Two Russian women acquitted of murdering abusive husbands in rare court decisions

'It is very difficult to explain in Russia that domestic violence is not a family conflict, it is violence'

'A man beating his wife is less offensive than when a man is humiliated,' Yelena Mizulina, the lawmaker who led the effort to decriminalise domestic abuse, told reporters in 2016 (iStock)

When Yana Gurcheva and Galina Katorova were arrested for stabbing their husbands to death with kitchen knives after suffering years of domestic abuse, the murder cases stirred hardly a ripple in Russia’s national news media.

But they exploded into a national conversation this year when appeals courts on opposite ends of the country did the previously unthinkable and acquitted the two women.

For a country that decriminalised some forms of domestic violence in 2017, the separate court findings that the women had acted in legitimate self-defence when in fear for their lives were considered shocking, if not unprecedented.

“Here, the woman is always the accused; for some reason the sympathy always lies with the aggressor,” said Yelena Solovyova, the defence lawyer for Ms Katorova in Nakhodka, near Vladivostok in the country’s far east. “This was such an ideological victory for me, because for the first time the court heard that you cannot blame the victim, you cannot transfer all the blame to the woman.”

The verdicts illuminated what has been an extended struggle between two camps over the issue of domestic violence. On one side are those who think the state scandalously ignores the problem, allowing it to fester by offering little legal or physical protection to countless victims.

The other side, conservatives allied with the Russian Orthodox Church, argues that in accordance with the “traditional family values” espoused by president Vladimir Putin, the state should not interfere in domestic matters.

“A man beating his wife is less offensive than when a man is humiliated,” Yelena Mizulina, the lawmaker who led the effort to decriminalise domestic abuse, told reporters in 2016. She added that it was “mandatory” for a woman to respect her husband as the “authority” in the marriage.

Whereas abusers had previously faced up to two years in jail, under the new statute they risked only 15 days, or a maximum fine of about $440 (£340), or 60 to 120 hours of community service. That was for any act against a spouse or child that causes bruising or bleeding but not a broken bone, as long as it did not happen more than once a year.

The law did not address the common plight of women like Ms Gurcheva and Ms Katorova.

Ms Gurcheva, 37, an engineer, prepared cost estimates for a construction company. Her common-law husband, Vasily I Yurchik, 40, a Ukrainian, worked various construction jobs. A clever, athletic man when younger, he turned into a sour alcoholic and started hitting her.

“It was all gradual,” she said in an interview in her lawyer’s office. “You hope it will get better, but we now know the outcome.”

On the night in question, waking from a drunken stupor and discovering that she had cooked dinner only for herself, he began beating and choking her. Flailing about with her hands to find something to hit him with, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the upper chest.

“I was afraid for myself and for my children,” she said. “I reached my limit and wanted to hit him with something, anything. If I had found a toy on the table, I would have hit him with that. I didn’t even look to see what was there. It happened to be a knife.”

As he staggered away, she wiped a few blood spots off the floor so her two young daughters would not see them. She called an ambulance, but by the time it arrived with police around 20 minutes later, Mr Yurchik was dead.

The knife had penetrated more than 4 inches and severed an artery.

At trial, the prosecutor argued that Ms Gurcheva was guilty of murder because she did not flee the apartment during the fight. It is a standard accusation in such cases.

The court ignored that her husband had stood between her and the door of their studio, and that she did not want to abandon her two young daughters to an enraged drunk. Her sentence was swift and typical: six years.

In Ms Gurcheva’s appeal, her lawyer, Alexander Fomin, overcame the usual problem of a lack of witnesses by deposing the eldest of the two daughters, 4-year-old Daria.

The girl spoke in simple sentences, said Mr Fomin, paraphrasing her. “Mommy and Daddy fought. They said bad words. They fought often. This time, Daddy took Mommy by the throat and choked her. Mommy hit him with a knife.”

Ms Katorova, 40, was fortunate also to have a witness.

A neighbour present when the fight erupted tried to separate the couple before Mr Katorova’s husband, Maxim Katorov, roughly shoved him away. The neighbour retreated to a balcony. From there he could see Mr Katorov beating Ms Katorova before trying to strangle her with a rope — until she lashed out with a knife that shortly before had been used to cut cheese.

She was initially sentenced to three years, a remarkably light penalty by Russian standards.

Women’s rights advocates believe that domestic violence affects about 30 per cent of households in Russia — on par with many other countries, they said, except that Russia does not address the problem.

“It is very difficult to explain in Russia that domestic violence is not a family conflict, it is violence,” said Marina Pisklakova-Parker, founder of the National Centre for the Prevention of Violence, also known by its Russian acronym, Anna. “Our main problem is the lack of a system of response.”

Some liberal church figures have helped open shelters, but the numbers are limited. There are no legal instruments like restraining orders for women to seek protection from law enforcement agencies, and little immediate chance of creating them.

Opponents say that such legalities would undermine the husband’s role and hence “traditional families”. Any such law, they argue, is an attempt to impose liberal Western values and hence destroy Russian customs — a favourite theme among core Putin supporters.

“For us, the problem of unequal rights does not exist,” Anna Kislichenko, a conservative blogger, said in an interview. “Women here in their minds believe that they are equal.”

Courts reflect the prevailing attitude. In Ms Katorova’s trial, corroborating testimony unexpectedly came from her mother-in-law, who was seeking financial compensation for her son’s death. Of course her son beat his wife, she testified, but Ms Katorova deserved it because she was excessively jealous of his contacts with other woman after he had at least one affair.

“Russians have long expected women to be silent in order to preserve the family,” said Pisklakova-Parker of Anna. “If a family is emotionally sick, it is the woman’s fault.”

There are signs that some attitudes are changing, however.

In a poll released in August, almost 55 per cent of respondents said domestic violence should be a criminal offence in Russia, more than 24 per cent favoured decriminalisation and almost 21 per cent were unsure.

In the survey, conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation, 79 per cent of respondents called violence “unjustifiable” in any domestic argument. The survey of 1,500 people had a 3.6 margin of error.

Ultimately, Ma Katorova passed a year in jail separated from her daughter while her case ground through the courts. Ms Gurcheva lived with 50 other women in a cell in Moscow’s Detention Centre No 6 for nine months.

“I hope that I am not the only one like this,” Ms Gurcheva said. “There are many women who end up in the same situation, who unfortunately are accused of murder and given long jail terms.”

“If this changes something,” she said, “it will be very good.”

The New York Times