Russia appears to have two new poster children for its war against Ukraine and supposed crusade to save “traditional values” from the deviant West: a cannibal and a murderer united on the battlefield.
Nearly two years after Moscow first hatched its deranged prison-recruitment scheme to use hardened criminals as cannon fodder in Ukraine, a selfie shared on social media provides a glimpse of the country’s new normal.
Dmitry Malyshev, sentenced to 25 years in 2015 for murdering a man and filming himself eating the victim’s heart, among other things, can be seen grinning and embracing Alexander Maslennikov, who got 23 years for murdering and dismembering two women he met at a nightclub.
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Malyshev confirmed to V1.ru that both he and Maslennikov signed a contract to get out of prison by serving in the Russian military—in a notorious unit comprised of convicted rapists and killers.
“Alexander and I served together and signed a contract together with the Defense Ministry in October 2023,” Malyshev told the outlet, adding that both are serving in Storm V, a penal military unit Vladimir Putin signed off on in June 2023.
He went on to claim that the two convicted murderers are not like other criminals unleashed on Ukraine. They’ve got principals, according to him.
“I’ve known people who came here from the colony just for a change of scenery. They usually disappear quickly. But I understood why I was going and where I was going. How would you react if your little daughter was told how to put a condom on correctly in elementary school? Or if men will walk down the street licking each other? Is this normal for you? It's not normal for me,” he said, apparently referring to sex-ed classes and gay men, a favorite bogeyman in Kremlin propaganda.
Malyshev’s words horrified the Russian public years ago when he was tried for killing and devouring another human being. “We’re frying human flesh. Here it is—a heart. I’ve already added onion,” he said in video he’d filmed on his phone as a souvenir.
Now Malyshev is among the hordes of ex-convicts elevated to hero status in the war as he supposedly fights to protect “traditional values.”
At least 57 ordinary Russians have been killed so far by convicts who returned home after receiving a pardon to take part in the war, the independent outlet Verstka reported last week. After a series of disturbing headlines in the Russian media about ex-convicts arriving home and butchering their neighbors or raping schoolgirls, the Russian Defense Ministry stopped offering pardons and began offering only conditional release.
