The Wooden Coffin Case: Child Abuse, War Veterans, and Prison Torture in Russia

In this episode of From Russia with Fear, we uncover three shocking stories from modern Russia. A two-year-old girl named Sonya was locked inside a wooden coffin-like box by her own parents and slowly starved to death in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Investigators say the child was unwanted, isolated, barely fed, and hidden from the world until she died from exhaustion. Then, we look at the case of an SVO veteran who deserted the military and carried out a series of burglaries while hiding in the Moscow region. Despite multiple thefts and desertion, the court treated his war service and medal as mitigating circumstances. And finally — a surreal new business emerging in Russia: “insurance policies” protecting prisoners from torture, beatings, and abuse inside Russian prisons and detention centers. This episode explores how cruelty, violence, and fear are becoming normalized across Russian society — from family homes to prisons and the battlefield.