Man charged with murdering his own girlfriend reportedly former Wagner mercenary

A Moscow court has placed a man suspected of brutally murdering his girlfriend in pretrial detention, independent news outlet Mediazona
reported
Wednesday.

The Russian Investigative Committee
said
the unnamed 51-year-old had beaten his 42-year-old girlfriend on Sunday, before stabbing her at least 16 times.

Daily tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets
said
the accused had cut off the woman’s ear, and then called the police himself to report the murder. Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU, which specialises in crime stories,
wrote
that the victim’s 15-year-old daughter was in the apartment at the time of the murder.

VCHK-OGPU named the defendant as Sergey Mironov. Moskovsky Komsomolets reported the defendant was a former Wagner mercenary who had fought in Ukraine and had a criminal record.

This is one of many cases of veterans committing crimes after returning from fighting in Ukraine. On 19 March, another former convict and Ukraine veteran, Alexey Isakov,
shot
his business partner dead in a St. Petersburg restaurant. On 14 March, a Moscow court
sentenced
Stanislav Ionkin to 20 years in prison for starting a
fire
in the Polygon nightclub in the city of Kostroma, in central Russia, in November 2022, in which 13 people died.