Russian "Bonnie and Clyde"

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A story a bit off-topic yet involving death, investigation, and media and attracting attention and debate in Russia. It was discussed on Kasparov.ru by 'Russian Bellingcat' Ruslan Leviev, and on a nationally televised talk show Пусть говорят ('Let's talk/let them talk') on the main TV channel 1, with moms and pops arguing about causes of such situation.

  • The two were dead after police stormed the house. After watching their 1.5 hour long live video stream, it is hard but not to conclude that they did not want to die, and, according to what they said on video, that they threw their weapons out of the house. However, apparently, the latter was not accurate, they kept one of the two shotguns, and used it to commit suicide together.

Brief outline here. Two schoolkids from Pskov, Denis Muraviev and Ekaterina Vlasova, about 15 years old, together for about half a year, run away from parents and were in hiding for 3 days after altercations with Katya parents. Events started to unfold after Katya was not allowed to stay at her female friend place overnight, went ahead with it anyway, and was found and as she says was treated roughly by her adopted father. At some point, she was arguing with her mother and grandmother holding to a knife for no particular reason. The knife was taken from her and she received cuts on her hands in the process. Denis was with her at the time and came to her defense. This all ended with him making a shot from a traumatic weapon in the direction of her mother and wounding her in a leg.

After all this, they run away together to a summer house owned, apparently, by her adopted father, who was in police or security forces and had weapons in the house. More mischief followed, they destroyed a TV set, broke in a neighbor sauna house, shot two dogs. That followed by Denis making several shots in the direction of two police cars which arrived to the scene. They went online via 'Periscope' streaming service, making some shots at a police car on the video, and getting online with their friends, apparently from the same school. There are various length versions of the stream online including this one , 1:41:12 length, the longest I could find. There is some chat on the stream using plenty of colloquial bad language, where they describe their predicament and receive their friends comments on the live video feed. We see, looking in fast mode, at least, a handgun, a shotgun, and some hunting type ammunition suitable for a shotgun. They say that 'Sobol' (Russian MOI spetsnaz unit) was called, and that they may be killed, but they have done enough by now and may be locked up for a long time, --they somehow believe it would be for 25 years (though nobody was seriously hurt at this point). They say that parents arrived too and are behind Sobol speznaz. The kids were not inclined to give up anyway. At about 1:28:00 into the long video, Katya is breaking down a bit and says it is frightening; but she pulls herself together and they say that weapons were taken from them, including knifes, in exchange for giving them more time to think it over. They describe throwing away a shotgun from the house. They say that they now cannot commit a suicide as no weapons are left except, they say, a kitchen ladle. Video ends peacefully with them saying some farewells to their online friends.

Short police storm youtube video linked by Kasparov.ru starts with a blow sound apparently due to police officer breaking lower window. They shout , 'Denis, come out now! Come out, stop fooling around! Everybody is tired already! Calmly, come out, just don't do anything stupid'--while speznaz is entering the building on the ground floor. Jump cut on the video, starts with more smokey feed, no people on the outside, apart from a silhouette of one speznaz on the left behind the fence. That follows by a loud bang on the second floor-either him or those inside the house deploy a stun grenade (to disorient those inside). Stun grenade use is mentioned in media reports quoting security sources. Video ends here.

A longer version includes footage sometime after the storm, not adding much to shorter version.
Amateur long version, 6:13. Smoke deployed (0:30), possibly a shot fired (?)(indistinct) at around 1:32, followed by stun grenade explosion at 1:36

We are told by media sources that the kids were found with gunshot wounds as they committed suicide. On liberal -leaning lenta.ru we read a brief an account of a 'friend' telling that they wrote to him that they are going to commit a suicide. Katya is fearful so that Denis will shoot her in the back of the head and kill himself after that. Lenta or other media accounts do not make clear how those statements of a friend relate to the live video feed where we seem to have an entirely different story. They did not tell the truth on live video and kept a weapon? That remains unclear.

Rs, 19 Nov. 2016

Very brief footage right after the storm released by police can be seen on this video, also here; does not help much with what happened. Blood near and at the coach, maybe a suicide, not convincingly so from what was released (At the end of second video, Natalya Karpovich, decorated sportswoman turned politician and president of "Protecting childhood" foundation: they viewed all that as a video game, did not fully realize that they will not come back).

There were two shotguns, Stechkin (?) handgun (possibly blanks; she is loading here and here on video but not seen clearly; makes a shot at TV set with little damage to the screen), ammo for both, a knife --seen on his instagram . Also her adopted father shoulder straps, in the rank of captain, (new style Police , circular ending unlike similar but trapezoidal ending for (interior troops MOI?. --Those storming are spetsnaz MOI -whether those were acting was an issue raised on kasparov.ru ; maybe/uncertain).

According to Echo Moskvy version, adopted father was with storming troops, and figured that they threw away one shotgun and 'a traumatic handgun' but one shotgun was still left at the house. Katya comment, roughly 1:28:00, appears to say that it was her mother who collected the weapons (she talks about some well-familiar woman doing that but 'mother' is indistinct on video, possibly somebody else).

Some details, interviews in this NTV report. There were school psychologists but they were not called. Negotiations were done by police.

Posthumous photos appeared, -consistent with suicide.