A Russian man sentenced to 17 years behind bars last year for the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend is already free after Vladimir Putin pardoned him in exchange for him serving a stint in the war against Ukraine.
Vladislav Kanyus managed to dodge most of his prison term for the 2020 killing of student Vera Pekhteleva, who was reportedly tortured for hours before Kanyus raped and strangled her. The murder made headlines nationwide when it was revealed that a neighbor who had heard Pekhteleva’s desperate screams had repeatedly called police and been reassured they were on their way, though they never came.
Pekhteleva, 23, was found with more than 110 bruises and knife wounds on her body, and Kanyus raped her as she lied there in agony before strangling her with the cord from an iron. He was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in July 2022, and claimed in court that Vera had “provoked” him, according to local reports.
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Now, Pekhteleva’s family is left to contend with the fact that not only did police ignore the young woman’s cries for help—the Russian president himself just gave her murderer a free pass.
“My child, excuse me, is rotting in the ground. I’ve been deprived of my life. This is a spit at me, and at all those mothers whose [children] were killed in the same way. There are so many of us all over the country, we don’t know what to do,” Vera’s mother, Oksana, told the Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti.
“How do we live with this?” she said.
The family received notice from prosecutors only recently that Kanyus was pardoned by presidential decree in April 2023, and his criminal record expunged. Prison officials continued to lie and claim the convicted killer was still serving out his sentence even as photos emerged of him donning a military uniform and wielding a firearm, the family said.
“Nobody has been able to tell us anything sensible for a long time, because it’s absurd. This is complete idiocy and will ultimately bring disastrous results,” Oksana was quoted saying.
Alena Popova, a human rights activist and opposition politician, shared a copy of the document from prosecutors revealing the pardon on her Telegram channel, writing: “So, Putin just went and pardoned a killer. Kanyus spent several hours killing Vera. In legal language, with extreme cruelty, and in human language —with sick sadism.”
Kanyus reportedly returned home from the battlefield in early September and has been free to live his life with no restrictions.
