A Russian man who was convicted for torturing and killing his mother’s cat has been killed while fighting in Ukraine.
Artem Lavrentyev, a resident of the city of Severodvinsk in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, was sentenced in February 2022 to three-and-a-half years in prison for torturing 14-year-old cat Kuziya over the space of a week with his partner, Anna-Victoria Gromovich. Lavrentyev posted videos of the abuse on social media, Russian news outlet Sever.Realii reported on December 2.
Russia has reportedly been recruiting extensively from prisons for months to assist its war efforts in neighboring Ukraine. The British Ministry of Defense said in May that the Russian military has ramped up its recruitment of prison inmates this year, but the effort has not kept pace with its casualty rate in Ukraine.
News of Lavrentyev’s death was first reported by animal-rights advocates, who set up a page on Russian social-media network VKontakte in memory of the cat he killed.
“100% reliable information came through the military registration and enlistment office. Artem Lavrentyev, the flayer, is dead. He killed his mother’s cat together with his partner. 3.5 years in prison, deprivation of parental rights,” a post on the page published on November 30 read.
“From the colony, he asked to join the [war in Ukraine]. He went missing in the summer and was only found now. In January-February, what was left of him unburied for several months will be brought to his mother in Severodvinsk, in a closed coffin,” the page’s post added.
Group members posted two images of Lavrentyev, one allegedly taken before he killed Kuziya, and one afterward.
In the fall of 2021, Lavrentyev and his partner Gromovich stole Kuziya from his mother. Russian independent outlet Mediazona reported that Gromovich said she was torturing the cat to spite Lavrentyev’s mother.
Lavrentyev’s mother said Gromovich sent her threatening messages after killing her cat, and that she feared for her life. Kuziya’s body was reportedly returned to Lavrentyev’s mother after his death.
Lavrentyev was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison, and Gromovich was sentenced to three years and two months.
It isn’t clear when Lavrentyev was recruited by Russian authorities to fight in Ukraine. Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Defense Ministry via email for comment.
ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP/Getty Images
One animal-rights advocate told Sever.Realii that she had received the information abut his death from a “reliable source”, without elaborating. “Geographically, he died in Ukraine,” the advocate said.
The publication added that a source close to the Lavrentyev family also confirmed he was killed while participating in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
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