Voronezh teacher imprisoned for killing tyrannical husband

On 24 May 2025, Natasha* posted a photo on her personal social media page: she is smiling, with sparkling eyes, a glimpse of a bare knee, and a red rose at her lips. This same picture became her profile photo.

The last photo on the page—a cat curled up in a ball with the caption «my barometer predicted a cold snap»—is from 14 June of the same year. Between them, there was also a strange repost from a community of «mages, sorcerers, and witches,» but it has since been deleted. I was surprised: among her subscriptions—amid pages with recipes, jokes, and mommy sites—there were several «family astro-psychological» ones. A mother of many children—a teacher with a higher education—and «astrological attachments» and «how to hook a man by his zodiac sign»? But the further this story unraveled before me, the more neatly everything fell into place: there, at the bottom.

Less than a month will pass. On 10 July, one of Voronezh«s district courts will call Natasha a murderer who stabbed her husband Igor* twice with a knife, sentence her to six years in a standard-regime penal colony, and order her to pay the victim»s relatives half a million rubles ($5,000 at current rates) in «moral damages.» Natasha will be handcuffed and sent to a pre-trial detention center. Outside the window, a hellish heat of +33°C (91°F) will be standing.

***

On 3 December 2025, the regional court upheld the district court«s decision—rejected the appeals of Natasha and her lawyer, and at that same moment the sentence became legally binding. Three children—hers and Igor»s, two school-age and one preschooler—were left without both a father and a mother.

Natalia Fomina is 41 years old, a teacher. For no one—neither the investigation nor the court—was it a secret that the murdered Igor drank and beat Natalia. That evening on 27 January 2024, he was again not just drunk—in an almost unconscious state—and also hit her. Fomina and her lawyer insisted: she was defending herself—and exceeded the limits of necessary self-defense. The punishment for that is much less—a maximum of two years, and imprisonment is more the exception. Plus, if there are children under 14, the article provides for the right to a suspended sentence.

Fomina«s case was considered by four judges (one in the district, three in the regional panel)—two of them women. Both prosecutors were women. Natalia—a mother of many children and a victim of her victim—was not shown mercy.

Guardianship over the children was arranged by her 72-year-old disabled mother; the defense plans to complain further—to the cassation court. Only in this tragedy, for some reason, you really don«t feel sorry for anyone except the children.

The Beginning of the End

They got married when she was 23, he a bit older. A lovestruck girl-teacher and a railway institute graduate. The fact that they had no home of their own, and the son-in-law wasn«t particularly liked by the mother-in-law—for whom is that an obstacle? After the murder, Natalia»s mother—a former teacher herself—told journalists that they wandered from corner to corner for a long time, and only got an apartment when the second child was born. According to the mother-in-law, «largely thanks to Natalia»—apparently, her teacher status helped. But having children didn«t work out for a long time. And Igor started drinking, according to the mother-in-law, soon after the birth of the second child: the baby almost died, the son-in-law blamed Natalia for everything—and went off the rails. She says her daughter even complained that he was ready to kill her.

«Soon after the birth of the second child»—that«s over 10 years ago. The beginning of the wild tragedy is there. The further it went, the harsher Igor»s drinking bouts became—and the stronger his fists. He didn«t touch the children—he vented his drunken rage on her. In 2014, they divorced. Only Natalia didn»t throw out her beloved tyrant, didn«t gather up her son and daughter in her arms, didn»t slam the door, saving herself and them from drunken showdowns. And no one talked sense into her. No one ran to the police—to the Investigative Committee: children in danger. Although her mother and colleagues now say they saw bruises on her, that he fought and smashed everything in the apartment, Natalia even showed someone a clump of hair he had torn out—everyone knew everything.

The spiraling drunkard and the suffering woman continued to live together as a full-fledged family, having a third child.

From the appellate ruling of the Voronezh Regional Court:

«After drinking alcohol, he became aggressive, used violence against her, could slap her face a couple of times. Despite reports to the police, she always forgave him, because he was a good man, helped her and the children. Due to the fact that (Igor.—Ed.) periodically drank alcohol, their marriage was dissolved, but then they started living together again, because she loved him.»

A classic. Natalia would cover up another bruise and sob on her friend«s shoulder: »We have a special bond—we were married in church!« The investigator would later attach to the materials of her murder case Igor»s written promise where he swore to get coded and embark on the path of reform. And all this madness—in front of three children.

The problem is that Natalia not only «endured and forgave.» She periodically drank together with her «special one.» At any rate, she definitely did on the eve of the murder.

Heart and Liver Pierced

Testimony of Natalia Fomina from the district court«s verdict:

«On 26.01.2024, she and (Igor) were at home at the address (...), drinking alcoholic beverages in the kitchen, the children were also at home. Around 21:30 on 26.01.2024, (Igor) got dressed and left home. Where (...), she doesn»t know, it seemed to her he got drunk again and «flipped out,» unreasonably jealous of her. She went to sleep around 22:00 on 26.01.2024. The children also went to sleep, as they have a sleep schedule and go to bed around the same time. Around 04:00 on 27.01.2024, (Igor) returned home heavily intoxicated and went to sleep. He woke up (...), probably at 08:00 on 27.01.2024, and immediately after that started behaving inappropriately, woke her and the children, continued drinking beer. Due to (Igor«s) behavior, she and the children had to leave the house to wait for him to calm down. She dressed the youngest child, and they went to see the middle daughter off to a classmate»s birthday party. The eldest son went out with friends and later stayed at his grandmother«s.»

From the appellate ruling of the Voronezh Regional Court:

«Around 12:30, she returned home with her youngest son, who then stayed in a back room. After 15:00, (Igor) continued drinking beer in the kitchen, while she settled on a sofa in another room. At some point, (Igor) came into the room, under a contrived pretext pulled her off the sofa onto the floor, and punched her in the chin. She was talking on the phone with her friend (...) at that time. Feeling severe pain and fearing that (Igor) would continue beating her, she ran to the kitchen, as she couldn»t leave the apartment (the door handle was broken. According to Natalia«s mother, Igor broke it.—Ed.). In the kitchen, she took a knife from a stand, and since she had nowhere else to run, decided to scare (Igor) with it. She held the knife by the handle with the blade pointing down. At that time, (Igor) ran into the kitchen, took a glass and a 1.5-liter plastic beer bottle from the table. Approaching her, he swung and hit her on the head with the bottle in a glancing blow. In response, she stabbed (Igor) once with the knife in the chest area, after which he slumped to the floor and turned purple. Realizing he was dying, she called an ambulance and started giving him artificial respiration, but (Igor) stopped showing signs of life. She had no intent to kill (Igor).»

High relations in an intellectual teacher«s family with three children. The scandal that day happened over some coat that Igor couldn»t find. There were two knife blows, as experts established, the liver and heart were affected; the fatal one was an open chest wound damaging the heart, the length of the wound on the anterior surface of the chest approached 16 centimeters.

After the verdict, Natalia«s mother told journalists that on 25 January 2024, it was the son-in-law»s birthday, and from then on he «didn»t sober up,« and on the 27th, around four in the afternoon, her daughter called her with the words: »I stabbed Igor with a knife.« A medical alcohol test was conducted on Natalia only the day after the murder—the test was negative. Just a day later—on 29 January—she was released from the pre-trial detention center on a written pledge not to leave, despite the charge of intentional murder. The alcohol concentration in Igor»s corpse«s blood was 4.69 per mille—15.63 times more than the legal limit for driving: a comatose state.

Why Her Charge Wasn«t Mitigated

Six years in a colony—the minimum term for intentional murder. Among the bonuses—mitigating circumstances—were Natalia«s positive references with certificates and letters of gratitude, children, care for her mother, a group 2 disabled person, the call to 112 immediately after the crime, and the »unlawful behavior« of the victim. During interrogation by the investigator and during the investigative experiment, Natalia admitted that she stabbed her ex-husband from top to bottom in the left chest area—and showed exactly how. During a pathopsychological examination, she stated:

«(Igor) started picking on me, we started arguing, he came up to me, grabbed my left arm, hit me in the jaw, I fought back with my legs, kicked him in the genital area. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. He swung and threw a beer bottle at me, after which I rushed at him and stabbed him in the chest. I remember the blow itself vaguely, I remember rushing at him. After that, he slid to the floor.»

But. In court, she retracted this testimony. Insisted on forced self-defense and that she didn«t stab Igor with the blade, but pushed him away, defending herself and her son—she did not wish his death. The defense pressed that Natalia was interrogated immediately the night after the murder, then dragged to the »experiment.« According to the lawyers, all confessions about the knife blow and its mechanism were essentially squeezed out by psychological pressure, and the investigator was interested in nothing else. The examination that found Natalia fully sane, without »accumulation of emotional tension with perception of the situation as hopeless,« was conducted not in a hospital, and as a result, the preliminary investigation was completed in a record two months—checking the box for a solved particularly serious crime.

The court rejected the arguments: domestic drunken brawls—everything is obvious. The trial in the district, however, dragged on for a year and three months, out of nine hearings all nine were postponed, on the tenth—the verdict. But arguing with the court«s logic, in my opinion, is difficult. I quote from the appellate ruling—you can»t take words out of a song:

«Despite the dissolution of the marriage in 2014 and domestic conflicts between them on the grounds of the latter»s alcoholism, until the criminal event they continued to live together with the children in one residence and run a joint household. The convicted woman did not take any active measures to prevent (Igor) from being in her apartment, and consequently, from subjecting her to domestic violence, just as she did not take measures to bring the deceased to legal responsibility. On the contrary, as the guilty party explained, she loved (Igor), considered him a positive person who helped her and the children. Moreover, on the evening before the incident, they drank alcoholic beverages together, intending to go to the victim«s mother the next day to congratulate her on her birthday.»

The court also emphasized that there were two knife blows, not one—including in the area of vital organs. That even on that day—27 January 2024—when dead-drunk Igor once again let his hands fly, she didn«t call the police, didn»t run away from the house with the child. Yes, in those minutes he threatened to «do her in.» But the potential danger from a blow with a plastic bottle—even half-full—is not comparable to the threat from a blade 33.5 centimeters long. The injuries that Igor inflicted on Natalia a few minutes before the murder were deemed by experts not to be life- or health-threatening.

Dry facts, there are no emotions in the logic of the law. Although had there been a jury, the outcome—I don«t exclude—could have been different.

Instead of an Afterword

On her personal social media page, Natalia has many photos—around three hundred since 2017. Children, children, her with children, children. At home, in cafes, on excursions, at the sea, gifts, toys. Children—pride, children—joy and her meaning.

Not a single photo together with Igor. There are only four pictures—him with one of the children—and one of them Natalia posted several months after the murder. Her friend later told journalists that Natalia confessed to her: it«s hard, she said, without him—she misses him.

After the verdict, Natalia«s and Igor»s relatives poured buckets of dirt on each other through the media, proving how much they love their joint children. Only for over 10 years, everyone was satisfied—for some reason.

The key to this story is in the prosecutor«s words, later widely circulated by the press: Natalia did not have a state of prolonged psychological trauma because she had adapted to such a life.

I«ll tell you more. When on that last day he chased her around the house drunk, she—remember?—was talking on the phone with a friend. In court, this friend—a colleague—confirmed she heard everything. Natalia»s mother told the court: shortly before the call with the message «I stabbed him,» her daughter also called her—complaining that he was chasing her. Neither the friend nor the mother called the police. The neighbors, of course, also heard nothing unusual.

It«s not Natalia who »adapted«—it»s that in a society where on every corner irons squeal about «family values» and «increasing demographics,» the Domostroy-era «he beats—means he loves, love and endure» is by default considered a variant of the norm. If only for the sake of the housing issue.

***

I have no doubt that Natalia Fomina will be released on parole. And I«m sure the Moloch of our penitentiary system won»t swallow her. Although—the cassation appeal is ahead, and the story could still turn around. We will return to the topic of domestic violence and overcoming this fatal «family matter, no need to complain, and we won»t interfere.« For now—something encouraging.

On 22 January, the Investigative Committee reported that in Krasnodar Krai (a region in southern Russia), a check is being conducted for signs of torture and death threats after a local woman published an online video appeal to Alexander Bastrykin—her son-in-law systematically uses violence against her daughter and little granddaughter, during a recent quarrel he brutally beat them, the police are inactive. Bastrykin instructed his Krasnodar colleagues not to stand on ceremony with «checks» and to open a criminal case with a report on his desk.

The norm—is this: the realization that a woman is not property, and effective action against those who still don«t understand. Be it »drunken pants« in the kitchen or lazy police.

*The personal data of the publication«s characters have been changed.