Mothers Kill Children in Moscow: Horrific Cases and Reasons

In late January, relatives buried a five-year-old boy who was strangled by his mother in Moscow — she was advised by voices in her head. Earlier, another resident of the capital beheaded her son, and another beat her child with a hammer and stabbed him.

We haven«t seen so much cruelty at once, but these cases are not the first and likely not the last. MSK1.RU recalls the most horrific child murders in the capital by their own relatives and tries to understand how this is possible.

How child murders are sentenced

The Criminal Code has two articles: «Murder of a minor» (p. «v», part 2, article 105 of the Criminal Code) and «Murder of a newborn child by the mother» (article 106 of the Criminal Code). In the first case, the punishment is severe—up to life imprisonment (women are not sentenced to it). In the second case, it is much milder. If a mother kills an infant during or immediately after childbirth, as well as in a state of mental disorder, she faces a maximum of five years.

This system does not suit everyone. In 2015, State Duma deputy Yan Zelinsky proposed increasing the term for murder of a newborn by the mother to life imprisonment. The State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation rejected the proposal.

«A woman»s special attitude toward a child after childbirth is all sorts of mental and physical trauma, which is why this crime was separated into a separate offense. Therefore, there is no need to tighten this now,« explained the first deputy chairman of the committee, Viktor Pinsky.

MSK1.RU studied all available sentences in the Moscow City Court database for both articles and publishes details of chilling cases. Some were covered by the media, some remained unnoticed.

Children are killed not only by mothers, but also by other relatives. They are strangled, drowned, beaten against walls, stabbed with scissors, and thrown into trash bins.

Often the reason for the crime is the insanity of the killer. In half of the sentences for murder of a minor that came into force in 2023–2025, the court imposed not a prison term but compulsory medical measures. Sometimes mothers carry unwanted children or cannot cope with their life situation.

How newborns are killed

Gave birth in a train and stabbed with scissors

In 2023, Nina Ivanova gave birth in a train toilet, cut the umbilical cord with scissors, and began to kill the infant. She shoved toilet paper into its mouth and stabbed the child more than 40 times with scissors. Ivanova put the body in a bag and hid it in a trash can.

The boy suffered—he died only half an hour later.

The killer pleaded guilty and repented. She already had a young child whom she did not raise. The woman was found to have mild mental retardation with behavioral disorders, but at the time of the crime she was aware of her actions. She was given three years in a general-regime colony.

The media learned that Nina is from a dysfunctional, drinking family; she had her first child at 18. According to a source in law enforcement for KP.RU, during the arrest Ivanova behaved inappropriately calmly. She could not explain the reasons for killing the baby.

«I was traveling from Novokhokhlovskaya station. I felt my water break. I went into the toilet. There I gave birth and killed the child,» she testified.

Gave birth at home and drowned in the bathtub

In 2020, another resident of the capital, K. Kubatbek, gave birth at home in the bathtub and, fearing condemnation from relatives, decided to kill it. She drowned the infant in the bathtub, put it in a bag, and threw it near the entrance.

The woman pleaded guilty, was deemed sane, and was sent to a general-regime colony for three years. She was not under the care of a narcologist or psychiatrist, lived in poverty, without permanent work and a husband.

Did not know about pregnancy and threw the child in a trash can

In 2016, former judge«s assistant Yulia Turovnik gave birth in the yard while drunk and strangled her daughter. She put the body in a bag and threw it into a trash can in the yard. The woman did not plead guilty and claimed she did not know about the pregnancy.

Turovnik insisted that the child showed no signs of life and she considered it dead, so she threw it away. The court viewed her testimony as an attempt to defend herself and sentenced her to three years in a penal colony.

How children are killed

In 2017, Nadezhda Arseni drowned her four-year-old daughter in the bath by sitting on her back. In court, the woman confessed and explained that she lived in an unhappy marriage. Her husband drank, used drugs, and the couple divorced but occasionally reconciled and moved back together.

Because of constant scandals, Nadezhda even attempted suicide but warned a neighbor in time. She was placed in a psychiatric hospital for three months.

After returning home, she decided that her daughter was suffering with such parents and needed to be killed to ease her suffering. Nadezhda Arseni tried to strangle the girl with tights but let go. Then more fights with her partner and the hospital. A criminal case for attempted murder was not opened at the time.

After the second discharge, Nadezhda again worried about the future and the impossibility of «raising her daughter on her feet.» First, she wanted to simply leave home, but she did not know the city. Then she decided to kill the girl so that she would «feel good.»

Nadezhda went to bathe her daughter and drowned her. At first, she wanted to resuscitate her but did not know how to then explain her actions to the child. Instead, she put the girl on the bed, stroked her, read her favorite books aloud, and sang songs. To relatives, Nadezhda sent this message: «[Daughter] is now with God in heaven, not in hell; she will be better with him than here; she will not have time to sin; she is fine there; now I am calm for her.»

Experts determined that the woman has a hysterical personality disorder, but at the time of the crime she was not in a state of passion and understood everything. She was given 12 years in a general-regime correctional colony.

Not only the mother is dangerous for a child

Children suffer not only from mothers going insane. A drunken father or grandfather, or a sibling, can kill. Here are just a few such cases from Moscow.

In 2025, 51-year-old Maxim Tselebeev got drunk and killed his grandson. The two-year-old boy was defended by his grandmother but she did not make it. The man hit the child against the wall and went to sleep—the boy died before doctors arrived. Tselebeev was sentenced to 17 years in a strict-regime colony.

In 2016, 17-year-old David Nafikov strangled his 19-year-old brother. He pleaded guilty and received his sentence, but the exact term is unclear—the verdict is not publicly available.

When the killing failed

Sometimes children manage to survive. We found a whole slew of verdicts for attempted murder, and we describe two such cases.

Left in the park

Tatiana Skorodumova left her child in the cold in Izmaylovsky Park because she worried she would not be able to register it. She did not want to get pregnant, but when it happened, she even prepared for motherhood, buying baby clothes.

Tatiana tried to give the infant to a baby home, like her two other children, but they would not accept it without a birth certificate. So Skorodumova dressed it and took it to the park. She lied to her partner that the boy was in the hospital.

The defendant was diagnosed with mixed personality disorder, but was still deemed sane at the time of the attempted murder. She received nine years in a general-regime colony.

Thrown out the window

Leonid Kudryavtsev, while under the influence of drugs, threw his two-year-old son out of a fifth-floor window. The man received 12 years, and in court he claimed he was sober and just wanted to show his son the street, but tripped and the child slipped from his hands.

According to Kudryavtsev, he was in shock, got scared, and ran away; even wanted to kill himself. However, in another interrogation, the father said his son was dying from a mysterious injection and he just wanted to help him.

The child«s mother said that Leonid mainly took care of him, but at the same time beat her; they took drugs together, and recently the man began having hallucinations. Despite this, an examination determined that during the attempted murder, Kudryavtsev was fully aware of his actions.

Why relatives kill children

Narcologist and psychiatrist Vasily Shurov told MSK1.RU that most often parents kill children due to serious mental disorders.

«How can a mother kill her child? We understand that this is abnormal. The main reason is delusional states, acute psychoses. Such maternal cruelty, as a rule, is psychiatry; unhealthy mothers kill by a large margin,» he said.

Newborns, according to him, are mainly killed by women in postpartum depression. It develops after the baby«s appearance, and the mother begins to hate it.

«This condition is treated by psychiatrists. I wean them from breastfeeding and prescribe antidepressants. What else to do? She is dangerous to herself and the child; she needs treatment. We don»t admire this,« Shurov described.

Sometimes depression develops at home, after discharge, and then relatives must respond in time.

Sometimes newborns are killed by perfectly sane mothers. According to Shurov, often this is an attempt to conceal the pregnancy.

«These are often minors, very young, or, on the contrary, mothers with many children. This is a highly unwanted pregnancy in a person with low social responsibility,» the psychiatrist said.

While we were preparing this text, another tragedy occurred. On 3 January, a woman threw two children from a balcony in the Leningrad Region and committed suicide.