A Russian mother and her partner have been sentenced to prison for torturing and disfiguring her 12-year-old son in Prokopyevsk.
The 44-year-old woman was handed 13 years in a penal colony, while her 40-year-old partner received 16 years, the regional investigative directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation told Russian news outlet Lenta.ru.
The man will serve his term in a strict-regime penal colony, while the boy's mother will be held in a general-regime facility. In the Russian correctional system, strict-regime penal colonies are secure facilities reserved for men convicted of grave felonies, enforcing tighter restrictions on inmate movement and family visits. By contrast, female convicts in Russia serve their prison terms in general-regime settlements and colonies.
Years of Systematic Abuse
The court established that the 40-year-old man had systematically subjected his partner's son to physical torture between May 2021 and November 2024. Over those three and a half years, the man repeatedly beat the schoolboy and threatened him with death inside their home.
Judges found that the boy's mother intentionally failed to act to protect her child. Rather than intervening or seeking help, she actively concealed her partner's violent acts and hid the tools and instruments he used to carry out the assaults.
Earlier reports stated that the stepfather brutally mistreated the child while claiming the violence was a form of discipline and upbringing. He repeatedly expelled the boy from the home at night to stand on a cold veranda and beat him so severely that the child's face was turned into a bloody mess. On one occasion, the man split the boy's lip open and then attempted to stitch the injury himself.
Criminal Charges and Siberian Location
Both defendants were convicted of multiple offences under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The charges included torture under Part 2 of Article 117, intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm under Part 3 of Article 111, and attempted murder under Part 3 of Article 30 and Part 2 of Article 105.
The pair were also found guilty of narcotics offences, including illegal drug acquisition under Part 1 of Article 228, drug trafficking under Part 2 of Article 228.1, and forcing a person to consume narcotics through violence under Part 2 of Article 230. Both were further convicted under Article 156 for failure to perform duties in the upbringing of a minor.
Prokopyevsk is an industrial city in the Kuzbass coal-mining basin, situated within the Kemerovo Oblast in south-western Siberia. The regional branch of the Investigative Committee, the main federal authority responsible for investigating serious felonies and violent crimes across Russia, conducted the inquiry before passing the case to court for sentencing.
