According to investigators, in January 2023, Senior Lieutenant Aydin Zhamidulov, along with other military men, was drinking in the Raduga cafe in Lugansk. Then a local resident, 23-year-old Valentina Davronova, with whom Aydin Zhamidulov had previously had an intimate relationship, came to the cafe. According to the girl’s mother, the soldier persistently pursued Valentina, but she invariably rejected his advances.
Fearing that Valentina would tell his wife about their alleged affair, Aydin Zhamidulov put the girl in the back of a KAMAZ truck. To avoid questions, Zhamidulov told his subordinates that Valentina served in the Ukrainian army and allegedly still works for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The girl was taken to a soldier’s bathhouse, where he stabbed her about two dozen times in different parts of her body. At that moment, the commander of the combat vehicle of the reconnaissance platoon, Sergeant Roman Pleshcheyev, entered the bathhouse. Aydin Zhamidulov ordered him to finish off the victim. Later, Alexey Dorozhkin came into the sauna, and Aydin Zhamidulov instructed him to finish what he had started. Dorozhkin killed the victim by stabbing him in the heart area.
After making sure that the girl was dead, Aydin Zhamidulov ordered his subordinates to take out the body and detonate it with 3 grenades. The victim’s mother believes that other soldiers heard the girl’s screams and knew about the murder.
The court sentenced Zhamidulov to 18 years in a penal colony. Alexey Dorozhkin, an accomplice to the murder, was given 12 years in prison. He pleaded guilty, but referred to Zhamidulov’s “senior order”. Initially, both were also charged with kidnapping and abusing the body of the deceased, but these charges were later dropped. Sergeant Roman Pleshcheyev received a suspended sentence — the court concluded that his stabbings could not have led to death. Reports on the verdicts of The BBC Russian Service quoted the mother of the deceased, who considers the punishment to be unfairly lenient.
At the end of 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense and Z-publics advertised Zhamidulov’s poems about the war. In an interview, he said that his 2 daughters and his wife are waiting for him at home and are “proud of him”.
Valentina had a little daughter.
