Ukrainian veteran sentenced to seven years in prison for beating his grandmother to death

A court in the southern Russian city of Volgograd has sentenced a former fighter who fought in Ukraine to seven years in prison for the murder of his grandmother, the court's website said Friday.

According to criminal investigators, Alexei Zharikov became angry with his grandmother as he returned from work to a house they shared and beat her to death with a wooden chair.

When considering Zharikov's sentence, the court took into account his military service, independent Russian media outlet Verstka reported. Verstka noted that “it is not known exactly when Zharikov returned from the war.” However, photos posted by Zharikov on social media in September 2023 show him in combat gear and holding military-grade weapons.

Zharikov told the court that he became violent because his grandmother “started making daily complaints to him.”

Zharikov's grandmother managed to run away from home after being beaten and asked a neighbor to call for help. After Zharikov was arrested by local authorities, his grandmother was taken to a nearby hospital and later died in treatment. Doctors attributed the cause of his death to cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain.

At the hospital, Zharikov's grandmother told a police officer that her grandson had become violent when he reproached her for taking the SIM card from his phone. During the court proceedings, Zharikov said he believed his grandmother had deliberately hidden the SIM card from him.

During the trial, Zharikov denied hitting his grandmother with a chair, saying instead that she “fell several times” while going out into the courtyard of the house. However, Zharikov admitted to investigators before the trial that he often had conflicts with his grandmother and that on the day of her death he hit her several times, causing her to fall to the ground.

Zharikov's neighbors and his grandmother testified at trial that Zharikov frequently beat and “tortured” his grandmother. Zharikov denied the allegations and said he “loved his grandmother very much.”