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Chechen father-in-law killed Russian daughter-in-law for disobedience: "She wanted to be like them"
Once again, domestic violence leads to death. But this time it is not central Russia, but Chechnya. And the murdered man was not the husband, but the husband's father. He is the head and patriarch of the family, and his words and actions are the law of this part. However, according to traditional Chechen customs, it is a great sin to raise one's eyes to one's son's wife.
"He considered Kristina his property. After she broke up with her son Akhmed, he could call her even at night and ask her to take a selfie with him next to her. Kristina was very afraid for herself and for her little daughter, our granddaughter, who was separated from her after the de facto divorce," says Anastasia Kokova.
Three days after the girl's disappearance, Ruslan was arrested and confessed to everything. He allegedly strangled her, burned the remains on the ground and scattered the ashes across a river in the Chechen village of Bachiurt, where the family lived. Find out...
Anastasia does not believe that there is anything left in her body. Could this really happen? Even if she were burned in a home oven, it is not a crematorium and the temperature is not that high, something would have been preserved. However, only a bag of construction waste was found at the scene of the alleged murder...
Where were the rest of the family while the father-in-law kicked out the daughter-in-law? Didn't the dead woman scream? Didn't you ask for help? This question leaves more questions than answers.
In the photo my mother sent, Kristina is covering her head. After her marriage, she tried to look Chechen by dyeing her dark brown hair and thick eyebrows jet black. "She wanted to be like them, so she wouldn't be different from the others, you know?" my mother describes. This change happened after the wedding.
In fact, Kristina's short life lasted almost all her life after the wedding. The girl met her boyfriend when she was 17. Her mother thinks that she has no love. Maybe he was attracted to her at first, maybe he liked her, maybe she was a very young and inexperienced girl, maybe Akhmed had some feelings at first. But when it turned out that young Kristina was expecting a child, the Chechens did not want the marriage. The girl's parents wanted to file a complaint with law enforcement agencies, since the groom was already an adult, and the bride was not yet one. But Kristina screamed that she loved him, did not want to hear about them breaking up, and refused to have an abortion.
"My father-in-law insisted on the wedding. All the Chechen relatives were against it, Akhmed's mother was against it too, but if it weren't for Ruslan, the wedding wouldn't have happened," Anastasia explains.
But the future relative openly stated that Chechens do not abandon their children. Therefore, Akhmed needs to register the relationship at the registry office.
After the wedding, the newlyweds went to the village of Bachiurt, two hours away from Grozny. A girl was born. Anastasia could not visit her daughter and granddaughter, their family did not have that kind of money and they had many children, but she called Kristina. The girl complained that her husband was raising his hand against her, and the rest of the family pretended that it was natural. That she was a stranger to everyone here.
"She called me and asked. You won't fight? I said no, I won't do that. But what happened? In it, she admitted that she "covered herself", became a Muslim and fully accepted their way of life. She wanted to live with her husband and do everything possible to be treated well," Anastasia is sure.
According to the woman, the marriage lasted about two years. Akhmed was rarely home. He worked with his father in Moscow, where Ruslan had his own company. Kristina and her daughter remained in the family settlement under the supervision of relatives. According to his mother, Akhmed's rare visits home were accompanied by scandals.
"I didn't communicate with my son-in-law and I wasn't interested in him. I did everything I could and warned my daughter in advance that I would never be a part of their lives." The mother sighed.
— According to Chechen customs, the child also belonged to the husband. And their marriage fell apart.
Finally, on the advice of Kristina's mother, who had returned with the girl, she filed for divorce in the Lobnya City Court at the place of her and Akhmed's registration. This was in 2022. She was only 20 years old.
However, on the day of the hearing, Ruslan arrived with his son’s representative and provided documents confirming that the defendant lives at a different address and is registered in the Chechen Republic, so the proceedings should be transferred there.
"I told her that. 'Why should I go to Chechnya and get a divorce there? Go to a lawyer, write a petition, and the trial will take place here in the Moscow region.' However, after doubts and fears, she withdrew her application completely. Her father-in-law apparently told her that if they divorced, Akhmed would be drafted into the army. 'But I didn't want to make things worse.' My mother continued to speak.
Officially, they remained husband and wife. Kristina did not object to her husband seeing the child whenever he wanted. But one day, without asking, Akhmed took his daughter to the village of Bachi-Yurt to visit relatives. "The next day I called her and told her. We are in Chechnya." Anastasia shrugged.
He has rights because he is a father. Christina hurried to get them...
— How did she settle in Chechnya?
- My daughter worked in a coffee shop to be closer to her younger daughter. I tried to survive somehow. But it didn't last long, and she complained that it was hard to live there.
- She was not accepted into your circle? Maybe he was offended? - Ask Anastasia.
"She didn't tell me all the details." She said it wasn't easy. They sent me a video of a corporate party, but there were Chechen girls there, so I didn't see anything wrong with it. Then she called and said she couldn't stay in Chechnya any longer and couldn't live without her child. So she went back and forth.
- How did she live?
— Ruslan managed the family's money. He controlled her and allowed her to see the girl, who was being raised by her second grandmother and other relatives of her husband, the mother said. — Ruslan transferred money to Kristina. He rented her an apartment when she lived there. And he blamed her for the money he gave her and believed that he had a right to it. He said that she should report where she was, what she was doing, and send her selfies at any time of the day. Her message remained: if she had known this would happen, she would never have taken money from him.
- How much did he give her?
"He sent me a check to show how much he had invested." It was probably about 40,000 a month. As he developed, he treated her less like a daughter-in-law and more like a woman he had rights over. Christina was silent for a long time. I didn't want to complain. You see, it all came out this year, when she gradually began to realize that his disobedience was threatening her with death. Of course, I wouldn't sit still if I knew the whole truth right away. Christina knows my character... she knows... but she didn't say much. I shared it only with friends, but we found out too late.
According to Anastasia, this is how Kristina lived in both houses. She tried twice to move and settle in Chechnya next to her daughter who was not given to her, but she could not get along in the "foreign monasteries" with their rules and way of life. Perhaps you had to be born there to do this. According to her, Akhmed did not need her. He lived mainly in Moscow.
On September 24, a young woman disappeared in Chechnya. On September 26, her mother began searching for her. Ruslan pretended that his daughter-in-law's disappearance upset him greatly and helped find her. On September 28, he was arrested on suspicion of her murder.
— Did you have doubts about him right away? Or did she think that he wouldn’t be able to contact her after all?
"Before she left for the last time, she said he followed her everywhere.
— Have you tried to file a complaint with law enforcement agencies that it is not your husband, but a man who is pressuring you?
- No, I didn't try. I suggested that she contact the police. Because it was already a criminal act. But she was afraid of his connections in the republic and his revenge, which he spoke of.
— How did the women in his family react to all this? Did Christina try to talk to her mother-in-law or someone else?
- It was useless. They were all against her. And Akhmed's mother told her that she wanted a Chechen woman for her son, not a Russian one. And they all testified that they were visiting their father-in-law when she disappeared. That's why they didn't see or hear anything... According to rumors, only Ruslan and Kristina were left at home. I'm sure it was different. There was Kristina's voice and a video of her slaughtering a sheep, so clients came to us and said that we were holding an event on September 22, but on September 23 Kristina suddenly sent me a letter saying that they had gathered again. I lost contact with my husband on September 24...
Currently, Ruslan Yu. is in a pretrial detention center, he is currently charged under Article 105, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This is murder without aggravating circumstances.
"We don't know if there was sexual abuse because the body was never found. They are currently working on Ruslan's own version of the burning and scattering of the ashes. He denies rape. "She said she strangled him to death because he was being bad and wouldn't listen to her."
Anastasia is convinced that the killer is lying to avoid greater responsibility. If it is established that he forced his daughter-in-law to have sex and killed her so that she would not leave him, he should fear something more than imprisonment.
"According to Chechen customs, it is not a disgrace. As I said, the whole family will not survive if they find out that he forced her. "She is like a daughter to this man..."
They say that many residents of the neighboring villages did not even hear that their Russian daughter-in-law had been killed nearby. Everything was quiet until the news appeared in the local media. But now it has spread throughout Chechnya. The investigation accelerated after the case was transferred to the Central Investigative Committee in Moscow. However, the main question - where is the body - is still unanswered. Anastasia donated her DNA so that Kristina can be positively identified once her remains are found.
"This has been going on for almost a month and it's unbearable. Try to do it somehow. Please let me finally find her." My mother can't stand it. "If the body is still lying on the ground and hasn't burned, then that person should indicate where he buried himself and we should bury Christina humanely."
Akhmed's involvement in his wife's death has not been proven. The man has a 100% alibi. He is currently in Chechnya with his little daughter. Anastasia cannot go to her granddaughter, she has no money, and she is not sure whether the child will be given to her. The grandmother expected: "If the body is found or an investigation is conducted, I will be able to go there and meet my granddaughter, at least for a moment."
Unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending.
This could happen and does happen anywhere... After Kristina's death, in early October, another young woman was killed in Saratov. Her boyfriend didn't want her to break up with him, so he stabbed her. A cell phone store. And then three years ago, he made a deal with his ex-wife, who left him.
Last September, another man was brutally beaten for an hour in Troitsk, near Moscow, after she refused him sex with the woman he loved. She later died.
These are just a few photographs, a few examples, so as not to create the impression that we are denigrating Chechnya.
This can happen wherever the application of the law ceases and there is a return to the traditions and moral norms of medieval society. The stronger man can show his strength. Women are objects, not people, and they must be silent and obedient.
An incident in which a man who was supposed to protect a woman kills her. Of course, the tragedy that occurred in Chechnya is unusual. This is due to the fact that it was not the husband who confessed to the murder, but the husband's father.
What motivated him? A forbidden passion for a younger relative? Or a desire to break her will and subjugate her simply because he was a man?
What can we expect from a society that increasingly treats women as helpless receptacles for procreation, devoid of feelings and desires of their own, even though their bodies are not their own in life or in death? When you don't have the right to vote or raise your own children.
I asked Anastasia if Christina was still alive and if Ruslan or someone else was putting her in prison or selling her into slavery.
"The investigators considered this version, but it is unlikely." The woman sighed. "In this case, the culprit faces a much lesser punishment under the law, and since it is not murder, there is no reason to hide the sale. Ruslan is acting in such a way that no one will ever know what he could have done with her before his death."