MAINOV v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 3 THE LAW I. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION 16. The applicant complained that the conditions of his detention in the Krasnoye Selo facility had been in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment ...” 17. The Court reiterates that, for the purpose of calculating the six-month time-limit, the detention should be regarded as a “continuing situation” as long as it has been effected in substantially similar conditions. However, a significant change in the detention regime – such as a move from a communal cell to solitary confinement – has been held by the Court to put an end to the “continuous situation” (see Ananyev and Others v. Russia, nos. 42525/07 and 60800/08, §§ 77-78, 10 January 2012, and Fetisov and Others v. Russia, nos. 43710/07 and 3 others, § 77 in fine, 17 January 2012). 18. The conditions of the applicant’s detention in the so-called “closed cell” were substantially different from those in the other cells in that the applicant had been locked inside the cell for a major part of the time (see paragraph 13 above). His detention in that cell must therefore be taken to constitute a distinct period that calls for a separate application of the six-month rule (see Zakharkin v. Russia, no. 1555/04, § 115, 10 June 2010). Since that period ended in September 2015, that is to say more than six months before the introduction of the application on 25 January 2017, the part of the complaint concerning the applicant’s detention prior to the former date has been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention. 19. As regards the remaining period of the applicant’s detention, it cannot be established to the standard of proof required under the Convention that the standard six-person cells had been affected by severe overcrowding of the kind that could entail, on its own, a violation of Article 3 (see Khlaifia and Others v. Italy [GC], no. 16483/12, §§ 163-67, ECHR 2016 (extracts), and Fetisov and Others, cited above, § 134). Nor can it be found that the cumulative effect of the other aspects of the detention which the applicant complained about reached the threshold of severity required to characterise the treatment as inhuman or degrading within the meaning of Article 3 (compare with the Court’s findings in respect of the same detention facility at the relevant period of time, Mskhiladze v. Russia, no. 47741/16, §§ 38-39, 13 February 2018, and contrast with the Court’s findings in respect of a previous period, Kim v. Russia, no. 44260/13, §§ 17-22, 31-35, 17 July 2014, and M.S.A. and Others v. Russia, no. 29957/14 and 8 others, § 58, 12 December 2017). It