Rostov cases: saleswoman kills classmate, lawyer murders wife

We present high-profile criminal cases from recent years where a verdict has been reached or the case has been concluded in another way. First in a series.

Three Months of Uncertainty

Tanya Shtanko was only 18 years old when she was killed. On 1 June 2022, she was standing at a bus stop on the outskirts of the khutor Gulyay-Borisovka (in Rostov Oblast). A red car pulled up nearby. The driver offered Tanya a ride, and she agreed. She disappeared for three months. On 2 September, her body was found in a forest belt.

As Tanya«s mother testified, they had argued with her daughter the day before she went missing. Although they made up, a slight chill remained on Tanya»s part. On 1 June, her daughter warned that she was going to work in Rostov-on-Don, took a bag with her things, and went to the bus stop. Later, her mother wrote to Tanya, asking if she had arrived. But the message was not delivered. She wrote again, called the second number—to no avail. She called Tanya«s boyfriend, but he didn»t know where she was either. The last thing Tatyana wrote to him was that she had gone to the traffic police post.

Tanya Shtanko was declared missing, and volunteers, local residents, and police searched for her. After a couple of months, a murder case was opened. And soon a suspect was found—Alexander Kotsurov, a resident of Kagalnitskaya stanitsa repeatedly convicted of theft. He was the one who gave Tanya a ride that day.

Moreover, he became a suspect before the murdered girl was found: it was about her phone. Investigators established that after the Don woman«s disappearance, SIM cards registered to Kotsurov and his wife were inserted into her phone.

Alexander Kotsurov did not plead guilty and insisted that the investigator and police chief tried to force him to write a confession and that he didn«t even know where the body was found. And in general, on 1 June he was working in a neighboring stanitsa. But later, his employer, for whom the suspect herded sheep and bulls, would say that Kotsurov did not come that day.

Alexander had several different side jobs, and according to testimony, colleagues describe him as a calm and positive person.

But something completely different was told by the wife of his nephew, Lyuda (name changed. — Ed.). In 2016, they went in his car to fetch water, and on the way Kotsurov began harassing Lyuda. «At the same time, he changed sharply, as if a different person was in front of her,» the case materials state. Lyuda barely escaped from the car. According to her, after a while Kotsurov «let go» and became his former self.

And on the morning of 1 June 2022, he, as Lyudmila says, came to her, abruptly entered the yard, and persistently began calling her to take a walk by the local river. «She again saw in him that person who harassed her in the car in 2016,» the case indicated. But Lyuda, roughly speaking, told Kotsurov off, and he left towards Gulyay-Borisovka.

Alexander Kotsurov was convicted of murder and theft to 13 years, which he must serve in a strict-regime colony.

«Bluebeard» Won«t Return from Colony

In early 2019, Rostov lawyer Vladislav Biryukov brutally dealt with his wife Anna and with an accomplice buried her body in the area of Nizhnetemernitsky. In the press, Vladislav was nicknamed «Bluebeard»: in 2010, his first wife Anastasia disappeared. She has not been found to this day.

On 24 January, Vladislav picked up Anna from work and took her to the garage of his acquaintance Pavel Glushchenko. When they arrived, he hit her 18 times on the head with a hammer, then dragged her out of the car, beat her, and stabbed her in the back. But even after that, Anna was still breathing. Then Vladislav stuffed plastic wrap and a rag into her mouth. She suffocated.

After this, Biryukov turned to Glushchenko to help hide the body. In Pavel«s car, they took Anna to Shchepkinsky Forest, removed her clothes, and Vladislav scorched the body with a gas burner. This was to hide Anna»s tattoos and her face, to hinder possible identification. Then the body was buried.

Glushchenko had already helped Biryukov—by burning the car of another of his ex-wives, Victoria. This was in Novoshakhtinsk in 2016. Biryukov went there with Glushchenko for a court hearing in which Victoria was also participating. On the way there, Vladislav passed Pavel a liquid for arson. While the hearing was going on, Glushchenko burned Victoria«s car.

Biryukov was married four times, with four children from different wives. The first spouse—the missing Nastya. The second—this is the murdered Anna, they got back together after his fourth marriage. The third wife—Victoria, whose car was burned. The fourth—Margarita, who told on social media how Vladislav threw a child on the floor.

Vladislav Biryukov was sentenced to 16 years in colony for murder and organizing the arson of the car. Glushchenko got two years probation for arson and concealing the body.

In October 2022, it became known that Biryukov «disappeared» from the colony. He did not appear via video link at a court hearing for non-payment of alimony. And in the first half of 2023, his grave appeared at the new «Rostovskoye» cemetery—in the «Courage Quarter». Vladislav Biryukov died in the special military operation in March 2023.

Victims of the Saleswoman from Severny

Vera Kravets was looking for a healer for her sick husband, and her former classmate Natalya Palatkina knew about it. She called her friend, offering supposed help: Natalya, she said, had a healer acquaintance, living in the oblast, and she and her ex-husband Alexander could take Vera there. The esoteric service cost 180 thousand rubles (approximately $1,800 at current rates). But Vera only managed to get 45 thousand—borrowed from colleagues and acquaintances. There was actually no healer.

On 5 July 2017, Natasha with her ex-husband picked up Vera by car and drove to Rodionovo-Nesvetaysky District—allegedly, we«re going to the folk healer, she will help. Vera was asked to sit in the front seat under a contrived pretext.

When they arrived at a deserted place in the area of the SNT «Kombaynstroitel» (a gardening partnership), Palatkin pretended to be lost. He and Natalya got out of the car, exchanged a few words, after which Alexander pulled a belt from his jeans, got into the car behind Vera, and strangled her. Natalya held her former classmate by the legs, pressing her down with her weight to the seat.

When it was done, the Palatkins took from Vera 45 thousand rubles (approximately $450), two smartphones, a chain with a cross, three small and inexpensive icons, and a purse. The body was hidden in reed thickets.

After the murder, they began writing from Vera«s phone to her friend: allegedly she »went with the girls to Salsk«. The messages were illiterate and with turns of phrase that Vera did not use. By the way, this same friend had discouraged her from participating in the dubious event with healers.

«There was some kind of pun. Vera doesn»t write like that. A bunch of mistakes, surnames of classmates. We immediately understood that something bad had happened,« said her mother-in-law Vera Nikolaevna to the editors of 161.RU in 2017.

While Vera was riding in the car, she called her husband and said that she was riding with her classmate and her spouse and they got lost in the reeds somewhere in Temernitsky settlement. She also asked her husband to call her if she didn«t make contact herself. Half an hour later he called her, but no one answered the call anymore. Then he contacted the police. And later, the missing woman»s relatives came to Natalya, as they knew who had taken Vera.

«We knew that Vera had met with her classmate on the eve of her disappearance, so a few days after she went missing, our whole family with investigators visited her. This lady with a stone face told us that she knew nothing about it, she hadn»t seen Vera,« said the mother-in-law.

According to her, her daughter-in-law did not believe in any supernatural forces and healers, so it was strange that she decided to go to a clairvoyant.

The Palatkins were detained very quickly, and they immediately confessed to the murder. But during the investigation, something no less terrible came to light: Vera was not the first.

On a late August evening in 2016, Palatkina was drinking with her acquaintance Kirill (name changed. — Ed.). She owed him 50 thousand rubles, and Kirill repeatedly demanded the debt back. That day they also had a conversation about it.

Kirill had diphenhydramine in the alcohol, so he quickly fell asleep on the floor in one of the rooms. To avoid repaying the debt, Natalya decided to kill the creditor: she put a pillow on the sleeping man«s face and held it until Kirill suffocated. The body needed to be disposed of, and Natalya turned to her cousin and an acquaintance to take out the corpse. She told them that Kirill died from a drug overdose. He was taken to a grove near Dneprovsky Lane. During interrogation, Palatkina said that he took the pills himself.

In April 2017, Natalya and Alexander killed their acquaintance Victoria (name changed. — Ed.), who was looking for a fortune-teller. She was the owner of a stall on Komarova Street, where Natalya had worked for several years. Victoria really wanted to find her son, who was declared wanted, so she desired help from clairvoyants.

Further, the situation developed as in Vera«s case. Natalya said that she knew a fortune-teller, she lives in the oblast, and she and her husband would take her there. For the meeting, she needed to take more money—for the ritual. Victoria agreed, of course, not knowing that no fortune-teller existed.

Stopping in a deserted place, Alexander pretended that he needed to check the wheels. He and Natasha got out of the car, whispered, and then strangled the victim with a scarf-pashmina. The roles were distributed the same: the husband strangled, the wife held. When Victoria died, the couple took her 300 thousand rubles (approximately $3,000), an iPhone, as well as a jacket and a Gucci bag. The body was carried to the nearest forest belt, the taken items were thrown away, and the money was spent.

The Palatkins were convicted of robbery and murder. Natalya was given 18 years, Alexander—17 and a half.

Sneakers on the Shoulder

November 2019. A company engaged in landscaping was celebrating the end of the work season in a sauna. The fun ended, and colleagues began to disperse home: some by taxi, for others friends came, and 21-year-old Ruslan Popov decided to walk—he set off along the road from Bataysk to Rostov. He was never seen alive again.

When Ruslan«s relatives realized he was missing, they began to search for him with the police. They reviewed surveillance cameras that stood on his path, and spotted him walking along the highway. They walked along this section themselves—and found on the roadside Ruslan»s sneakers, glass fragments, blood, and drag marks. The missing man«s friends logically assumed that he had been hit by a car.

Three days after the disappearance, Ruslan»s body was found in the Azov morgue, where it had ended up from a forest belt. The forensic expert stated that he died from a strong blow.

The deceased«s relatives conducted their own investigation.

«From cameras at a gas station, they found the car that hit Ruslan, but the license plates weren»t visible, so they started looking simply for a similar car with a broken bumper,« the young man»s friends told a 161.RU correspondent.

And they succeeded. With the help of posts on social networks, acquaintances, and simply concerned citizens, relatives found the suspected car near one of the houses in the Michurinets settlement, Azov District. No one was home, and Ruslan«s relatives called the police. They cordoned off the house and the car.

It turned out that Ruslan was hit by senior district police officer Major Roman Lobanov from Azov District. Here is his version of events.

That evening, he was driving on the Rostov—Azov highway at a speed of 107 kilometers per hour with a permitted 90 kilometers (the actual speed was later confirmed in court by an expert—it was 107 kilometers, although Lobanov insisted that he was driving at 80 kilometers per hour). Suddenly he felt a blow, cracks appeared on the windshield, but he didn«t immediately understand what had happened.

Getting out of the car, the district officer saw a person lying on the road. He wanted to help on the spot, but didn«t know what to do. So he loaded Ruslan onto the back seat and drove to the Central City Hospital. But on the way, he realized that he had died, and decided to get rid of the body. The police officer hid it in a forest plantation, also throwing out from the car the back seat, soaked in blood. The verdict states that »he did not contact the police, as he experienced emotional shock, fear, and confusion.«

After the accident, Lobanov went on a business trip, from where he called his boss and told what had happened. When he returned, he showed where the body lay, and the investigation began. Lobanov admitted that he hit Ruslan, but denied that he violated traffic rules in doing so.

From the very beginning, the victim«s relatives feared that the case would be hushed up due to Roman Lobanov»s position.

In 2021, the district officer was sentenced to seven years in a general-regime colony. But a year later, Roman Lobanov«s guilty verdict was overturned, doubting the objectivity of Judge Elena Alyoshina, who sent the police officer to colony.

«In the decision, she indicated that »Lobanov«s guilt in committing the crime is confirmed by the testimony of the suspect, items seized during investigative actions, as well as other materials of the criminal case.» In the opinion of the cassation court, the judge having a certain position on the case before its consideration on the merits calls into question her impartiality and objectivity, and consequently, the fairness of the judicial proceedings,« states the cassation court»s decision.

From the general-regime colony, Lobanov was transferred to a settlement colony, and at the beginning of 2024 the fourth cassation court released him to freedom. The police officer was credited with the time he spent in pre-trial detention and the general-regime colony: one day in colony and one in pre-trial detention for two days of deprivation of liberty in the settlement colony.

Police Officer Shot Wife and Father-in-Law

The defendant in this case also worked in the internal affairs agencies. Sergey Kadatsky«s long title sounded like this: chief specialist of the weapons provision department of the organization of rear support directorate of the Don Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

On 11 July 2017, drunk Sergey Kadatsky sat in his car on the Rostov—Taganrog highway and lay in wait for his wife and father-in-law. They were supposed to drive this road, returning to Rostov from Kuibyshevsky District, where his wife Yelena (her and the father-in-law«s names changed. — Ed.) worked as a notary.

And so he saw the needed car, followed it, and forced it to stop. Then he approached and tried to pick a quarrel with his father-in-law Nikolai. He did not escalate the conflict with his drunk son-in-law and drove on. But Kadatsky rushed after. While catching up with the departing car, he took a hunting carbine from the back seat and, drawing level, shot seven times at his wife and father-in-law.

Their car swerved to the shoulder and stopped. Kadatsky approached the victims, taking a traumatic pistol. His wife was dead, and his father-in-law alive but seriously wounded, his arm hanging limp. He was lying on the ground. Kadatsky approached him, asked: «Well, should I finish you off?» Nikolai in response asked, who would raise the grandson now, since he killed Lena? To this, Sergey Kadatsky shot his father-in-law three times with the traumatic pistol—in the neck and the wound. Nikolai lost consciousness.

Drivers passing by brought him to his senses. Nikolai with his last strength said that Sergey Kadatsky had shot them, gave his wife«s phone number, and asked to quickly tell her what happened. He was very worried about his grandson: afraid that Kadatsky would harm him too. After this, Nikolai lost consciousness. Doctors brought him back to life—first the Chaltir hospital, then EMS-2. Unfortunately, Nikolai survived clinical death and lost his left arm. The shot from the rifle severely injured it.

Meanwhile, Kadatsky rushed to Rostov, where he turned towards the gardening partnership «Luch» and threw both the rifle and the pistol into the grass there. But on Voenvved he was detained by traffic police officers and delivered to the investigative department.

During the investigation, Yelena«s mother said that her daughter met Kadatsky in 2013 and married him two years later. Almost from the beginning of their relationship, he went on drinking binges, but did not consider himself an alcoholic. At the same time, he took sedative pills. Yelena, her mother says, loved Sergey and very much wanted a family. But once Kadatsky opened fire in the apartment, shot through the wall and the washing machine. Yelena kicked him out. But he didn»t want to break up. Once she returned home, and the locks in the apartment were gone. And inside—drunk Kadatsky. She had to kick him out again. Then he rented an apartment in the neighboring building.

According to Nikolai, as cited in the verdict, Yelena treated Kadatsky for alcoholism with her own money and supported him. And having received a rank and a good position, Kadatsky «began to feel like the minister of internal affairs.» Relations increasingly deteriorated, and then his wife decided to divorce him.

In court, Kadatsky confirmed that he indeed used sedative psychotropic drugs to calm his nervous system. Recently, he often quarreled with his wife, she kicked him out, and he periodically slept either in the car, or in hostels, or in apartments. Because of this, he began taking sedatives, so he said in his testimony.

A few days before the tragedy, Sergey went on a binge. And the day before, he quarreled with his wife again, texting with her on the phone. As he said, on 11 July he wanted simply to meet with Yelena and talk. Kadatsky knew when and how she would drive, and even bought a bottle of champagne to drink it with Yelena and make up.

But when he met his wife and father-in-law on the road, it seemed to him that they began to mock and taunt him, and then quickly drove away. And then Kadatsky allegedly had a clouding of reason, and he decided to kill both.

The court sentenced Sergey Kadatsky to 15 years in a strict-regime colony. He pleaded guilty and repented. But he will not serve his term—Kadatsky died in the special military operation. A 161.RU source in law enforcement structures noted that he was awarded a medal.