A Russian serial killer sentenced to 22 years for a string of brutal murders has been freed from prison early to join the country’s war against Ukraine.
Yury Gritsenko, 62, tried to join a unit of the infamous Storm Z last September, but was deemed unfit for health reasons and was instead assigned to help the military with medical evacuations, according to the well-connected SHOT Telegram channel.
Gritsenko had been slated for release from prison later this summer, but asked to be sent to the battlefield so that he could earn some money to build a new life as a free man. A former police officer, he was fired from the force for drunken behavior and carried out his first murder in 1993, when he beat a woman to death with a frying pan.
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After serving nine years, he was released and wasted no time in unleashing a new wave of violence. Over the span of several months in 2001, Gritsenko savagely murdered four women in parks in the Moscow region. He injured more than a dozen others.
His modus operandi was particularly chilling: He’d sneak up behind the lone women and strike them in the head with a hammer. After he was caught, he reportedly told investigators he liked the sound of the blows to the women’s heads.
It’s not clear how closely the aging serial killer’s behavior will be monitored on the frontline, or if he is being treated after previously being diagnosed with schizophrenia. According to local media reports, he does not get along well with others: He spent 13 years of his prison sentence in solitary confinement after repeatedly attacking other inmates.
