A convicted rapist and killer who brutally slaughtered a young mother on her way to work was back on the streets in Russia after receiving a pardon from President Vladimir Putin in exchange for serving 3 months on the frontlines of Ukraine.
Grigoriy Povilaiko, 31, has recently returned to his hometown of Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, where those who knew him were left wondering how it was possible that the felon sentenced in 2022 to decades in prison for a brutal crime has already regained his freedom.
A source told the local Telegram news channel VL.ru that Povilaiko had signed a military contract in October 2023 to fight in the war. Typically, contracts offered to Russian prison inmates require them to serve in Ukraine for at least 6 months before being eligible or a pardon.
“Who the hell knows how he left after three,” the source told the publication. “He may have gotten injured, of course.”
In August 2021, Povilaiko ambushed 37-year-old Anna Koshulko, a married mom-of-two, in her garage as she was getting read to go to work, and savagely slaughtered her.
“He didn’t just kill her. He attacked her with a knife. He raped her, killed her, raped her, and killed her,” the victim’s outraged husband, Alexander Koshulko, told the independent Russian publication Novaya Gazeta.
“He didn’t just take her and strangle her. She was covered in bruises, totally beaten up, bleeding, all blue. Just a nightmare. And she screamed — no one came out to help. No one…” the grieving husband added.
Koshulko described the harrowing moment he opened the garage door to find his wife covered in blood, with her underwear missing.
“It was clear that she had been anally raped. There were feces, everything covered in blood. She was covered in hematomas, bruises, her hair torn out,” Koshulko told the news outlet Baza in November.
After killing the woman, Povilaiko stole Koshulko’s blue Hyundai Creta, drove home to change his blood-soaked t-shirt, and then picked up his pals and headed to the beach to drink beers.
He was arrested hours later, after ramming a police car and putting up a fight.
In April 2022, Povilaiko was found guilty on five counts of murder, rape, sexual assault, theft and use of violence against a government official, and sentenced to 24 years in prison.
But after serving just a year behind bars, Povilaiko accepted an offer from the Russian Ministry of Defense to join the war effort, following in the footsteps of what is believed to be thousands of inmates who have agreed to fight on the front lines for the prospect of securing their freedom, should they survive.
When Alexander Koshulko learned of his wife’s killer’s early release, he frantically wrote to multiple military officials, including Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, demanding that he be thrown back in prison.
“I’ve started sounding the alarm everywhere I can,” he recounted to Novaya Gazeta last month. “If he dies like a dog, fine. To hell with him — nobody will miss him. But if he comes back? God forbid, Povilaiko gets some kind of injury. They’ll discharge him in two months.”
To Koshulko’s dismay, that is exactly what happened.
“He has to be locked in prison half his life but he comes home, as a hero of the special military operation, and receives all the benefits and disability [payments],” the widower said. “I just don’t have words, I am hysterical. How is this possible? My wife is not alive, but this creature lives.”
This is not the first time that a violent criminal has been pardoned by Putin for fighting in Ukraine.
It was reported in November that Denis Gorin, 44, a serial killer and cannibal, was back on the streets in the remote Sakhalin region, despite being sentenced to 22 years in prison for stabbing a man to death and eating his flesh.
Gorin, who killed at least four people — but possibly as many as 13 — returned home after apparently being wounded during his tour of duty in Ukraine.
News of Gorin’s release came just days after it was revealed Putin had pardoned 33-year-old Nikolai Ogolobyak, 33, a self-confessed Satanist who took part in the ritual killings of four teenagers — two of whom were beheaded and partially cannibalized.