A total of four servicemen were involved in the case, a lawyer representing the victims’ interests told Meduza. Alexey Bortnikov and Nikolai Barkovsky went back to the front again, without waiting for the verdict, and in the spring of 2026 the proceedings in their cases were suspended. Both the prosecutor’s office and the victims appealed the decision in Kabakov’s and Mazur’s cases.
According to the investigation, Kabakov, whom they considered the organizer, decided to rob his 34-year-old comrade Viktor Vasilyev, a participant in the war in Ukraine. Vasilyev received 3 million rubles for his injury, and, as the investigation claims, Kabakov decided to take this money for himself. He discussed his plans with Bortnikov and Barkovsky.
In the summer of 2025, they rented a country house in Dolinsk on Sakhalin and invited Vasilyev to relax there. He was given a drug there, which Kabakov’s friend Mazur obtained at Kabakov’s request, and the dose turned out to be fatal. Kabakov’s and Mazur’s case was heard by a jury.
After that, according to the Meduza source, Vasilyev’s finger was cut off because the phone worked by fingerprint. The defendants tried to withdraw money both through the phone and at an ATM, but managed to get only 350,000 rubles. Vasilyev’s wife noticed the debits and transferred the savings to her own account.
Relatives contacted the police after Vasilyev disappeared, after which security forces and volunteers searched for him for at least a month. Later, according to the lawyer, the detainees admitted that they had buried the body on the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk. She also said that the servicemen committed the crime for “easy money”, and that the defendants had debts.
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