A soldier escaped prison for the death of a Shakhty resident.

A military court in Novocherkassk sentenced serviceman Salman Abdulguseyev to eighteen months in a penal colony for the death of a Shakhty resident he beat. Abdulguseyev was released, as the court deemed his sentence served in pretrial detention.

The Novocherkassk Garrison Military Court has been hearing Salman Abdulguseyev's case since September 2025.

The serviceman was charged with intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in death (Part 4 of Article 111 of the Russian Criminal Code carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison), but the court reclassified the charge to the more lenient charge of causing death by negligence (Part 1 of Article 109 of the Criminal Code carries a sentence of up to two years in prison or forced labor). Mediazona* drew attention to the verdict, published on the court's website on May 9.

The deceased was a 28-year-old resident of Shakhty, whom Abdulguseyev beat near his home on the night of June 4, 2025. According to the defendant, he wanted to force the young man to apologize to a girl for threatening him on the social network VKontakte.

According to witness testimony, a group of the girl's acquaintances wanted to "talk" with her attacker "without resorting to any violence." Contrary to these plans, Abdulguseyev engaged in a verbal confrontation with him in a raised voice, then punched him in the stomach and head. The man fell, hit the back of his head on the ground, and lost consciousness. He died several hours later in the hospital. The cause of death was listed as a closed head injury.

Abdulgusyev and his friends, as stated in the verdict, first "attempted to revive" the beaten young man, and then went looking for ammonia, but found no working pharmacies. They were not the ones who called an ambulance for the victim, according to the document.

The defendant himself stated that he "could not have imagined" the possibility of such a serious head injury to the victim due to two blows, and witnesses noted that there was no lighting at the scene of the conflict. The court found that Salman Abdulgusyev did not intend to cause serious harm to the young man and that he "could not have foreseen" such consequences.

The deceased man's mother sought 5 million rubles from Abdulgusyev in compensation for moral damages, but the court reduced this amount to 1.3 million rubles. The soldier was sentenced to eighteen months in a penal colony, but Abdulguseyev never actually went there. The court deemed his sentence served, as one day in a pretrial detention facility counts as two days in a penal colony.

The ruling states that Salman Abdulguseyev has a prior conviction: in June 2022, the Sovetsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don sentenced him to two years and five months in a maximum-security penal colony for the unlawful seizure of a vehicle using violence. He also did not serve this sentence, as he signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense in December 2024.

"Caucasian Knot" also wrote that Rustam Nogmov, a former participant in the military operations in Ukraine, convicted of the murder of pensioner Nina Selezneva in Nalchik, signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense and again sent to the front, thus avoiding serving a 15-year prison sentence. Nogmov's father, who works for the Federal Penitentiary Service, was also not suspended from service.

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