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The health of former head of the Serpukhov District in the Moscow region, Aleksandr Shestun, has sharply deteriorated. He himself reported this in a letter published by RusNews.

Shestun is on hunger strike and has lost more than 20 kilogrammes; his blood pressure is significantly below normal—yet for over a month, he has only been examined by a paramedic and has not been prescribed any treatment. According to the political prisoner, he was given an ultimatum: either he stops his hunger strike, or he will be left without medical assistance.

“I am not given any tablets, not even my personal ones <…> Ultimatum: if I don’t end the hunger strike—no medical care. My ankles have been swollen for over a week, I can’t get my shoes on, they have already started turning black. I walk in pain as if over hot coals. Critical results from blood tests, urine, ECG, and ultrasound—acute coronary syndrome—this is practically a heart attack. And also acute heart failure,” wrote Shestun.

Earlier, Shestun had been promised hospitalisation at a hospital in Torzhok, a town about 200 km northwest of Moscow, but on 5 October he was told there were supposedly no beds available. Today, he was nevertheless hospitalised as an emergency.

The prisoner has declared several hunger strikes to protest against violations of his rights in detention, and in December 2025, he cut his veins in a single-cell type facility.

  • Shestun has been in detention since 2018. In 2020, he was sentenced to 15 years in a penal colony on charges of fraud (Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code), bribery (Part 6, Article 290), illegal entrepreneurship (Article 289) and money laundering (Subparagraph “b,” Part 4, Article 174.1). Shestun denied all the charges and described the prosecution as politically motivated.
  • Shortly before his arrest in 2018, the politician recorded a video message in which he spoke about threats from the head of Moscow Region, Andrey Vorobyov. The governor demanded that he ban a protest against the “Lesnaya” landfill and not run for a new term. Shestun also made public a recording of a conversation with the head of the “K” Directorate of the FSB, Ivan Tkachev, the head of the presidential directorate for internal policy, Andrey Yarin, and the head of the Moscow region administration, Mikhail Kuznetsov. In that recording, they tried to persuade him to resign.
  • In 2022, he was convicted in a new case—of insulting a judge (Part 2, Article 297 of the Criminal Code) and a public official (Article 319), and threatening in connection with the exercise of justice (Part 1, Article 296). In this instance, Shestun admitted guilt in the insults but not in the threats. His sentence was increased by another six months.