Pskov's Bonnie and Clyde

Denis Muravyov and Ekaterina Vlasova were two 15-year-old teenagers from Pskov, Russia who barricaded themselves in a private house in Strugi Krasnye on the afternoon of November 14, 2016 and opened fire on police officers before committing suicide. They showed the whole event on their social media pages, broadcasting on Periscope and calling themselves the Russian Bonnie and Clyde. The case caused a wide resonance and discussion online.

Pskov's Bonnie and Clyde
Location	Strugi Krasnye, Russia, Kudryavtsev Street
Date	14 november 2016
Attack type	shotgun, suicide
Deaths	attackers' suicide
Perpetrators	Denis Muravyov, Ekaterina Vlasova
Motive	Quarrel with relatives, desire for popularity

Background

Denis Muravyev and Katya Vlasova met at school in the spring of 2016. After meeting, Muravyev and Vlasova added each other in VKontakte. The two continued to meet in person and soon began dating.

Course of events

On the morning of 11 November, Muravyev took his mother's bank card from her bag, which he used to withdraw money for two tickets for a shuttle bus to Strug Krasnye. Muravyev and Vlasova ran away from home following a quarrel with their parents. The parents started searching for them and called the police. On the afternoon of 14 November, the teenagers were found in a dacha house 80 kilometers from Pskov, belonging to the Vlasova's stepfather. There the schoolchildren had been hiding from their parents for three days and planned to “sit out". The teenagers barricaded themselves in the room, opened the stepfather's safe, which contained weapons. Shortly before that, Denis wounded the girl's mother who had come to the address to look for them. On Monday, a police car pulled up to the house on Kudryavtsev Street. The teenagers opened fire at her from the second floor window, the police tried to negotiate with the teenagers for several hours, eventually deciding to launch an assault.

Before the suicide, the teenagers posted identical farewell messages to their relatives on their VKontakte pages, accusing them of “destroying their psyche and lives".

Investigation

Muravyev and Vlasova's parents were recognized as victims, and several criminal cases were opened, including negligence, negligent storage of firearms, and abuse of power by law enforcers.

According to a representative of the Department of Internal Affairs in the Pskov region, law enforcers went to the village of Strugi Krasnye to check information about Muravyev, who had been reported missing. When the police officers were fired upon, they blocked the building and entered into negotiations with the teenagers. The teenagers did not make any demands.

Charging law enforcers with murdering teenagers

A number of media outlets and online users speculated and accused law enforcers of deliberately killing the teens. Prosecutors claimed that the pair committed suicide before the SWAT team approached their room. On the live feed, the teens discussed that they did not want to commit suicide and that they had no ammunition left to fight a gunfight. The version that Muravyev shot Vlasova and then himself contradicts their words about the lack of ammunition. Social media reacted to this contradiction. Since Rosgvardia, claims that the police special forces did not open fire during the attack, some users speculate that the teens may have lied that they ran out of ammunition

A police officer who failed to check a report of missing teenagers in the Pskov region was charged with negligence. After receiving a report about the missing minors, the officer failed to organize proper verification of the report, collecting and studying data about the personalities and social circle of the teenagers.

Denis Muravyev's family stated that they believed the officers who arrived on the scene acted wrongly, leaving the teenagers with no choice other than suicide.

Popularity and online discussions

This tragedy instantly became a topic of discussion among the peers of the deceased teenagers. Groups dedicated to Muravyev and Vlasova began to appear on social networks. Young people quote them in their statuses, write posts calling them “defenseless and freedom fighters”, and compose fanfics. The total number of subscribers to the groups amounted to almost 25,000. 60% of them are girls. Romantic interpretations of the tragedy appeared online. Teenagers began to be compared to Bonnie and Clyde - famous American robber-lovers.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, several theories emerged to explain what had happened. Speaking on the radio station “Govorit Moskva”, a clinical psychologist suggested that the teenagers could have joined a sect or suffered from mental illness.

MP Elena Mizulina, on her Twitter page, blamed the tragedy on computer games.

In popular culture

British composer Philip Venables adapted the event into an opera called Denis & Katya. It premiered in Philadelphia in 2019 and in the United Kingdom in 2020.

On June 23, 2022, the Russian crime drama "Interseason" based on the case of Pskov teenagers was released.