Vladimir Putin has freed a murderer three months into his sentence who strangled his girlfriend and kept her corpse inside a barrel on his balcony.
Alexander Golubev, 24, was only in jail for three months when he was released to fight in the war in Ukraine.
But he has boasted he is working as a military pen pusher ‘having fun’ and far from the action.
Footage shows Golubev at a crime reenactment demonstrating how he killed his long-term girlfriend Viktoria Kurman, 23, a computer graphics designer.
When she vanished, he pretended to be her, texting messages to her mother Olga Lishefay.
He partied at his flat with friends, informing them Viktoria had walked out on him.
But after more than a month, Golubev went missing and stopped messaging.
Olga became deeply worried and suspicious. She went to the flat in Veliky Novgorod along with Golubev’s mother Marina, and a male friend of the couple.
Alexander Golubev (pictured) was only in jail for three months when he was released to fight in the war in Ukraine .
He has boasted he is working as a military pen pusher ‘having fun’ and far from the action
Golubev strangled his girlfriend and kept her corpse inside a barrel (pictured) on his balcony
They found it a mess – with an odour that made them wretch, coming from the green plastic barrel on the balcony which had been glazed to provide more living space as part of the flat.
Sickening footage shows Olga using a knife to open the barrel, cutting through many yards of sticky tape used to tightly seal the lid.
‘I looked inside and I saw a black plastic bag covered with white [baking powder],’ said Olga.
‘I rang the police and explained that my daughter went missing and that a barrel was found on the balcony. Operatives arrived. They [removed] the lid completely, opened the first [plastic] bag.
‘I was standing nearby and I saw hair.
‘It was clear that it was Vika [Viktoria], because she had tips of her hair highlighted. It was her hair, I recognised it.’
Police took away the barrel, and the body was confirmed as hers.
Unemployed Golubev was found and arrested five days later, and at his trial in April was sentenced to nine and half years in a strict-regime penal colony after fully confessing to killing Viktoria.
Unemployed Golubev was found and arrested five days later
He admitted to strangling his girlfriend out of jealousy
Police took away the barrel, and the body was confirmed as hers
Charges of fraud – stealing cash from Viktoria’s savings – have been dropped
If he remains alive, Golubev will be released after completing military service with his murder conviction expunged from the criminal record
He told investigators: ‘I was afraid she would find out that I was cheating on her and at that moment I just didn’t know what to do.’
He used the strap of her bag to strangle her, and wedged a sock in her mouth to ‘get rid of the wheezing’.
Then he bound her with electrical tape to make her body a more ‘convenient’ shape to fit in a barrel used to store food or drink, he confessed.
Three months later, tragic Viktoria’s mother was shocked to be told he was no longer in jail and his whereabouts were now a ‘state secret’.
But it soon became clear that he had been sent to the war under a Putin scheme to release prisoners to fight.
He messaged Viktoria’s friend Alexandra saying ‘he was hoping he’d be killed by a missile, pretending to be sorry about [killing Viktoria]. Honestly, at first I almost felt sorry for him.
‘And then he wrote to his friend saying how he doesn’t care, how much fun he’s having [in the army], how he was in a safe and quiet spot doing paperwork.’
If he remains alive, Golubev will be released after completing military service with his murder conviction expunged from the criminal record.
Charges of fraud – stealing cash from Viktoria’s savings – have been dropped.