Dmitry Zelensky had been serving an 11-year sentence for killing university graduate Tatiana Melekhina (Picture: east2west)
A Russian killer who throttled his lover then put her body through a meat grinder and flushed the remains down the toilet has been pardoned by Vladimir Putin for fighting in his war in Ukraine.
Dmitry Zelensky, 41, had been serving an 11-year sentence at a high security penal colony over the death of 27-year-old university graduate Tatiana Melekhina.
Police later said his ‘exceptional cruelty’ in the killing had ‘shocked even hardened detectives’.
‘He did not just dismember her body, he separated the meat and bones, and made mincemeat,’ a source said.
‘Then he washed this mincemeat down the toilet into the sewage system. He threw the bones into the river.
‘This was his plan to hide the murder.’
When Zelensky’s wife found out about his mistress’s demise, she said: ‘I don’t know what to say now…I didn’t know he could be so cruel.’
Tatiana Melekhina’s murder ‘shocked even hardened detectives’ (Picture: Social media/east2west newss)
His pardon and release from prison was confirmed by his mother, Galina.
‘My son went to the [war] for many reasons – he wanted to atone for what he had done,’ she said.
Zelensky was one of thousands of prisoners recruited straight from jail under a scheme concocted by late Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to bolster Putin’s forces in Ukraine.
Speaking in June, he claimed 32,000 recruits were on their way back to Russia with clean records.
Dmitry Zelensky with his wife, also named Tatiana (Picture: Social media/east2west newss)
There have been several reports of serious offences, including rape and murder, being committed by Wagner ex-convicts released early.
The graduate’s sister, Oksana, was outraged to find out her killer had been freed.
She said: ‘At his trial, it was declared that we would be notified of where he was, and his movements. We were never told anything.
‘My father has written to ask for details, but no-one answers us.’
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