Two schoolgirls aged 15 and 16 have been detained by law enforcement officers following the violent murder of a 12-year-old boy in Kabanovo, a village in the Orekhovo-Zuyevsky district of the Moscow region.
The sixth-grade victim had been missing since August 26, when his mother contacted local police to report his disappearance. Search teams located his body the following day in the basement of an abandoned building, bearing multiple stab and incised wounds.
Regional prosecutors confirmed that criminal proceedings have been launched regarding the killing, with media outlets reporting the arrests on the evening of August 28. Officials indicated that a court will determine pre-trial restraint measures for both suspects shortly, while the regional prosecutor's office maintains oversight of the ongoing investigation.
Details of the alleged ambush
Residents of Kabanovo reported that the two teenagers acted according to a pre-arranged plan and filmed the assault on video. According to one account, the 12-year-old was lured into the vacant property under the pretext of sharing a beer.
Sources from the REN TV news network stated that the girls gathered gloves and knives before the meeting. To avoid detection by law enforcement agencies tracking mobile location data, they left their cellular phones at home prior to meeting the boy inside the structure, where they launched their attack.
The victim was known locally for his interest in motor vehicles and frequently created short videos for social media platforms. Reports from the Telegram news outlet Mash noted that the boy did not associate with troubled peers, while his mother stated she had never seen either of the suspect girls prior to the crime.
Conflicting accounts of the motive
Investigators are examining multiple theories regarding what drove the two teenagers to carry out the attack. News outlet Baza reported that the suspects told officers they wished to watch a person die and experience the sensation of acting as executioners, though sources cited by the outlet claimed the murder was not recorded on video.
An alternative motive reported by Mash suggested the suspects were involved in a romantic relationship. Under Russian legislation passed in late 2023, the international public LGBT movement is designated as an extremist organization and banned across the country.
According to Mash, the girls attended the same educational institution as the victim and feared he would expose their relationship after discovering it. Both suspects had recently completed ninth grade, which marks the completion of basic general education in the Russian schooling system, and had secured admission to vocational colleges to study nursing and tourism management.
Links to popular culture and previous violence
Reports from Mash linked the Moscow region attack to popular culture, noting it as the second violent incident connected to a television drama about mass killings. Approximately 20 hours before the murder, one of the suspect girls reposted a video compilation on TikTok featuring scenes from Squid Game, a South Korean survival drama series that depicts contestants being violently eliminated in deadly games.
The post drew parallels to a separate knife attack that occurred days earlier in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Bashkortostan region. In that case, a 16-year-old girl dressed in a black hooded outfit inspired by Squid Game had spent days scaring local children in the Zelenaya Rosha neighborhood.
On August 17, the attacker entered the home of two sisters in Ufa under the pretext of offering a hug before stabbing them. The victims' 10-year-old brother escaped to alert neighbors, who called emergency services. Both sisters were hospitalized in critical condition as doctors fought to save their lives, while authorities established that the assailant attended the same school as the older sister following a long-running personal feud.
Family reactions and expert commentary
Relatives of the suspects have expressed shock over the arrests. Speaking to Telegram channel 112, the sister of one suspect insisted the girl was incapable of such violence, describing her as gentle and caring, and noting that she had recently rescued and adopted a one-eyed kitten.
The sister added that she had spoken with her relative two days prior to the arrest without noticing anything unusual, explaining that the two suspect girls had met during ninth grade and formed a close friendship.
Criminologist Mikhail Ignatov commented on the case in an interview with Lenta.ru, characterizing the attack as part of a disturbing trend of animal cruelty among modern youth. Ignatov remarked that teenage groups today often appear more dangerous than organized criminal gangs from the 1990s, a period in post-Soviet Russian history marked by widespread economic volatility and street violence.
Ignatov stated that youth during that era did not commit sadistic murders for entertainment or thrill-seeking, describing the event in Kabanovo as murder for the sake of murder and suggesting it felt as though children were possessed by evil spirits.
