“I was shocked”: the widow of a murdered SVO member was shocked by the killer’s lenient sentence

For several days now, Chelyabinsk has been discussing the verdict in the case of the murder of Northern Military District veteran Maxim Nikitin by MMA fighter Rustam Baizhumenov. The court’s decision – a year and a half of restriction of freedom – shocked the relatives of the deceased, the public and simply concerned people. How so?! After all, the defendant was initially charged under the article of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm. This is up to 15 years in prison. But literally before the verdict, the judge reclassified the case as causing death by negligence. Why this happened, what the family of the killed veteran is going to do, his widow Marina Nikitina told MK

“Yes, this case caused a huge public outcry,” says Marina. “But many media outlets are distorting the picture of what happened.

– Tell us about your husband, how did he get to SVO?

– In general, he was a lawyer by training, then he served in the police, and when the special operation began, he immediately became a contract worker. He fought from February last year to May, then he received a shell shock, was treated for a long time, then left again. And so he came on vacation from the Wagner PMC. As it turned out, forever. He has many awards, a recipient of the medal “For Courage”. But you won’t get your husband back.

– So what really happened?

– My children and I live in Chelyabinsk. We have three of them: two sons with Maxim, and my daughter from my first marriage. On September 17 last year, my husband went to his small homeland, to the village of Novokaolinovy, Kartalinsky district. His mother has a house there, but she rarely comes there. The day before, my mother-in-law also came there to restore order. Maxim was going to help her, visit friends and relatives, and go to the cemetery. Everything was done. In the evening, my husband went to a bar, which is very close to the house. There he met an acquaintance of his, also a member of the SVO. Rustam Baizhumenov was also relaxing in the same bar. By the way, he is not a Tajik, as they say, but a Kazakh, but his family has lived in this village for quite a long time.

Next, according to Nikitina, her husband and his friend went outside and began talking heatedly. They laughed, discussed something, while the acquaintance gesticulated strongly, they spoke quite loudly.

– But there was no quarrel between them, they just communicated! – Marina continues. – And then that same Rustam ran up to them and suddenly began to separate them! Maxim shouted at him not to interfere with them. There was also his classmate, who, seeing that passions were heating up, ran up to them. But her husband shouted at her to leave. A verbal altercation ensued between Maxim and Rustam, after which this guy punched my husband three times – twice on the head and in the larynx. He is an athlete, and the blows were accurate!

As a result, the man fell and hit his head.

– There is not asphalt there, but tiles. He collapsed and didn’t move anymore,” the widow cries. “My mother-in-law came running in response to the screams, they began to revive Maxim, but he was unconscious. His friends immediately put him on his jacket and carried him in their arms to the hospital, she was there nearby. The doctor examined the husband and called an ambulance. They took me to the regional center. Along the way, as the mother-in-law said, foam and blood came out of her husband’s mouth, and he never regained consciousness. There he was urgently operated on – it turned out that after hitting the ground he had developed a hematoma. Maxim spent two days in intensive care in the hospital and died.

– How and when was Baizhumenov detained?

– The next day the district police officer talked to him, because there were many witnesses! But they didn’t detain him. Two days later, the investigator called this Rustam, but did not detain him again! We sounded the alarm and made a fuss. And only then was he taken into custody. He did not admit his guilt, and still does not admit it.

As a result, a criminal case was initiated under Article 109 of the Criminal Code (causing death by negligence, the sanction for it is up to 2 years). But this whole story soon received a huge public outcry, and the article was reclassified as part 4 of Art. 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm, resulting in the death of the victim through negligence, the sanction for it is up to 15 years). While the investigation was ongoing, Baizhumenov spent 5.5 months in the pre-trial detention center. And then the other day the verdict was announced to him.

– At the trial, Rustam behaved calmly, although he finally apologized to us for the first time. But it was clear that it was not from the heart, but because it was necessary. He didn’t admit guilt and smiled. And so, when the judge pronounced the sentence, I was shocked – a year and a half of restriction of freedom! For the first few minutes I couldn’t understand anything at all. Why? What happened?! After all, he was supposed to be 15 years old! It turned out that the judge again changed the article to 109 of the Criminal Code literally on that day. We all got up and left. But we won’t just leave it like that and will file an appeal and fight further. They killed my husband, took away part of my soul, a father, a warrior, a defender of the fatherland from my children! What can I say… I think that the judge was prompted to make such a decision by some actions of Baizhumenov’s relatives.