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A Russian man has been released to fight in Ukraine for the second time after he returned and killed a woman.
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29-year-old Ivan Rossomakhin was initially recruited by Wagner while he was serving a prison sentence for murder.
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He later returned and killed an 85-year-old woman, after which the Russian army recruited him again, a human rights group said.
A Russian man convicted of murder and released to fight in Ukraine returned from the front and killed another victim. He has now been released for the second time, according to multiple reports and a legal rights organization.
The news comes after independent Russian media circulated a letter announcing the man’s release on August 19.
Ivan Rossomakhin, 29, was originally sentenced to 14 years in a maximum-security penal colony in September 2020 for murder and violent robbery, the legal rights group Travmpunkt.
Court reports show Rossomakhin committed this first murder in Kirov in October 2019, when he drunkenly killed a woman with whom he had had a fight.
During his first prison sentence, Rossomakhin was recruited by the Wagner mercenary group, which took convicts into its ranksin September 2022, according to Travmpunkt.
The legal rights organization said that after spending time at the front, Rossomakhin returned to his home in Kirov.
A local court ruled that Rossomakhin killed a second time upon his return. In March 2023, he entered the home of an 85-year-old woman with a stabbing weapon and murdered and raped her.
Rossomakhin was given a new prison sentence of 22 years, which was extended to 23 years, according to Travmpunkt.
But he was released for the second time on August 19, after being recruited by the Russian Defense Ministry, according to documents reposted on Telegram by independent Russian media.
The BBC reported that the document was signed by the director of a detention center where Rossomakhin was being held.
Travmpunkt, which represents the relatives of the 85-year-old woman who was the man’s second murder victim, said on monday that prison authorities informed the family of Rossomakhin’s release.
According to Travmpunkt, he is still legally obligated to pay 2 million rubles, or approximately $22,000, to the victim’s family.
The group added that Rossomakhin had served less than six months of his 23-year sentence before being sent back to Ukraine.
“My first reaction was terror,” Anna Pekareva, the granddaughter of the murdered woman, Yulia Byuskikh, told the BBC. “I have read the forensic reports and I know what this person did to my grandmother. It is monstrous that he was released again.”
Pekareva told the newspaper she feared Rossomakhin would take revenge on her family for seeking a life sentence through the courts.
Press teams from the Kremlin and the Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.
Russia initially recruited thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine through the Wagner Groupbut this practice soon declined as prisoners feared they would be mistreated at the front.
The Kremlin grants pardon to some prison recruits if they show bravery or fight long enough, with Wagner claims in March 2023 that less than 1% of the approximately 5,000 men who had been pardoned had reoffended.
The Russian Ministry of Defense took over Wagner’s prison recruitment drive in early 2023, with British intelligence estimating around 10,000 prisoners reported in April of that year alone.
Ukraine also recruits prisoners to fight Russia, but does not accept people convicted of rape or multiple murder.
Both Kiev and Moscow have had a hard time to maintain the manpower they need the front lines, with Ukraine crack down on men trying to escape from the fighting and the Kremlin, constantly increase in salary bonuses for volunteers in the army.
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