Russia: The Descent into Hell of Drawing Teacher Daniil Kliouka

He used to scribble cartoons mocking the Kremlin. Daniil Klyuka has since been thrown out for many years in the depths of the Russian prison system. Where violence imposes its silence and where the traces of the detainees sometimes disappear.

His story is only one example among many others in Russia, in the midst of the repression of all resistance, real or imaginary, to the invasion of Ukraine.

Until the winter of 2023, this 28-year-old Russian art teacher led a peaceful life in Dankov, a town 300 kilometers south of Moscow, not far from the train station where the writer Leo Tolstoy died.

On the website of his former school, an ordinary establishment, you can see photos of his classroom with reproductions of paintings on the walls, including a self-portrait of Van Gogh.

His life collapses in February 2023 when he is arrested in Dankov by hooded agents of the FSB, the fearsome Russian security services.

They accuse him of having sent 135,000 rubles (about 1,280 euros at the current rate) in cryptocurrency to the Ukrainian ultranationalist Azov Brigade, classified as “terrorist” in Russia. Accusations that he denies.

Daniil Kliouka says that it all started when his director reported him to the FSB for having sketched small anti-power drawings in a newspaper.

AFP was able to reconstruct his descent into hell after learning of the content of letters he exchanged with a Russian anti-war activist living in exile in Italy.

Antonina Polichtchouk, 43, gradually brought this affair out of the shadows from August 2023, thanks to a project encouraging epistolary relations with political prisoners who, even those prosecuted for the most serious crimes, have the right to correspond.

A drawing made in prison by Daniil Kliouka is exhibited in Warsaw, September 21, 2024 © AFP – Wojtek RADWANSKI

She originally chose to communicate with Daniil Kliouka because he wanted to talk about architecture and Japanese cartoons. “I'm interested in architecture and my daughter is interested in Japanese cartoons, so I thought we could write to her together,” explains Ms. Polichtchouk.

Through the letters exchanged via the official online platform of the prison administration, she discovered that the young man was being prosecuted for “high treason” and “financing a terrorist organization.”

Crimes, very severely punished, of which the Russian State regularly accuses its supposed enemies in order to crush them.

– Drawings of “moustaches” –

Daniil Kliouka claims to have been the victim of a denunciation. A process in vogue in Russia and encouraged by the authorities, like President Vladimir Putin who, in March 2022, called for the hunt for “traitors” and the “self-purification” of society.

Activist groups, such as the organization “Veterans of Russia” led by Ildar Reziapov, have made it a specialty and denounce hundreds of people publicly and to the prosecutor's office.

Ordinary citizens or small civil servants denounce a neighbor or a colleague out of conviction, ambition, greed, jealousy or simple antipathy.

Daniil Klyuka said that in his spare time, at his workplace, he drew “horns, beards and moustaches” on photos from a local pro-Kremlin newspaper.

A photo of Daniil Kliouka in his classroom, published on a Telegram support channel, October 18, 2024 © AFP – Wojtek RADWANSKI

“When there were representatives of power on a page, I sometimes wrote 'demon' on their foreheads,” he said in a letter published by the Telegram group Politzek-Info, which covers political repressions.

But one day, he forgot the newspaper at school and his colleagues came across it.

According to him, for these scribbles, his headmistress fired him and contacted the FSB. He says he was then arrested, tortured “in a cellar” and that his home was searched.

It was in his phone confiscated from his home that the agents allegedly found evidence of the suspicious transfers.

Daniil Kliuka claims to have made false confessions and admitted under the blows to having sent funds to the Azov brigade. Before stating in his letters, once in detention, that he had in fact sent money to a Ukrainian cousin.

The cousin, Mykyta Laptiev, confirmed having received this money and assures that it was used to treat his father, Daniil Kliuka's uncle.

Contacted on social networks, the school official whom the teacher accuses, Irina Kouzitcheva, did not respond to requests from AFP.

It is also impossible to compare the prisoner's statements with those of the prosecution because the FSB has classified the procedure secret, as is almost always the case in this type of case. His defense is forbidden from discussing the case, under penalty of imprisonment.

– “Scare” –

After six months of correspondence, activist Antonina Polichtchouk realizes that Daniil Klyuka only has a court-appointed lawyer who “de facto works for the government.”

“His family could have paid for a lawyer and taken care of him, but their situation is complicated, they were intimidated. The FSB scares everyone,” she laments.

At her request, the human rights organization Memorial, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, banned in Russia but active in exile, pays for a new lawyer. Antonina Polichtchouk created a support group for the prisoner on Telegram, followed by 200 people.

For a long time, she was unable to find a photo of Daniil Kliouka. She finally found one, taken on the fly during a class.

In this photo, dressed in a striped sweater, his thin body, his thick black hair swept back over his forehead, he is holding a wooden mannequin used to learn drawing. It looks like he is smiling.

Sergei Davidis, head of Memorial's political prisoner assistance program, said his treatment was not surprising. The secrecy of the case allows the accused to be muzzled and the extent of the repression to remain unclear.

Concerning the alleged denunciation by his superior: “The school is a conservative sphere where particular attention is paid to ideological loyalty,” observes Mr. Davidis.

“His denunciation was the opportunity to launch these legal proceedings, but people like him are also prosecuted without denunciation everywhere in Russia,” he emphasizes.

– Unknown prisoners –

Due to lack of access to the file, Memorial has not yet been able to add Daniil Kliouka to its list of political prisoners, which includes around 778 names, the tip of the iceberg.

Because, according to Memorial, the cases of at least 10,000 people detained by Russia show signs of political motivation.

This includes, according to the NGO Center for Civil Liberties, based in kyiv, some 7,000 Ukrainian civilians, such as the journalist Victoria Rochtchina who died in prison on September 19, 2024.

The Russian organization OVD-Info has identified at least 1,300 prisoners for political reasons, to which must be added hundreds or even thousands of cases for “high treason”, “sabotage” or refusal to fight in Ukraine.

A drawing made by Daniil Kliouka from his prison in Russia, on October 18, 2024 in Warsaw © AFP – Wojtek RADWANSKI

NGOs regularly discover detainees thanks to reports from other prisoners. Daniil Kliouka thus informed Antonina Polichtchouk of his meeting, during a transfer, with Alexei Sivokhine, a former Ukrainian soldier.

“He had been imprisoned for two years, alone in a cell, without any contact. Without Daniil, his case would have remained unknown,” notes Ms Polichtchouk.

As for the informers, she wants to identify as many as possible, in the hope that they will be brought to justice “when this regime collapses”. An aspiration that could remain in vain: denunciation, massive under the USSR, was never discouraged or punished after the collapse of the Soviet empire.

– “Turn a blind eye” –

Antonina Polichtchouk slipped questions from AFP into a letter sent to Daniil Kliouka.

A week later, she received a response – as always a handwritten letter sent by scan, dated and numbered – which fortunately was not censored by the administration of the Matrosskaya Tichina prison in Moscow, where he is in preventive detention.

A copy of a letter sent by Daniil Kliouka from his prison in Russia, October 18, 2024 © AFP – Wojtek RADWANSKI

Lately, entire sections of his answers have been crossed out in black pen. But not this time.

In his fine handwriting, difficult to decipher and similar to that which can be read in the letters published by his support group, Daniil Kliouka notes that the person who denounced him has two brothers who are fighting in Ukraine: “We can understand what is in her head.”

As for the state of Russia: “Nothing changes in the country. It is a new evolution of the same situation (…) A ball rolling down a mountain, a car that no longer has brakes.”

He also speaks of his love for drawing which allows him to “see things that never existed.”

The day after receiving this letter, on October 3, 2024, Daniil Kliouka was sentenced on appeal to 20 years in prison at serve in a “severe regime”, that is to say in particularly strict conditions of detention.

Each year, he will be entitled to only one visit and one package.

He is now awaiting his transfer to the pipelines of the prison industry. To which camp ? We do not know. The transport of prisoners is carried out in secret. The journey, by train, can last for weeks.

At the end of his letter, he considers that the part of society opposed to the Kremlin to which he belongs is “hounded and hated” because most of his compatriots have “closed their eyes and never open them again”.

“If the world hears this message, I ask them not to close their eyes.”

After this sentence, Daniil Kliouka resumes his epistolary conversation with his friend Antonina, as if nothing had happened. He asks her why she chose her profession. Then he tells her that he has to go and that he kisses her.

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