In Yekaterinburg, the defense for former closed special school No. 124 director Nataliya Poddubnaya is seeking to have the negligence case against her terminated and to secure her full rehabilitation. This was reported by the outlet Vetter, which first published the text. According to lawyer Yuliya Lapteva, the motion was sent to investigators back in July, but remained unanswered for about five months, after which the defense challenged the Investigative Committee’s inaction.
Lapteva said the case was opened under Article 293 Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code, which covers minor offenses with a two-year statute of limitations. In her account, that period has already expired, while the investigation has still not produced evidence that her client committed any crime.
“I filed a motion to terminate the case on rehabilitative grounds because the investigation has still been unable to prove that my client committed any offense at all,” the lawyer told Vetter.
The scandal around the special school erupted in April 2023, when one of the pupils ran away and described violence by other students, including sexualized abuse. He said a 70-year-old teacher organized “comradely trials” for teenagers accused of misconduct and taught them prison-style rules. Investigators later recorded 12 episodes of such abuse, and two pupils were officially recognized as victims. As Lapteva noted, the incidents themselves dated back to October 2022, but only became public in the spring that followed.
After the case became public, three pupils were arrested on charges of violent sexual acts. In June 2024, the Chkalovsky District Court of Yekaterinburg sentenced them: one received 7 years in a juvenile correctional colony, while the other two were given 9 years and 9 years and 1 month in prison. Two of them were also ordered to pay 500,000 rubles each in moral damages to the victims. In November, the regional court later reduced those sentences by several months.
Poddubnaya herself was convicted of negligence in June 2024, sentenced to 11 months of corrective labor, and banned for two years from holding managerial positions in state institutions. The court found that she knew what was happening at the school but neither helped the child nor reported the crimes. Poddubnaya denied guilt. In February 2025, a cassation court overturned the verdict and sent the materials back for reconsideration, and in March they were returned to the prosecutor to correct deficiencies. A hearing on the complaint over investigative inaction is scheduled for October 22.