By Ben Kerrigan-
A Russian historian who admitted shooting and dismembering his student partner in St Petersburg, has been jailed for 12 and a half years.
Oleg Sokolov, 63, an expert on the Napoleonic wars, pleaded guilty to the murder of Anastasia Yeshchenko, 24, after being found drunk in a river in November 2019, with Ms Yeshchenko’s severed arms in his backpack.
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Women’s rights activists say the case shows indifference towards harassment and domestic violence in Russia.
An online petition with more than 7,500 signatures accused St Petersburg State University of ignoring previous complaints from students against Sokolov. The brute has now been dismissed from the university and from another academic post in France.
Evil Sokolov admitted in court to shooting Ms Yeshchenko four times with a sawn-off shotgun, before chopping up her body with a saw and kitchen knife. A stun pistol was also found in the backpack.
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Police later found other body parts further downstream and in Sokolov’s flat.
He apparently planned to get rid of the body before publicly taking his own life while dressed as Napoleon. Oleg Sokolov broke down in court and confessed to the brutal killing.
Study
Ms Yeshchenko had moved to St Petersburg to study from Krasnodar region in southern Russia, and was a postgraduate student at the time of her death.
“She was quiet, sweet and always the ideal student,” an acquaintance told Russia’s RIA news agency in November 2019.
A lawyer for the Yeshchenko family, Alexandra Baksheeva, said “no jail term would bring [her] back” but that they accepted the court’s decision.
The murderer wrote dozens of historical research papers, some of them authored with Ms Yeshchenko.
She had moved from the southern Russian region of Krasnodar to St Petersburg and was a postgraduate student at the time of her death.
According to students quoted by AFP, Sokolov enjoyed speaking French and did impressions of Napoleon. They said he called Ms Yeshchenko “Josephine”, after Napoleon’s consort, and asked to be addressed as “Sire”.
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Murdered :Anastasia Yeschchenko