Vladimir Shilontsev. Photo: Moscow courts’ press service / Telegram

A Moscow court has suspended criminal proceedings against a local man accused of the murder of a female student from Nigeria, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Friday.

The case file on the court’s website says that the case against Vladimir Shilontsev has been suspended as the defendant had signed a contract to join the Russian army.

According to the Moscow courts’ press service, Shilontsev was being tried for the murder of a woman from Nigeria, whom Telegram breaking news channel SHOT named as 22-year-old Owena Favour Nkem. The woman, who moved to Russia in 2023 to study, worked in the sex industry, according to the channel.

In the early hours of 28 April, Shilontsev invited the Nigerian woman to his home, where he then “drank heavily, argued with her, and then stabbed her through the heart,” SHOT said. The argument had allegedly been about the charge for their appointment.

Shilontsev then wrapped Nkem’s body in a sheet and threw it out the window. Her corpse was discovered the next morning by a janitor, SHOT reported. Shilontsev was arrested at the end of April.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s courts and prisons have provided a rich vein of recruits to the country’s military, with men facing trial or those already serving time in prison being offered contracts with the army as an alternative to custodial sentences.