Outrage over damages: victims of gas explosion in Stupino refused compensation
Only two out of 68 victims have decided to claim compensation for damages in the case of a gas explosion in a five-storey building in Stupino near Moscow, Izvestia has found out. The rest believe that Alexei Zarubin, accused of the deaths of six people, will not be able to pay a penny, as he has no funds. November 29, Mosobloclast Court is to pass a verdict in the case. According to the investigation, Zarubin, being under the influence of alcohol and drugs, quarreled with his wife, closed the hood in the kitchen, opened the burners, filled the room with gas and set it on fire. The defendant does not admit guilt and assumes that the explosion was arranged by his dead wife. However, his arguments are not supported by the results of the examination. Details of the case - in the material "Izvestia".
What the accused said at the interrogation
Almost all victims in the case of the gas explosion in Stupino in April 2022 refused to file civil suits for compensation for damages, found out "Izvestia". Then the tragedy killed six people, including three children, 20 suffered. The damage caused to apartment owners amounted to 630 million rubles.
Alexei Zarubin, a resident of the same five-story building, is in the dock. According to the investigation, he, being under the influence of alcohol and drugs, quarreled with his wife, because of which he blocked the hood in the kitchen with a blanket, opened the burners, filled the room with gas and set it on fire with a lighter, causing an explosion. As a result, Zarubin's wife, his two children and three residents of neighboring apartments died.
Witnesses testified that Zarubin regularly consumed alcohol and drugs. At the court interrogation, he confirmed this. During the first interrogations, the minutes of which were familiarized by Izvestia, the defendant also said that in the apartment rented by his family, the stove was partially defective - one of its burners did not work. Zarubin noted that he removed the valve from it so that no one would try to turn it on.
"I plead guilty to leaving a blanket in the vent," he said. - I was not reliably aware that the blanket in question was interfering with the proper functioning of the vent passageway. The structure of the blanket was like thick gauze."
According to the defendant's version, on April 11, he woke up around five o'clock in the morning - his eldest daughter asked for water. After that, he went to the bathroom to smoke.
"I went into the toilet, closed the door, fumbled for a lighter, which is lit from a spark of flint, put a cigarette in my mouth, began to light the cigarette, and at that moment something happened," said the accused. - I instantly felt pain, heat, rumbling, I did not realize what happened. I did not lose consciousness. While lighting the cigarette, my eyes were closed, so I can't say anything about the ignition. I did not smell any gas.
Then, according to the defendant, he tried to get out of the room and caught his neck on the wires, then lost consciousness.
But after six months of questioning, Zarubin's testimony changed. According to court documents (Izvestia has them), the evening before the explosion he quarreled with his wife over drugs, and after the gas detonation, "he did not get his neck caught in the wires, but tried to kill himself."
"There was an argument with my spouse over her drug use, I told her they needed to quit because we had children growing up and how they might react to it," he said. - "She said to me, 'How will you react to the fact that your children are not your own?" I responded by telling her that I would leave her and do a genetic evaluation and sue her hard. I started threatening her that despite the results of the testing, I would still take the children because I raised them and consider them mine, love them very much and would not give them to her. Because of this, I believe that my spouse could have done something, which could have resulted in the explosion".
Discrepancy in testimony
The expert examinations conducted by the investigation indicated that the explosion was most likely triggered intentionally. For it to occur, the concentration of natural household gas in the room must be between 4% and 17%, they said. At the same time, there must be a corresponding odor in the air, which is impossible not to smell.
"On the gas stove, all four burners were open, and, in addition, the flexible supply line to the gas stove on the gas supply to it was slightly baited (the protocol does not specify what this means. - Ed.), which may indicate a rapid accumulation of domestic natural gas in the room to the explosion limit," the specialist explained. - Tentatively, taking into account the closed windows in the apartment and the plugged ventilation duct in the kitchen, the gas accumulation process could take no more than an hour".
In case of a longer accumulation of gas, four or five hours, the upper explosive limit in the room would have been exceeded, which would have led exclusively to a fire - without an explosion. In addition, such a concentration of gas in the surrounding air would have caused the sleeping occupants of the apartment to suffocate, cough, and consequently wake them up.
Zarubin noted in his testimony that he did not smell the odor, and the stove was turned off, so the gas could not have accumulated there. The experts also refuted the defendant's words that he had covered the ventilation with a blanket long before the explosion. They claim that in a month there would have been "powerful traces of fatty moss on it, but there are none." It could have been there for no more than two days, otherwise it would have crumpled, stuck together, and the surface of the blanket would have begun to rot and mold from moisture.
"The epicenter of the explosion, judging by the nature of the destruction of internal and external wall coverings, as well as roof ceilings, could be in apartment number 54 in the living room," explained the experts. - This is evidenced by the fact that the internal wall coverings in the apartment were thrown aside from the epicenter of the explosion. Also, the greatest destruction of the interfloor ceilings was formed in the living room and bedroom rooms, while the interfloor ceilings of the kitchen rooms were practically unaffected".
In July 2024, the Moscow Municipal Court was to pass a sentence on Alexei Zarubin on charges of murder of two or more persons, attempted murder, and willful destruction or damage to another person's property. However, the court resumed the judicial investigation and did not announce the decision. The postponement was due to the amount of damage, which the investigation estimated at 588, not 630 million rubles.
At the court session on November 29, the debate will take place, as well as, possibly, the verdict, "Izvestia" found out. Earlier, the prosecutor requested a life sentence for Zarubin.
- Everything that happened on April 11, 2022 is terrible," the accused said in his last word. - Many people lost their relatives and friends. I am sorry and sincerely condoled. I also lost my entire family. As a result, I have suffered bodily and moral trauma. I have been accused, I am in custody, no evidence of my guilt has been provided in all the time. They are making a maniac out of me, a law-abiding citizen. I have nothing to confess, I will only make things worse for myself.
As a result, 66 out of 68 victims in the case decided to refuse compensation for harm from the defendant, because they believe that "they will not see any money, because the defendant has nothing". Their housing was restored at the expense of the budget. But two more victims and local authorities will try to recover damages from Zarubin by filing civil suits with the court, where the defendant will be the defendant.
What threatens the defendant
The fact that the court resumed the judicial investigation in July will have no effect on the potential sentence for the defendant, as the process of additional investigation only concerned discrepancies in the amount of damage, criminal defense lawyer Alexei Gavrishev told Izvestia.
- 'Otherwise, the court has no doubts about anything on all signs of the crime,' he said. - This is a formality. Apart from the timing of the case and the amount of damage, no significant changes in liability are expected. The state prosecutor is likely to insist on a life sentence.
According to the expert, as a general rule, if Zarubin repays the damage and compensates for moral harm, the court will take this into account as a mitigating circumstance.
- One could assume that there are negotiations on this issue," added Alexei Gavrishev. - However, given that the defendant works as a blacksmith, and the amount of damage is in the hundreds of millions of rubles, one can't count on such a thing.
Psychologist and criminal profiler Marina Kalinova noted that the wife's statement that the children were not born to Zarubin could not have led to such spontaneous global consequences.
- Everyone fights, it happens," she said. - I don't rule out that he may have accumulated serious aggression or some kind of trigger. It is possible that he even had some hidden psychological diseases.
The factor of alcohol and drug addiction may have contributed to the fact that his aggression spread to other residents of the house, so he may have chosen such a way, wanting to punish everyone.
Most often in such situations a person is mentally responsible for his actions, i.e. he is sane, but he may have some psychological or mental disorders, the expert said.
