Explore 25 documented cases from Russia. Each file separates established findings from allegations and unresolved questions, with a focus on investigation rather than graphic detail.
Human-rights defender Natalia Estemirova was abducted in Grozny and found dead in Ingushetia in July 2009. Russian investigators named a suspect, but no one has been tried or convicted, and the European Court later found the investigation ineffective.
Open case file →
Vitaly Manishin was convicted of 11 murders committed in Altai Krai between 1989 and 2000. He received 25 years in 2025; the sentence became legally effective after appellate review in February 2026, while a later cassation petition remains pending.
Open case file →Six Rigla employees were killed and one colleague survived a 2012 workplace shooting in Moscow. Dmitry Vinogradov was convicted of six murders, sentenced to life imprisonment and lost his Supreme Court appeal.
Open case file →Six people were killed in Belgorod in April 2013. Sergei Pomazun was captured the next day, convicted of the murders and related offenses, and his life sentence was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court.
Open case file →Former Moscow police major Denis Yevsyukov was convicted of two murders and 22 attempted murders after a 2009 shooting that ended inside the Ostrov supermarket. His life sentence was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court.
Open case file →Human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova were killed in Moscow in 2009. Convictions followed against ultranationalist defendants, with later Supreme Court review of the proceedings.
Open case file →Television executive Vladislav Listyev was shot dead in Moscow in 1995. Decades of investigation produced no murder charge and the case remains unresolved.
Open case file →
Radik Tagirov was convicted of 31 murders, three attempted murders and 33 robbery attacks committed across Russia in 2011–2012. His life sentence was ultimately left intact by Russia's Supreme Court.
Open case file →Six people were killed and dozens were injured at Perm State University on September 20, 2021. Former student Timur Bekmansurov was convicted, sentenced to life imprisonment and later failed to overturn the sentence before Russia's Supreme Court.
Open case file →Two teenage girls were abducted in 2000 and held captive in Skopin for nearly four years before a hidden note led to their rescue. Viktor Mokhov was convicted and served almost 17 years.
Open case file →Fifteen victims were killed. Eleven defendants were convicted, and Russia's Supreme Court left the convictions in force in 2022.
Open case file →Several organizers and a gunman were convicted in the 1998 assassination, while the ultimate commissioning responsibility remains unresolved.
Open case file →Nine people were killed at Gymnasium No. 175. Ilnaz Galyaviev was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, which remained in force after appeal.
Open case file →More than 900 people were taken hostage in Moscow in 2002. Accomplices were convicted, while the European Court later issued separate findings on the rescue operation.
Open case file →Two coordinated attacks killed 39 people at Lubyanka and Park Kultury stations. Later prosecutions produced life sentences for convicted accomplices.
Open case file →A 2011 suicide bombing killed 37 people at Moscow Domodedovo Airport. Four facilitators were convicted, while the wider organizer question remained only partly adjudicated.
Open case file →Five men were convicted in the 2015 assassination of Boris Nemtsov, but the person who commissioned the killing has not been judicially identified.
Open case file →Armed militants seized more than 1,100 hostages at School No. 1 in Beslan in September 2004. The sole surviving attacker was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Open case file →Several participants in the journalist's 2006 assassination were convicted, but the person who commissioned the murder was never identified in court.
Open case file →
Open the documented case file for timeline, investigation and outcome.
Open case file →
Alexander Pichushkin murdered people in and around Moscow, many near Bitsevsky Park, over a period that stretched from the 1990s into the 2000s.
Open case file →
Mikhail Popkov, a former police officer, was convicted of a long series of murders of women in Siberia, primarily around Angarsk.
Open case file →
Sergey Golovkin was a Soviet and Russian serial killer who targeted boys and teenagers in the Moscow region during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Open case file →
Irina Gaidamachuk targeted elderly women in Russia's Sverdlovsk region, entering homes under false pretenses and killing victims during robberies.
Open case file →Twelve people were murdered at a farmer's home in southern Russia in 2010, leading to convictions tied to the Tsapok organized-crime group.
Open case file →