Killers of animators sentenced in Kuban

On a hot May day in 2023, loud sobbing mixed with the roar of a passing train at the cemetery in Ust-Labinsk. Amid the cries of relatives, the coffin of 37-year-old Kirill Chubko was lowered into the ground. His throat was cut and he suffered «multiple stab wounds» on a highway 70 kilometers from home, as he was returning from work to his wife and their then-four-year-old son Platon. His colleague, 19-year-old Tatyana Mostyko, was killed the same way — she was buried later in her native Krasnoyarsk.

Many people came to say goodbye to Kirill: relatives, friends, colleagues, and simply concerned residents of the city. The wind rustles black flags that flutter on neighboring graves — these are Wagner PMC fighters who died in the special military operation. Ironically, Kirill was killed by a gang led by freed Wagner member Demyan Kevorkyan.

On July 27, 2026, more than three years after the crime, the Krasnodar Regional Court delivered its verdict for the killers. 93.RU recalls the story of this high-profile case and tells how the trial unfolded.

«I»ll wash my hair and go«

37-year-old Kirill Chubko lived in Ust-Labinsk, a small town about an hour«s drive from Krasnodar, with his wife and son Platon. The family spent seven years building a new house almost in the center of town — Daria and Kirill dreamed of a big family and wanted three children.

A few years ago, the couple started a «star show» — entertainers dressed as celebrity lookalikes performed for people. Since February 2022, Tatyana Mostyko, a student at the local pedagogical college, worked with them. One day, by chance, she filled in for a fellow student but stayed with the company.

«After the first time, they began to work closely together, because Tanya really knows how to connect with children. Tanya always spoke warmly about Dasha and Kirill. When they returned home, Dasha always bought them snacks,» Tatyana«s mother Nadezhda Pleshkova told 93.RU.

By noon on April 28, 2023, the girl had taught a literature lesson at school. On her way home, she called her mother in Krasnoyarsk to share her emotions. Tatyana stopped by a pharmacy, then called her mother again to say she would wash her hair and leave in the evening for a «gig.»

After lunch on April 28, Kirill picked up Tatyana and they drove to a birthday party in the stanitsa of Krylovskaya. The drive takes about two hours.

In the evening, the entertainers finished their work and headed home. Almost the entire road is a narrow two-lane highway that passes through small villages. Then a brief stretch on the federal M4 Don highway and again a narrow road to Ust-Labinsk. On such routes, picturesque fields flash by, and to overtake someone you have to cross into oncoming traffic. The regional roads are also full of potholes caused by Kamaz trucks that drive overloaded in 40-degree heat. One such pothole proved fateful that evening.

«Go to sleep, don»t wait for me«

Around 21:30 that evening, Kirill sent his wife Daria a voice message, asking her not to prepare dinner for him because he would be home late: halfway there, the car hit a pothole and blew two tires. Half an hour later, he called and said he had met several people on the road who were in a similar situation. They agreed to give Kirill a ride to a classmate in a neighboring stanitsa to get a spare tire.

That April, heavy rains hit Krasnodar Krai and a storm warning was in effect. Around midnight, Kirill called his wife again and said he had returned to the car with a new tire and was waiting for the rain to stop to finish the repair. At the end of the conversation, he told his wife to go to sleep and not wait for him. That was the last phone call in which Daria heard her husband«s voice. About an hour later, she sent him a message, but no one answered. And she went to bed.

Daria woke up at six in the morning, her breath caught and her chest tightened. Her husband was not beside her. She frantically started calling him and Tatyana, but their phones were unreachable. The woman immediately sensed something was wrong, because her husband always carried a portable charger with cables; his phone couldn«t have died. So Daria decided she had to drive toward them immediately — in case something had happened and her husband needed help. She called another fellow entertainer and drove with him along the route to Krylovskaya.

Along the way, around 08:00 on April 29, Daria managed to reach Tatyana. As the woman later recalled, the entertainer spoke strangely, her voice as if sleepy. The student couldn«t explain anything or describe where she was. She only repeated that she didn»t know where she was, and that Kirill would call back later. But that was not to happen — Kirill was brutally killed and buried in the forest around 6 a.m. That was exactly when Daria suddenly woke up.

During the phone call between Daria and Tatyana, money was being withdrawn from the girl«s card. It later became known that this was the last transaction — about 200,000 rubles ($2,100 at current rates) disappeared in total. First, funds were transferred via mobile banking from Kirill»s account to his colleague, and then everything was withdrawn from ATMs. Almost immediately after the call, Tatyana was also killed — she was kept alive until all the money was withdrawn from the accounts.

They saw each other twice a year

When relatives failed to find either Kirill or his car, they reported the disappearance to the police and began their own search. Nadezhda Pleshkova learned of her daughter«s disappearance only by the evening of April 29 — she received a call from the godmother who had effectively become Tatyana»s guardian when she moved from Motygino in Krasnoyarsk Krai to Kuban after ninth grade. Upon hearing the story, Nadezhda immediately called the bank and requested details of her daughter«s transactions — they accommodated her and provided all the data with ATM numbers and exact withdrawal times. This information helped investigators quickly identify from CCTV footage who was withdrawing the money. And it wasn»t the entertainers.

«People from LisaAlert started calling me; I barely remember anything, it was some kind of madness. I was sending phone numbers to everyone, everyone wanted to know something, and I couldn»t explain anything. It turns out I even sent the investigator«s number. An unknown number calls, and I immediately hang up. Whoever wrote on WhatsApp and introduced themselves, asking for something, I might answer,» recalls Tatyana«s mother.

Since Tatyana moved to Kuban, the family had seen each other twice a year: in summer and during New Year holidays. But that year, because of her studies, the mother couldn«t fly to her daughter for winter break — they agreed they would meet in July.

That summer, the girl was supposed to graduate from Ust-Labinsk Pedagogical College. She decided to continue her studies to become a primary school teacher in Nizhny Novgorod. Tatyana«s mother had already bought tickets from Krasnoyarsk to Ust-Labinsk back in March 2023 to attend her daughter»s graduation. After that, they were supposed to travel by train together to submit documents to the university. In the end, in early July, Nadezhda Pleshkova did come to Kuban, but only to see the investigator.

They combed the forest but found no one

The shocking story of the mysterious disappearance of the entertainers on the highway quickly spread through local media. People in online communities mulled over details about the punctured tire and withdrawn money. Various theories circulated, from murder to a secret getaway with a young mistress.

Almost immediately, hundreds of volunteers joined the search: people from all over the region came to the geotag on the highway. By April 30, it was clear something terrible had happened. But no one yet thought the entertainers were dead, so they hoped to find them alive.

Search-and-rescue teams and the relatives of the missing hoped the colleagues had simply been robbed, tied up, and left somewhere in the forest or an abandoned house. So the main effort was focused on searching such places.

«I returned to Berezanskaya, where Kirill picked up the wheel, drove around all the service stations, found nothing. I immediately contacted the police and the search teams. The very next day we went looking with a bunch of people. We couldn»t even think they«d been buried; we searched for them alive. We hoped they were tied up somewhere or locked in a house. By evening, thanks to publicity, a case was opened,» Daria Chubko told journalists.

Throughout the day, details of the mysterious disappearance emerged, but the people still couldn«t be found. It was reported that a white Hyundai had been captured by traffic cameras in different places overnight, and money from the missing people»s cards was withdrawn in three stanitsas. Between settlements, the car traveled almost 100 kilometers, but in the opposite direction from home.

Everything changed a day later, when the Investigative Committee opened a murder case. During the day on May 1, a burned-out car was found in a forest in Bryukhovetsky District; no people were inside. Later, Daria said volunteers had already combed that area but found nothing. But how could a car that the whole region was searching for slip right under the noses of hundreds of searchers and law enforcement?

«I thought I would die when we got news about the car. I don»t care about the car at all, but by burning it, [the criminals] were covering their tracks, and that«s bad. The main thing is that they»re alive and we find Kirill and Tanya. I«m just in shock. What»s happening defies all explanation. Only one thing gave me comfort: they weren«t in the car or near it. We continue to search,» Daria wrote on her social media.

When news of the found car broke, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, took a personal interest in the case and put the investigation under his control. By the evening of May 1, the LisaAlert search-and-rescue team had called off the search for the entertainers. Usually this means the people or their bodies have been found.

As later became known, on that same day, May 1, in Krasnodar, 31-year-old Demyan Kevorkyan was detained. Officially, investigators reported he was linked to the disappearance of the entertainers. Only by the evening of May 2, four days later, did the Investigative Committee first call the disappearance a murder. As before, no details were given.

The next day stunned all residents of Kuban with shocking news. The Investigative Committee announced that three suspects in the murder of Kirill and Tatyana had been detained. The man«s body was also found — he had been buried in the forest and sprinkled with fallen leaves to make it harder to discover.

«The last transfer [from Kirill»s account] was at 05:55 in the morning. At that time, the phone was switched on for the last time. And at 6, I woke up, just 5 minutes later. The place where the body was found was pointed out by the criminals themselves. The report mentions multiple knife wounds to the neck and body,« Daria Chubko recalled sobbing on an NTV show.

According to a source at the editorial office, investigators quickly tracked down repeat offender Kevorkyan. Investigators also knew almost from the first day of the search that the entertainers were dead.

Served 18 years, served in Wagner, returned to old ways

After being released early from prison, Demyan Kevorkyan went to the front as part of a Wagner PMC unit. After serving and receiving amnesty, as investigators believed, he decided to return to his usual activities — robbing people on the highways. To do this, he used blackmail and threats to recruit Anatoly Dvoinikov and Aram Tatosyan as accomplices. They already knew each other from old «gigs.» Going «hunting,» they accidentally blew a tire on the highway and were forced to stop.

«We started changing the tire. When we were almost done, a foreign car hit the pothole at that moment. Kevorkyan then said: »God himself sent them to us.« A guy got out of the car and started looking around. Kevorkyan shouted to him: »We greet you, fellow sufferers.« After that, we tightened our wheel and drove up behind the foreign car. Then a girl got out of the foreign car, chatted with the guy, and got back in. After that, Kevorkyan told us »we«ll have to work with them,»« recalled defendant Aram Tatosyan about that evening.

After attacking Kirill and Tatyana, the criminals learned the card passwords, withdrew money, and then took turns stabbing the couple. Kirill was killed first, while Tatyana remained alive at least until morning. During that time, they drove her around in the car, withdrawing money from cards.

All those detained on suspicion of the double murder had previous convictions, according to the Investigative Committee. One of them, 31-year-old Demyan Kevorkyan, a native of Novorossiysk, was supposed to still be serving time in a strict-regime colony. In 2016, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Kevorkyan had been sent to prison for a similar crime: he organized a gang that robbed and killed people on the road. The gang included women, including one 15-year-old. Their role was to stop «flashy» cars on the highway. Then Kevorkyan, armed with a sawn-off shotgun, and an accomplice would step in. During one such «outing,» a man was killed; after that, the gang was arrested and all members received real prison terms.

Before that, the man had been convicted of robberies and armed assaults in Tikhoretsky District of Krasnodar Krai. Since his teenage years, Kevorkyan had run-ins with the law: he was sent to a closed special institution for minor crimes.

Kevorkyan served his sentence in penal colony No. 2 in Ivanovo Oblast, and at the end of 2022 he was sent to the special military operation as part of the Wagner PMC. He managed to survive and was released in March 2023, but he didn«t start a new life. He created a gang and committed a nearly identical crime to the one in 2016. During the investigation of the entertainers» case, it became known that he was also linked to at least one other murder — that of his former colleague Sergei Serbov in 2013. This episode was also included in the case file.

Sources at the editorial office claim that in the colony Kevorkyan immediately became a «smotryashchiy» (prison overseer). He planned new crimes while still in Ivanovo Oblast, when he realized he had a chance to be released soon.

He feared only one man

Dvoinikov had previously been convicted of minor crimes: a drunken brawl without fatalities, car theft followed by a traffic accident, and drunk driving. After serving two years, the man continued to drink and drive. In one such case, he was sentenced to four years in a colony. This happened in June, after his arrest for the murder of the entertainers.

The least is known about Aram Tatosyan. According to his fellow villagers, the man had problems with alcohol, but he had done nothing criminal. According to the Investigative Committee, he also had a conviction, but details could not be found. After the crime, Aram«s neighbors didn»t believe that such a «quiet and calm» man could commit murder. Tatosyan himself admitted that he «wasn»t thinking straight« when he killed Tatyana Mostyko.

«Initially I didn»t want to, I didn«t give [my consent], but when he [Kevorkyan] told me, I had to do it under duress. I was afraid that my family would suffer, so I agreed to attack. I was afraid my children would be hurt,» Tatosyan said in court.

During the trial, prosecutor Natalya Kalikanova described how Dvoinikov and Tatosyan together stabbed 19-year-old Tatyana Mostyko, who cried and begged them not to kill her. The fatal blow to the neck was delivered by Aram — with such force that the knife blade broke. For this, he received 25,000 rubles ($270 at current rates) from gang leader Kevorkyan.

Kirill was stabbed by Dvoinikov — he testified about this in court. At the beginning, the man cried and covered his face with his hands, asked forgiveness from the family, and repeated that he didn«t want to kill, that he had never even slaughtered a chicken before. However, Kirill was killed with multiple stab wounds to the body and neck; the man was buried in a turtleneck. According to Dvoinikov, he received 20,000 rubles ($215 at current rates) from the stolen money for this.

«Tatosyan told me to cut Chubko»s throat. I sat down next to him and started cutting his throat. I couldn«t do it. Then Tatosyan came around to the head of Chubko and lifted his head with his hand. After that, I cut his throat,» testified Dvoinikov after his arrest.

According to the case file, Chubko was beaten so severely that the depth of some wounds reached 7 centimeters — the forensic expert did not rule out complete submersion of the knife.

«They were just afraid for their own skins»

Unlike his accomplices, Kevorkyan never admitted guilt in court. He continued to insist that investigators violated his rights to sleep, food, and rest as provided by the criminal procedure code, and declared his innocence.

On July 27 in Krasnodar, more than three years after the murders, the verdict was announced. Based on the guilty verdict of the jury, Aram Tatosyan and Anatoly Dvoinikov received 23 and 25 years in a strict-regime colony, respectively. The gang leader, Demyan Kevorkyan, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special-regime correctional colony, stripped of his state award, the Medal «For Courage.»

A few minutes after the verdict was read, Daria Chubko told journalists she disagreed with the sentence: «I disagree with this sentence; I»m afraid they«ll get out. They»ll go to the special military operation and get their medals. We will appeal the sentence and ask for life terms for Dvoinikov and Tatosyan. I don«t believe a single word, any repentance; they were just afraid for their own skins.»