The case of Lyosha the Soldier. Why is the most famous killer of the nineties in prison?

One of the most famous killers of the 1990s, Alexei Sherstobitov, nicknamed Lyosha the Soldier, has been serving a sentence in a high-security penal colony for almost 20 years. During his criminal career, he committed a number of high-profile murders of crime bosses and businessmen. He will be released no earlier than February 2029, although the media regularly write about his supposedly imminent release on parole. How the mercenary of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group became famous is in the Izvestia article.

What crimes is Sherstobitov known for?

• Since the early 1990s, Sherstobitov became a mercenary for the Orekhovskaya organized criminal group (OCG)— one of Moscow's most famous gangs. The first order for the killer was the murder of ex-employee of the Moscow police department Mikhail Fomin (Filin) — the reason was a conflict with the leader of the organized crime group Sergei Trofimov (Sylvester). In 1993, Sherstobitov tried to eliminate Fomin with a shot from a grenade launcher, but the shell flew past, and the victim's fingers were only torn off by the blast wave.

• Sherstobitov committed his first full-fledged murder in the same 1993. Another leader of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group, Grigory Gusyatinsky (Grini), ordered the defeat of the Medvedkovsky organized crime group brigade led by Igor Yurkov (Boa Constrictor). Lyosha, a soldier, shot him, but his henchmen did not take the authority to the hospital, and he died soon after. Sherstobitov then destroyed two accomplices of the Boa Constrictor — Stanislav Kosenkov (Stas) and Leonid Chistyakov (Panteley).

• The next order for Sherstobitov was secured after Sylvester's conflict with the thief in law Andrei Isaev (Painting). The killer planted explosives in a car near his house and blew it up when the criminal boss came out of the entrance. Isaev survived, but his bodyguard Sergei Shaifulin and a girl playing next to the car died. Her friend became disabled. In the future, Sherstobitov assured the court that before the explosion he had asked the children to go play somewhere else, but had overlooked the moment when they returned.

• Sherstobitov's most notorious crime was the murder of crime boss Otari Kvantrishvili (Otarik), again ordered by Sylvester. This time, the mercenary chose to use a sniper rifle. With her help, he accurately shot three times at Kvantrishvili, who was leaving the Krasnopresnensky baths in the center of Moscow.

• In September 1994, Timofeev was killed (his murder remained unsolved). Gusyatinsky and Sherstobitov left for Ukraine for security reasons, but at that time the power in the Orekhovskaya organized crime group was seized by the brothers Oleg and Andrey Pylev. They ordered Lyosha the Soldier to kill the former leader. He used a sniper rifle again, hitting Gusyatinsky when he approached the apartment window in Kiev. After several days of coma, the authority was disconnected from life support systems.

• For a while, Sherstobitov retired from executing orders, becoming the leader of his own brigade. But in 1997, he executed an order for the murder of businessman Joseph Glotzer, the co—founder of Rostiks and the owner of several nightclubs. Sherstobitov accidentally noticed Glotzer standing at the entrance to his own establishment and killed him with a precise shot to the temple from a revolver with 47 m.

• Glotzer's murder was committed at the request of Alexander Tarantsev, president of the Russian Gold company. Two years later, he crossed the road to the top of the Orekhovskaya organized crime group and almost became a victim of Sherstobitov himself. Due to the fact that Tarantsev was scrupulous about his safety, a particularly sophisticated method of killing him was developed — using a machine gun installed in the car, which the killer controlled remotely. However, at the right moment, the mechanism malfunctioned. The machine gun fired a clip only two hours later, killing Tarantsev's guard and injuring two people driving by in a truck.

In 1997, the Sherstobitov group received an order to eliminate the leaders of the Izmailovo organized crime group. It was decided to install two explosive devices in a car wash and a cafe where competitors could be. However, only random people were injured by these explosions — a cafe customer, Valentina Shchetinina, was killed, her neighbor was seriously injured, and the waitress had her eye gouged out.

How Sherstobitov appeared in court

• After the assassination attempt on Tarantsev, Sherstobitov decided to leave the criminal world. He tried to legalize himself with a fake passport and started a family. Due to the fact that the killer carefully observed secrecy, successfully disguised himself and did not leave traces at the crime scene, he managed to live for several years to his heart's content. Former accomplices who ended up behind bars tried to testify against him, but they themselves knew too little about Sherstobitov to pinpoint him.

• The murderer was caught due to the fact that he got involved in a dispute between the shareholders of NPO Fizika, hoping to formalize a share in the business. The operatives drew attention to the conflict and took Sherstobitov into development. In February 2006, Lesha the Soldier was detained and began to actively cooperate with the investigation, exposing his criminal bosses.

• The first trial against Sherstobitov took place in the same year 2006. He appeared in the dock with two accomplices. The cases of the Izmailovo bombings and the attempted assassination of Tarantsev were considered against them. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for participating in an organized community, murder and attempted murder.

• After that, another trial began, in which the killer was charged with all the other crimes he had committed that the investigation could find out about. Sherstobitov assured that he tried to keep the number of victims to a minimum, refused to carry out orders if women and children could suffer, and retired from criminal activity. The jury ruled that Sherstobitov was guilty and worthy of leniency, but the judge still sentenced him to another 10 years of imprisonment in a high-security colony. At the same time, Sherstobitov still received the award "For personal Courage" — he received it during his studies for his help in catching a criminal.

How is Sherstobitov serving his sentence

• Sherstobitov spent four years in jail, after which he was transferred to penal colony No. 6 in the Lipetsk region. It is often reported in the media that he is serving his sentence in IK-2, but it is a general regime colony. The killer is expected to be released in February 2029, when he will be 62 years old. Although Sherstobitov has the right to apply for parole, he has never used it yet.

• In conclusion, Sherstobitov gained considerable popularity. He wrote a trilogy of books, The Liquidator, about his criminal past, in which he spoke in detail about the murders committed and the preparation for them, as well as about the underworld behind the scenes. He has also written several books in the genre of thriller and science fiction. Sherstobitov also often gave interviews in which he spoke not only about himself, but also commented on high-profile murders.

• In 2016, while in prison, Sherstobitov married for the third time. His fiancee was the ex-wife of actor Sergei Druzhko Marina. At their wedding, they staged a photoshoot in the style of American gangsters. They divorced in 2024.