A former deputy of the Taseevsky district council in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia, Alexander Khakonov, had been sentenced to nine years and eight months in a penal colony over the murder of his wife, however, he has escaped punishment by going to the Ukraine war, local media outlet NGS24 reports, citing sources.

The man killed his wife, Elena Khakonova, on 28 March 2022. The former deputy pleaded guilty in court. He clarified that he and his wife had spent 18 years together. The court files indicate that on 27 March 2022 the spouses began drinking alcohol, continuing to drink vodka all throughout the next day. The court notes that the man, however, was not too drunk and was conscious of his actions. By the evening, he asked his wife to have sex with him, but “the wife refused to and began to humiliate him and his manness, which led to a fight”.

“The man, enraged by her comments about him, grabbed a knife and hit her in the chest several times. She died immediately from the wounds,” the prosecutor’s office reported.

Khakonov decided to get rid of the body and took it out to the land nearby a former dumping ground. The body of the 35-year-old woman was found on 1 April.

NGS24’s source claims that the man went to the front line as part of a PMC while he was still held in the pre-trial detention centre, thus escaping his punishment.

On 5 June, media outlet EAN reported that a deputy from the Yekaterinburg region of Russia, Ilya Chizh, sentenced to two years in a penal colony for assaulting two men with a bat, had gone to war as part of PMC Wagner.