Hearing-impaired Russian woman killed after hearing aid mistaken for espionage device

A court in Russia’s second city St. Petersburg has placed a military cadet in pretrial detention after he allegedly murdered a hearing-impaired woman whose hearing aid he mistook for espionage equipment, local news outlet 78.Ru reported on Tuesday.

Nikolay Tikhonov, 28, apparently met the victim, who has been named simply as Nadezhda, in a St. Petersburg nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning where they danced and drank together before he invited her to go home with him, according to 78.Ru.

Once back at his apartment, Tikhonov reportedly noticed that Nadezhda was wearing a device that emitted sounds, which he mistook for a recording device. Recalling that she had asked him about his military service as well as his studies at the military academy, Tikhonov concluded that Nadezhda was a “Ukrainian spy”, 78.ru continued.

According to investigators, Tikhonov started punching and kicking her and then called the emergency services, explaining that he had invited a woman home, but she had “turned out to be a Ukrainian or god knows who”, according to Telegram news channel Baza.

Tikhonov reportedly told the emergency services that he planned to kill Nadezhda, before hanging up. She subsequently died of her injuries, and the device Tikhonov took for recording equipment did in fact turn out to be her hearing aid, which Nadezhda had to wear due to her impaired hearing, 78.Ru said, adding that Tikhonov was believed to have been intoxicated at the time of the fatal attack.