An 8-year-old child was found in a Ural "rehab" that was raided by security forces.

      An 8-year-old child was found in a private rehabilitation center for minors that law enforcement officers raided the day before, Ekaterinburg media report.

      According to the victims, they were locked in a closet, tied to beds, forced to beat each other, and made to write letters for many hours. They were fed only millet porridge without salt or sugar, reports the Mash Telegram channel.

      The rehab network belongs to Anna Khobotova. Journalists have already dubbed it a "torture house." The Ural "branch" of the network was no exception. The rehabilitation center operating near Ekaterinburg was located in a rented country cottage.

      But, as the teenagers found there told the E1.RU portal, they were forbidden not only from going outside but even from looking out the window.

      Parents themselves drove their "difficult" children there when they could not cope and paid tens of thousands of rubles for re-education. There were at least 10 children in the Ekaterinburg "rehab," among them an 8-year-old boy.

      "Twenty-two people aged from 8 to 22 were freed from the center in Ekaterinburg," writes the Ural Mash Telegram channel.

      Journalists are at a loss to guess what a child of that age could have done to be sent to an illegally operating rehab.

      It has already been established that children were indeed tormented and beaten there. A few days ago, on November 23, a 16-year-old adolescent was brought in an unconscious state to the intensive care unit of a hospital with multiple bodily injuries to the head, torso and limbs, as well as signs that his hands and feet had been bound at the wrists and around the feet, the Investigative Committee of the Moscow Region reported.

      The owner of the "network" tried to evade investigation in the Rostov region and was placed on the federal wanted list, after which she turned herself in to law enforcement, Mash reports. In addition, an employee of the branch in Dedovsk in the Moscow region, 29-year-old Vitaly Balabrikov, has been arrested. He held the position of "consultant" there.

      "He beat the wards using boxing gloves, and also applied psychological violence, torture, and a special punishment called 'Sabotage'," the Telegram channel "112" writes about Balabrikov.

      "RT na russkom," in turn, reports that Vitaly made obscene sexual gestures toward the older girls. It is also known that the hospitalized adolescent was "raised" by Balabrikov. One of the mothers linked the deviations occurring in the rehab to Balabrikov's recent arrival.

      UPDATE. The arrested Vitaly Balabrikov had himself previously undergone treatment for aggression and gambling addiction at the Ekaterinburg rehab, after which he was hired to work there, writes the "Evil Ekaterinburg" Telegram channel. But in Ekaterinburg he quickly revealed his cruel nature and was "exiled" to Dedovsk to work with teenagers. According to SHOT, the man had previously been convicted twice on drug charges.