A Russian man who was sentenced to two decades in prison for killing four teenagers in a "ritual" has reportedly been pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin in exchange for his participation in the war in Ukraine.
Nikolai Ogolobyak, who confessed to being a member of a Satanist sect, was sentenced in July 2010 on charges of murder, robbery, and desecrating a corpse. Members of the sect fried and ate their victims' organs at Ogolobyak's apartment in 2008, according to court documents cited by Russian publication 76.ru.
Russia has reportedly been recruiting extensively from prisons for months in a bid to assist its war efforts in neighboring Ukraine. The British Ministry of Defense said in May that Russia's military has "ramped up" its recruitment of prison inmates this year, but the effort has not kept pace with its casualty rate in Ukraine.
His father told the news outlet that Ogolobyak served for six months with Russia's notorious "Storm Z" unit, which Russia has used to carry out local pushes on the front lines in Ukraine, and is now at home in the city of Yaroslavl in the Moscow region.
"This is true. He served there for six months in Storm Z. After being wounded, he is disabled. He is walking, but the wound was serious," Ogolobyak's father said, adding that it is unlikely that he will be sent to fight in Ukraine again due to his injuries.
Ogolobyak's father said he returned from Ukraine on November 2 and is currently living with his mother.
The sect to which Ogolobyak belonged was formed in 2006 by then-15-year-old Konstantin Klyk Baranov. Members carried out "bloody rituals" for several years, killing dogs and cats for sacrifices and using their blood to initiate new members.
In the summer of 2008, eight members killed and dismembered four Yaroslavl college students.
The defendants received sentences ranging from 8 to 20 years in prison. Ogolobyak was given 20 years in a maximum security colony.
Newsweek reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.
The news comes after the Kremlin received backlash for Putin's pardoning of Vladislav Kanyus, a man convicted in the murder of his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend. He was sentenced last July to 17 years in a maximum-security prison over the murder of Vera Pekhteleva in Kemerovo, Siberia, in 2020.
Prisoners "atone with blood for crimes on the battlefield, in assault brigades, under bullets, under shells," Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on November 10.
The mother of the murdered woman said in June that she found out Kanyus had gone to Ukraine to fight in the war. On November 8, human rights activist Alena Popova said Putin had issued a pardon to Kanyus.
At least 17 people who committed high-profile murders—including Kanyus—were issued pardons to fight in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, according to Agentstvo, a Russian investigative site launched in 2021. The publication said the killers all took part in the war in Ukraine, and some have committed crimes again upon their return to Russia.
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Update 11/21/23, 10:33 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
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