The pardons granted by Russian President Vladimir Putin for fighting in Ukraine have benefited a former member of a satanic sect, convicted of murder and desecration of corpses, which also includes cannibalism practices.
According to the Russian press, Nikolai Ogolobiak is a free man after completing a six-month military service during which he has been fighting in Ukraine.
The man, 33, from Yaroslavl Oblast, was released earlier this month after being seriously wounded in combat, his father told news channel 76.ru. In this way, he abandons his status as a prisoner more than six years earlier than expected, since he would have to leave prison in 2030.
Ogolobiak was convicted in 2010 of killing four teenagers and desecrating their bodies with initiation rites in 2008. The court also convicted five other young women, all of them teenagers at the time of the events. One of them, declared insane, was admitted to a mental institution.
According to the sentence, the convicts killed two people, cut off their heads and removed their hearts and tongues, which they fried and ate, reports 76.ru.
In a separate case, it was ruled that Ogolobiak killed two other people and stabbed one of his victims 666 times. Apparently in reference to the number “666”, considered a symbol of the devil.
Currently, Ogolobiak is not working, “he is recovering” from the injuries he suffered, his father said. Russian convicts who decided to participate in the Russian campaign in Ukraine in exchange for amnesty can later re-enlist. This will not be the case. His father assured that “it is not likely that they will take him to the special military operation again,” he said, using the official euphemism used in Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry and the Wagner mercenary group recruited tens of thousands of prisoners in Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine in exchange for the promise of forgiveness of their sentences.
This month there have been two other cases of pardoned convicts who were responsible for serious crimes.
Vladislav Kanyus, a man from the Wagner Group, was sentenced in the summer of 2022 to 17 years in prison for brutally killing his ex-girlfriend in January 2020 in a highly publicized domestic violence case in Russia.
As demonstrated in the trial held in Kemerovo (Siberia), the 23-year-old woman went to Kanyus’ apartment to collect her belongings. But when he found out that he was in a new relationship, he didn’t let her go. He killed her with 56 stab wounds and then strangled her with the cord of the iron.
Last April, Vladislav Kanyus received a pardon from the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, for having fought in Ukraine.
A week ago it was learned that Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, convicted as an accomplice in the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, which occurred in 2006, had also been released early. Without the pardon, he would have had to remain in prison beyond the year 2030.
These cases are raising questions and discreet fear in Russia. This Wednesday, journalists asked the Kremlin spokesman if some change in this practice is not foreseen. Dimitri Peskov said no. “This is not a new issue, it has been raised several times and everyone is currently looking closely at the lists of pardoned people,” he explained.
He also pointed out that these are “specific conditions (of grace) linked to the presence on the combat front, to a certain duration on the front, linked to participation in assault groups, and after that there is forgiveness.” .
Previously, Peskov noted that “the convicted, which includes convictions for serious crimes, atone for their crimes with blood on the battlefield.”
