A new pretrial detention center with 4,000 places is planned in the Solnechnogorsk urban district of the Moscow region. In early February 2026, Glavgosexpertiza approved the project, and, according to Interfax, construction may begin this year and be completed by 2032.
The facility is to be built on former agricultural land near the 71st kilometer of the M-11 highway, between the villages of Shapkino and Ozhogino, beyond the Central Ring Road. The site is more than one kilometer from Solnechnogorsk and over five kilometers from the nearest commuter rail station. Sources interviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe say this will complicate visits by relatives and lawyers and the transport of detainees to Moscow courts.
The idea of moving some Moscow detention centers out of the city center has been discussed since the 2010s. Troitsk was also considered, with better transport access, but residential developments appeared near the proposed site there. Officials have not confirmed which detention centers, if any, could be relocated to the Moscow region. Lefortovo, however, was transferred from the Federal Penitentiary Service to the FSB on January 1, making its relocation unlikely.
“There is no point in concentrating defendants under investigation in one place,” said former Moscow prison service employee Anna Karetnikova, noting that both Moscow and the Moscow region were among the most overcrowded detention areas, according to prison service data for 2024.
Karetnikova also described the poor condition of older Moscow facilities, including Butyrka, where, she said, infrastructure problems recurred regularly. The project was prepared by the Moscow company A-Proekt.K; the documentation was rejected twice in 2025 and approved only in February 2026. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed the construction order in late 2022.
Sources compared the future complex with St. Petersburg’s New Kresty: similar in scale and equipped with more modern conditions, but carrying similar risks. A former member of the city’s public monitoring commission said the new facility has struggled with access to doctors, books, deliveries, and lawyer visits, while its remote location means detainees are taken to investigative actions before dawn and returned near midnight. Moscow lawyers add that even though the capital’s detention centers are overcrowded, moving some inmates to Solnechnogorsk could make logistics even harder for defense attorneys, escorts, and the detainees themselves.