criminal case had been opened. The reason, it is claimed, was the political prisoner’s comments on social media. “Everyone was looking. They just couldn’t calm down,” Galina says.
His sentence under the first verdict was supposed to expire in October 2026. It is not reported under which specific article they were going to open the new case.
He began having heart problems in the detention center. He was taken to a hospital, where he soon died. Neither his relatives nor his lawyer were warned in advance about the sharp deterioration in his condition.
Earlier, OVD-Info, citing volunteers, told Novaya-Evrope that the man may have died in a hospital at a colony in Kemerovo. It is known that he was buried in Anzhero-Sudzhensk — 80 km north of Kemerovo.
On April 24, Rosfinmonitoring removed Tyryshkin from the list of “terrorists and extremists.”
🔵 Oleg Tyryshkin was a former miner and trade union activist from Kuzbass; he was supposed to turn 65 on May 12. In 2024, he was sentenced to two years in prison. The pensioner was accused of “justifying terrorism” because of a VK comment about the death of Akhmat Kadyrov in an explosion at a stadium in Grozny. Memorial recognized Tyryshkin as a political prisoner.
🔵 He became at least the sixth political prisoner to die in custody since the beginning of the year. In February, it became known about the death of former defense enterprise employee Roman Sidorkin. On February 19, jeweler Alexander Dotsenko died of a heart attack in a colony. At the end of March, political prisoner Vladimir Osipov, convicted over anti-war posts, died in a detention center. On April 8, 53-year-old artist Andrei Akuzin, arrested because of a comment on the internet, died by suicide in the detention center in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. On April 17, it became known about the death in a colony of 43-year-old preacher Vegan Khristolyub Bozhiy, convicted under articles on “offending the feelings of believers” and “rehabilitating Nazism.”
In addition, in January it became known that Roman Tyurin, a resident of Omsk region, died in a colony in February 2025. Human rights defenders were able to learn about the political prisoner’s death only later, when the activist who had been corresponding with Tyurin got back an unopened envelope with her letter.