Kristina Prikhodko, 19, was raped and killed by Sergei Yulin, 35, and Maxim Ovchinnikov, 33, in 2017 – now both have been exempted from their jail terms and sent to fight in Putin’s war
Kristina Prikhodko murder suspects detained at court
Vladimir Putin has been slammed by an FSB intelligence officer father whose daughter’s “sick” rapists and killers were freed from jail to fight in the dictator’s war against Ukraine.
Kristina Prikhodko, 19, was horrifically sexually abused by the men before she was strangled. Despite this, killers Sergei Yulin, 35, and Maxim Ovchinnikov, 33, were both exempted from their jail terms and sent to fight. They had been sentenced to 22 and 18 years respectively for raping and murdering the student. Her naked body was wrapped in clingfilm, put inside a zip-up bag then stashed in a car boot after she was strangled to death.
The outraged father – a career officer in Putin’s secret services – said: “The penal colony management promised me that they would never go to the [war]. I am not afraid, I want to shout to the whole country so that our fighters know who they will be side by side with. These are sick people.”
It is exceptionally rare – and dangerous – for secret services officers to speak out criticising the Putin regime. A relative said that as an FSB officer, “even his connections did not help” keep the sexually-motivated killers in jail amid Putin’s desperation for men to fight in his war which has already seen hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Kristina’s remains were found seven years ago on snow-covered ground dumped close to a reservoir on the River Ob near Novosibirsk, a city in Siberia. The pair were sentenced in 2018, but it is only in recent days Kristina’s father discovered they had been freed to fight in the bloody war.
Kristina had been brutally attacked by the men after responding to a part-time employment advertisement for a “governess”, and attending an interview. The criminals had placed the advertisement but prosecutors said their only motive was seeking women for sex.
Ovchinnikov is already a free man – his sentence wiped by dictator Putin using his presidential powers – after he was wounded in the war. He had signed a contract to fight 11 month ago, resulting in him being released from jail and used his war earnings to buy a flat and pay some compensation to Kristina’s father.
Yulin – who signed a contract last month – is still training for war, but is no longer in prison. If he survives in the Russian army, he will be a free man, like Ovchinnikov, officially forgiven for her rape and murder which he planned and carried out with his associate.
Kristina’s father Konstantin Prikhodko, 56, an FSB officer, expressed his disgust at their release from prison which he says broke a promise that they would serve their sentences in full. He said: “I am shocked by all this. I want our fighters to know who they will be fighting side by side with.” He admitted: “I have been restless for three days now after I found out that they were free.”
He continued: “I went to the penal colony management, because they had promised these people should not be taken to the army under any circumstances….but they left anyway.” His life was ruined by his daughter’s murder, he said, and now he had suffered a further blow.”
“Seven years ago, I was alive, and now I just exist, do you understand?” he added. “They took away the most valuable and most precious person from me, my daughter. I had raised her on my own.”
When the pair were convicted in 2018, he said: “I will never get over this. The wound will never heal, especially since I raised her alone, without her mother. It hurts me a lot now.”
The victim’s grandmother, Lyudmila Prikhodko, said: “She was our youngest and most beloved girl. I still think that she should come today or tomorrow. She often came to me. She always asked: ‘Granny, what should I do for you – wash the floor, wash the dishes?'”
A comment on the story said: “The system is so rotten that there is madness happening in our country. The state collects taxes but there is no protection or law and order.”