The Novgorod District Court has sentenced a man to 12 years in a penal colony for driving a teenage schoolgirl to attempt suicide. The regional courts press service announced the ruling against the defendant, who is a native of the western Russian city of Lipetsk residing in Novgorod District.
Investigators stated that the defendant selected his minor victim after locating her profile in an online community dedicated to the sandbox video game Minecraft on the Russian social networking platform VKontakte. The girl lived in Ufa, the regional capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
Believing that law enforcement would be unable to track him, the offender collected extensive personal details about the girl from open online sources. He obtained her exact age, home address, school, family background, telephone number, and photographs.
Between April 1 and November 1, 2024, the man subjected the teenager to continuous anonymous psychological violence. Court officials reported that he systematically mocked the victim and maintained her in a state of unrelenting emotional stress.
Extensive campaign of intimidation
During the campaign spanning seven months, the perpetrator deliberately convinced the victim that her family and wider society held a hostile attitude toward her. He forced the girl to feel responsible for the situation while subjecting her to repeated humiliation and direct threats.
The defendant also circulated false and defamatory statements accompanied by photographs of the victim and her younger sister. He hired individuals for monetary payment to post physical harassment flyers near her residential building and generated cynical threats under her identity.
The harassment escalated to involve emergency services and local institutions. Pretending to be the girl's father, the defendant phoned the police to falsely report that he had killed the victim's mother. He also sent false bomb threats targeting local schools and a shopping center using the girl's name.
Harassment across platforms and workplaces
The offender established an online group under the victim's identity where he published videos depicting scenes of extreme violence against humans and animals. Additionally, he placed phone calls to the workplaces of the girl's parents to instigate conflicts.
Court records show that the criminal repeatedly demanded that the victim end her life, presenting suicide as the sole condition for stopping his harassment campaign. The girl was rescued at the last moment when her mother intervened.
Legal context and regional background
Novgorod District is situated in the Novgorod region of northwestern Russia, while Lipetsk is an industrial regional center south of Moscow. Ufa, where the victim resided, is located near the Ural Mountains in central Russia. VKontakte remains Russia's most widely used social media network.
Under the Russian legal system, a penal colony is the standard form of correctional facility where convicts serve custodial sentences while living in communal quarters and completing assigned work duties.
The court ruling comes alongside other recent cases involving charges of driving individuals to suicide in Russia. In Irkutsk, located in eastern Siberia, former Ministry of Internal Affairs lieutenant colonel of justice Elena Zhmurova was previously sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony after fleeing to Israel following her conviction for driving a subordinate to suicide.
