From Russia with Fear

At least eleven infant deaths are now linked to Maternity Hospital No. 1 in Novokuznetsk. Nine newborns died within just a few days during the January holidays, and two more cases were later confirmed. Investigators suspect medical negligence, possible infections inside the hospital, and attempts to conceal information from parents. The hospital’s chief doctor and the head of neonatal intensive ca...

A horrifying true crime case from Russia’s Vladimir region. A 19-year-old woman, Veronika Zhukova, starved her one-year-old son to death by leaving him alone for months without food, water, or care. After discovering the child’s body, she wrapped it in a blanket, placed it in a cardboard box, and threw it into a garbage dump near an apartment building. Neighbors later found the body, triggering a...

After returning from the front, Russian SVO veterans are increasingly turning their violence against civilians. Based on open-source data and court documents, this episode reveals the real scale of killings, torture, and serious injuries — and how participation in the war is repeatedly treated by courts as a mitigating factor, even for repeat offenders and murderers.  

A neighbor in the Moscow region brutally murdered a young mother and her six-year-old son with a hammer after years of arguments over a noisy child. Facing a possible life sentence, he avoided justice by signing a contract with the Russian military and leaving for the war. This episode exposes another case where extreme violence is effectively forgiven under the cover of the “special military oper...

Crimes committed by Russian SVO veterans are no longer confined to Russia. From an armed threat in Minsk to murders, rapes, and attacks on families in Belgorod, Krasnoyarsk, and Kamchatka, this episode exposes how former fighters with criminal pasts return from the war and unleash violence on civilians — often with a sense of impunity.  

A former Russian police officer, Yevgeny Rodionov, was sentenced in Petrozavodsk for the brutal murder of Moscow lawyer Irina Ivachyova. After an evening of apparent reconciliation, he strangled her, burned her body, and attempted to flee. Despite the severity of the crime, the court handed down a sentence of less than ten years in a maximum-security colony. This episode also examines how convicte...

Popular blogger Yulia Burtseva, who lived in Italy, died in Moscow after undergoing injectable buttock augmentation at a private clinic. The procedure was performed by a 26-year-old self-taught cosmetologist without medical education. According to investigators, Burtseva developed an anaphylactic shock shortly after the injections and could not be saved. The case has sparked renewed attention to t...

The bodies of two young women murdered by the so-called Bodorodsk maniac have been found near Noginsk — thanks to testimony from his nine-year-old son. Investigators say Dmitry Artamoshin used his child as bait to lure nannies, drugging, abusing, and killing his victims. The case reveals years of violence, manipulation, and terror hidden behind the image of a caring single father, and raises fears...

Convicted criminals sent to war are returning home — and unleashing violence on civilians. Torture, rape, murder, and impunity follow the SVO veterans back to Russian cities. This episode investigates how pardons, early releases, and war contracts have turned former inmates into a growing threat inside Russia.  

Famous Russian singer Larisa Dolina is being forcibly evicted from a luxury five-room apartment in Moscow’s prestigious Khamovniki district. After a year-and-a-half-long legal battle involving fraud, conflicting court rulings, and a Supreme Court decision, the Moscow City Court ordered Dolina to vacate the property within days. Bailiffs may intervene if the court order is ignored. This episode bre...

Two brutal domestic murders in Russia expose a disturbing pattern. In Kazan, Dinara Mingaliev strangled his wife and nearly killed their three-year-old son, breaking both of the child’s arms. In Volgograd, Sergey Orlov shot and dismembered his former wife over a minor household dispute. Both men now seek to avoid long prison sentences by signing military contracts and going to the war zone. These...

Former and active participants of Russia’s so-called Special Military Operation are repeatedly escaping real punishment for brutal crimes. In this episode, we расскаount cases of murder, arson, drunk driving, and domestic violence committed by SVO veterans — including repeat offenders released from prison and sent to war. Courts reduce sentences, investigations are closed, and victims’ families ar...

A Russian military court has sentenced contract soldier Dmitry Stenkin to life in prison for the murder of 41-year-old Olesya Larina, a mother of four, and the attempted abduction of her children. Armed and intoxicated, the former convict broke into a family home in the village of Giryi in the Kursk region, shot the woman after she resisted rape, and critically wounded her husband. This episode ex...

In Russia’s Kemerovo region, a 12-year-old boy escapes from his own home after months of brutal abuse by his mother and her partner. With broken legs, fractured ribs, and a face slashed with a knife, the child walks into the freezing night and hides in a supermarket to survive. This episode of From Russia with Fear tells the story of systematic torture, parental cruelty, and a crime investigators...

Mikhail Malyshev, known as the “Perm cannibal,” has died at the age of 65. Convicted of murder and acts that shocked even veteran investigators, Malyshev served a full 23-year sentence — and was released in 2022. For three years, he lived freely in Perm, in the same apartment linked to his crimes. Neighbors feared him, authorities monitored him loosely, and Malyshev himself denied much of what had...

In the Russian city of Kaluga, an entire neighborhood is living in fear — not because of organized crime, but because of schoolchildren. A gang of teenagers beats classmates, extorts money, humiliates victims, and attacks adults who try to intervene. Parents end up in hospitals, children are afraid to go to school, and local businesses are vandalized. Complaints to schools and police lead nowhere....

In this episode of From Russia with Fear, we go to the small town of Borzya in Zabaykalsky Krai, where 34-year-old Konstantin Ektov was shot dead in the street. A former convict turned contract soldier, Ektov came back from the war and joined an operational group that hunted deserters — kidnapping their relatives, torturing them with electric shocks and taking bribes to “leave families alone.” One...

In this episode of From Russia with Fear, we tell the horrifying story of 51-year-old Alexey Isakov from Smolensk, who tortured his 10-year-old son, cut off his finger, fractured his skull, locked him in their apartment and set it on fire. The boy burned to death while trying to escape through the window.

In this episode of From Russia with Fear, we examine one of the most horrifying family tragedies in recent Russian history. In the town of Kansk, 29-year-old Valentina Mytko killed three of her own children with an axe — a baby, a four-year-old girl, and an eight-year-old boy. A fourth child survived only because, as the mother later said, she “didn’t have the strength” to kill him. The woman had...

In this episode of From Russia with Fear , we look at court decisions analyzed by investigative journalists showing that SVO participants have killed or seriously injured more than 1,000 people after returning home. We walk through multiple cases—from torture murders and domestic killings to attacks during leave—and the legal pattern behind them: participation in the war is repeatedly treated as a...

In this episode of From Russia with Fear , we tell the chilling story of Kirill Cheplygin from Krasnoyarsk Krai, who brutally murdered his wife and her new partner in front of dozens of silent witnesses. Despite receiving a 19-year prison sentence, Cheplygin is already planning to avoid real punishment by signing a contract to fight in the war zone.

In this episode of From Russia with Fear , we tell the shocking story of 33-year-old model Angelika Tartanova, who was found in critical condition in Moscow after being brutally beaten. Doctors performed two skull surgeries to save her life. She suffered brain swelling, memory loss, and severe speech impairment. Investigators believe the attack may be linked to Angelika’s boyfriend, a mysterious b...

In this episode of From Russia with Fear , we follow three brutal killers who all avoided real punishment the same way — by signing a military contract and going to the war zone instead of serving long prison terms. In Sverdlovsk region, businessman Rafis Khuzin stabbed his wife, peeled skin from her body and buried her in the garden, then left a pre-trial cell for the army. In Serov, educated ex-...

In this episode of From Russia with Fear , we tell the horrifying story of a noise complaint that turned into a double murder. In the Moscow suburb of Kotelniki, 32-year-old neighbor Yevgeny Geraskin took a hammer, went upstairs and beat to death 34-year-old Alina Vorobyova and her six-year-old son Kirill because the child “ran and stomped” at home. He tried to stage a fake robbery, but police qui...

In this episode of From Russia with Fear , we look at the story of Lilit Mstoyan, a hyper-aggressive migrant mother in Yaroslavl who has spent years attacking neighbors, shop workers, and anyone who crosses her path. Despite hundreds of complaints, she faced no real consequences—until a school camera recorded her threatening to kill her daughter’s algebra teacher over a bad grade. We follow the tr...