A Russian court sentenced Kirill Cheplygin to 19 years for the brutal murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend. He’s fighting in Ukraine instead.
Kirill Cheplygin, a resident of Achinsk in Krasnoyarsk Krai, was sentenced to 19 years for murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend. He has since signed a contract with Russia’s Defense Ministry and left for the war in Ukraine, his ex-wife’s mother told the newspaper Gorod A.
Cheplygin left on June 9, she said — the same day a court ruling stripping him of his parental rights took effect.
In December 2025, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court sentenced Cheplygin, 35, to 19 years and two months in a strict-regime penal colony for a double murder carried out with particular cruelty.
Cheplygin was convicted of murdering his ex-wife, Yekaterina, whom he was divorcing, and her new boyfriend, Vyacheslav. He attacked the couple with a knife in the stairwell of Yekaterina’s building in February 2025, and then killed them in the street.
Yekaterina’s mother watched her daughter’s killing from a window. Prosecutors said Cheplygin deliberately continued the attack, “wanting to cause particular suffering to the mother of the deceased.”
After the killings, Cheplygin went home and tried to kill himself, but relatives found him in time.
A friend of Yekaterina’s told the Telegram channel Sibirskii Ekspress that she had decided to divorce Cheplygin after 10 years together, citing his constant control as well as psychological and physical abuse. She left behind a daughter, who was five years old when her mother was killed Vyacheslav, who was also killed, had been raising a 15-year-old daughter alone.
Even during the investigation, Cheplygin had asked to be sent to the front in an effort to avoid punishment. Residents of Achinsk created a petition demanding he not be released, and more than 11,000 people signed it. Yekaterina’s relatives worried he would return after a pardon and take her daughter.
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