A lawyer in Kaliningrad who once represented defendants in politically sensitive cases has become one herself. Maria Bontsler was arrested in late May 2025 on accusations of secretly cooperating with a foreign state — the same kind of charge she once defended others against. She has since been held at Kaliningrad’s SIZO-1 pretrial detention center, where both she and her lawyer say she has come under pressure. Her defense attorney said on June 30, 2026, that Bontsler had nearly died in custody days earlier, the result, he said, of a “mix-up in her prescribed medications.” A court denied the defense’s request to transfer her to a hospital. According to OVD-Info, a human rights monitoring group, Bontsler has been diagnosed with hypertensive heart disease, a condition accompanied by spikes in blood pressure and a high risk of stroke. On Thursday, July 2, Bontsler addressed a court by video link during a hearing on her lawsuit against the Kaliningrad Regional Clinical Hospital and SIZO-1 over her medical treatment and confinement conditions. What follows is her account of her health and daily life in the Kaliningrad detention center.
I lay in my cell, quietly dying. Five times a day, I soaked a sheet in water and wrapped myself in it, and every time, it dried out almost instantly. Then I did it again, and again, and again.
On the 29th, I nearly died. My heart stopped several times. The temperature in the cell topped 40 degrees Celsius [104 degrees Fahrenheit] — the fifth floor, right under a scorching roof. It was terrible.
They took me to the medical unit, and then, at my request, to the shower. I stood under cold water for half an hour, and it helped a little. That night, for the first time, someone — some smart person — decided not to shut off the ventilation overnight. If they had, that would have been it. I would not have survived until morning.
