Dmitri Malyshev, a Russian who was sentenced in 2014 to 25 years in prison for the murder of a Tajik migrant whose heart he then tore out and ate, has found freedom. He says he joined the Russian army in October 2023. The Kremlin regularly uses prisoners to fill its ranks.
The perpetrator of a particularly violent crime is now on the Russian front. Convicted of killing a Tajik migrant before eating his heart, Russian Dmitri Malyshev made headlines in 2014 because of the particularly sordid nature of his action. He is now fighting for the Russian army in the war in Ukraine, according to Russian media.
According to the independent media Novaya Gazeta, an argument broke out at the time between the two men and Dmitri Malyshev allegedly hit the 46-year-old Tajik with a crowbar, who did not survive his injuries.
He then allegedly ripped out her heart, before cooking it and eating it, a scene he filmed with his cell phone. Dmitri Malyshev was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Photos alongside another ex-inmate
According to several Russian media, Dmitri Malyshev is now free and has joined the ranks of the army. Photos of him in military uniform were published by the media V1.
On one of them, we see him alongside Alexander Maslennikov, a Russian who was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2019 for the murder of two women whom he then dismembered.
“Alexander and I were in prison together,” Dmitri Malyshev told V1, assuring that both joined the Russian army last October.
Fighting to defend traditional Russian society
According to Dmitri Malyshev’s statements to V1, he was recently injured during the fighting and is currently in hospital.
“During the assault, a grenade hit me. My jaw is broken, there are shrapnel in my knee and my left arm. My left eardrum also burst,” he said.
However, he assures that he does not regret having joined the Russian army. “I knew what I was doing and where I was going,” he said, asserting that he wanted to defend traditional Russian society. “What would you do if someone taught your daughter how to put on a condom correctly in elementary school? Or if you saw men kissing in the street? Do you think that’s normal? I don’t I don’t think it’s normal,” he said.
Member of a particularly violent battalion
Dmitri Malyshev claims to have joined the Kremlin army in October 2023 and says he is part of the battalion nicknamed “Storm V”, which replaces the former “Storm Z” battalion.
“It’s a battalion that brings together the craziest people in the country,” assures Paul Gogo, BFMTV correspondent in Russia.
Its members are “partly former prisoners who were taken from their prisons” to fill the ranks of the Russian army. They are “sent to the front line” and “are capable of carrying out ultra-violent, ultra-dangerous operations”, maintains our correspondent.
Many ex-prisoners in the Russian army
According to a vast investigation carried out by the Russian service of the BBC and the Russian site Mediazona, published last April, tens of thousands of detainees were recruited in Russian prisons, in exchange for a promise of release, notably by the group Wagner paramilitary but also by the regular army.
According to the two media’s examination of a sample of more than 1,000 prisoners, half of those enlisted directly by the Russian army died within two months of being sent to the front.
