A court has sentenced 92-year-old Leonid Rossii to 11 years in prison for attempting to murder his former mother-in-law, KP.RU reported.
Psychological evaluators found Rossii sane despite a personality disorder. A police search of his house in the Moscow region uncovered an automatic rifle, a second AK-74 assault rifle, and a Czech Scorpion submachine gun. Investigators also found messages to his wife on his laptop mentioning a zodiac curse and a black sphinx.
The attack occurred on the morning of March 24, 2025, when a resident in Zelenograd spotted an elderly man in a tactical vest carrying a Kalashnikov rifle near an apartment entrance and called police. Rossii had cut power at the electrical box and waited for someone to open the door before preparing to shoot. The rifle misfired, and Rossii fled before police arrested him hours later at a forest house near Klin.
Motives and background
Investigators established that Rossii went to the apartment building to kill his former mother-in-law because he believed she was a monster in human form and belonged to the White Tights gang. Rossii stated that he wanted to prevent murders he claimed she was committing using an Egyptian bacterium.
Rossii, a Stavropol native trained as an economist, began practicing energy healing in the 1990s and declared himself emperor. He changed his surname to Rossii, lived in a forest without electricity, kept an expired passport for over 30 years, and claimed to be a retired Federal Security Service (FSB) general.
In 2009, he married a 16-year-old girl set up by a client. The couple had three children but never lived together. After suffering a stroke, Rossii became aggressive and the couple separated, after which his mother-in-law became his main irritant and he conducted reconnaissance trips to plan the murder.
In a separate case noted by the publication, a resident of Ufa previously convicted of killing his wife and mother-in-law was released from prison and subsequently killed his daughter.
