2023-08-20 13:01:08
by Marta Serafini
After Prigozhin’s decision to pardon those fighting in Ukraine for six months, fears of a new wave of violence are growing. The denunciation of the activists: on their return they will feel unpunished
The 2020 murder of Vera Pekhteleva was so grisly that even in a country like Russia, where violence against women often goes unnoticed, there was great outrage. Vladislav Kanyus spent hours torturing Pekhteleva before killing her. Neighbors had called the police several times to report horrific screams coming from the neighboring apartment, but the police never showed up. At trial, it emerged that there were 111 wounds on Pekhteleva’s body.
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Last summer, a court in Siberia sentenced Kanyus to 17 years in prison for the murder. Pekhteleva’s family members were disappointed that the judge rejected the charges of rape and illegal detention, but breathed a sigh of relief to see Kanyus behind bars. But nine months later, in mid-May, Pekhteleva’s mother received two photographs from an anonymous WhatsApp account. They showed a man in military uniform and were accompanied by a message: Kanyus free and fighting in Ukraine, denounces the Guardian.
Kanyus, apparently one of tens of thousands of Russian prisoners released to fight in Ukraine. The vast majority entered the Wagner group, the private army led by Evgeny Prigozhin. As part of the contract, the prisoners, in exchange for six months’ service if they survive, are paid the rest of their sentences. When the Pekhtelevs made an official request to the prison authorities to locate Kanyus, they were told that he had been transferred to the prison service of the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, and had disappeared.
According to activists this is the ploy being used for prisoners recruited to fight in Ukraine. In addition to the political fallout, Putin’s and Prigozhin’s experiment is likely to have a significant social impact on Russia for years to come. There have been numerous reports of former prisoners surviving their Wagner spell and returning home. Among those who have been released are many who have committed crimes against women. Since the Russian authorities are not particularly strict with this type of crime, even in cases where the perpetrators received prison sentences, the victims and their families live in fear of seeing the perpetrators return home earlier than expected.
Kanyus’ case is not the only one. Vyacheslav Samoilov, from a small town in northern Russia, killed 33-year-old Olga Shlyamina in March 2021 and later dismembered and hid her body. He was jailed for nine years and seven months in April 2022 but now free after fighting for three months in Ukraine. Samoilov’s mother told 29.ru, a local news site in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, that her son had fought and been wounded in Ukraine, and had now been pardoned. His mother said that he purified himself before God, with his service to him in Ukraine. Vadim Tekhov, who killed 22-year-old Regina Gagieva in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz in 2019, was expected to remain in prison until 2035, but was pardoned after fighting in Ukraine and returned to Vladikavkaz. was sent there, served for six months and in accordance with the law was released early, confirmed the head of the North Ossetia region, Sergei Menyailo, at a press conference earlier this year, adding that instead of Tekhov he would not have gone home.
There are also those who were jailed for rape or assault, whose victims are still alive and are now at risk again. We have received so many messages from scared people. They know that if the men who tormented them come back from this war and start beating them again or even killing them, the police will do nothing, because now these men are seen as heroes instead of rapists or murderers, explains Alena Popova, a Russian women’s rights activist. In Kanyus’ case, Pekhteleva’s family fears she may return and seek revenge for their efforts to publicize the case at trial. The family’s refusal to keep quiet caused the case to resonate with the public, and police who failed to show up to neighbors’ repeated calls for help were even prosecuted for malpractice.
August 20, 2023 (change August 20, 2023 | 1:45 pm)
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