Russian heart-eating cannibal released from prison to fight in Ukraine

A Russian man sentenced to 25 years in prison for murdering a man and eating his heart has left prison to fight in Ukraine.

Dmitry Malyshev, a resident of the southern Russian city of Volgograd, led an organised crime group that had already gunned down two businessmen in 2013, local news outlet V1.ru reported. But his criminal career took an even more sinister turn in 2014 when he killed a 46-year-old Tajik man during an argument. Malyshev hit his drinking buddy over the head four times, cut out his heart, then fried it and ate it. He also filmed the process.

Malyshev is now wounded and in hospital. “A grenade landed on me during an assault manoeuvre. I have a broken jaw, shrapnel in my knee and left hand and my left eardrum burst. Nothing to see here,” Malyshev told reporters.

V1.ru also found photos of Malyshev at the front line. One picture shows him alongside Alexander Maslennikov, a murderer from the same region. Maslennikov killed and dismembered two women he met while performing karaoke in 2017. A court sentenced him to 23 years in prison in 2019. Locals said that Maslennikov had signed up with the Wagner Group in the spring of 2023, though this is unconfirmed.

“Alexander and I were in prison together and both signed up with the Defence Ministry in October 2023,” Malyshev told V1.ru.

“I understood what I was doing and where I was going. What would you do if someone taught your daughter how to put a condom on properly at primary school? Or you saw men walking down the street kissing each other? Do you think that’s normal? I don’t.”