Vladimir Putin and Irek Magasumov. Photo: Alexey Maishev, Rossiya Segodnya / kremlin.ru
A Russian military officer who was found guilty of murdering an 18-year-old girl in Russian occupied Ukraine and sentenced to 11 years in prison in June returned to the front line just weeks after his conviction, Kazan-based news outlet Tatar-Inform reported on Saturday.
Lieutenant Colonel Irek Magasumov, who had been fighting in Ukraine since February 2022, was awarded the title Hero of Russia by Vladimir Putin last year, only to be accused of killing an 18-year-old woman in the city of Luhansk days later.
A Luhansk military court sentenced Magasumov to 11 years in prison for murder and hooliganism on 26 June, after which he was stripped of his Hero of Russia title, though he was allowed to retain his military rank.
Having announced that he planned to return to fight in Ukraine regardless of whether he was convicted by the court or not, Magasumov chose not to appeal his sentence and instead signed a contract with Russia’s Defence Ministry, which granted him early release from prison, Kazan-based news outlet Biznes Online reported.
Magasumov returned to the front on 19 July, just three weeks after he was sentenced, according to Tatar-Inform.
Magasumov had been with Senior Lieutenant Pavel Yaskevich when he met 18-year-old Daria Kiselyova and her friend in a café in the city of Luhansk on 11 August 2023, according to prosecutors.
In one version of events, the two women asked if they could fire the men’s guns, while according to another, the soldiers suggested it themselves. Shortly afterwards, Kiselyova was shot and badly wounded, and ended up dying in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
Yaskevich initially confessed to unintentionally killing Kiselyova, but subsequently withdrew his testimony. In court Magasumov’s defence team said that he, Yaskevich and the two girls had fired the pistol twice, but that both men had then left to help a comrade embroiled in an argument nearby.
