This distressing scene involves a Russian soldier lamenting, “I’ll be killed in prison,” after receiving a life sentence for the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl.

Ruslan Shingirey, a 26-year-old truck driver, was convicted of the abduction and suffocation of young Masha Zyubina, followed by a heinous sexual assault, securing him a life term in prison.

The brutal murder came shortly after he was demobilised by the Russian army.

Shingirey told a court he gave the girl a lift in his truck after promising to drive her home.

Haunting footage showed him in his truck as he stalked the girl along a village road. 

Instead of dropping her home, Shingirey confessed to “driving to a wooded area, and tying her hands”.

He told prosecutors: “It was clear she was frightened. She didn’t say or do anything.”

The paedophile then said he put a plastic bag over her head and raped her.

He initially admitted to leaving her for dead following the attack but is now believed to have murdered her.

Shingirey was asked shortly before being sentenced: “After the rape, did you kill her straight away, strangle her?”

He chillingly responded: “I didn’t take the plastic bag off her head.”

In court, the convicted paedophile expressed his anxiety over the possibility of being murdered by fellow inmates due to the nature of his crime.

His fear for his safety was evident even before his arrest, as police had to protect his home in Dorozhny, Rostov region, from enraged locals intent on dispensing their own justice.

The court later convicted him of abduction, rape, other violent sexual acts, and murder by strangulation.

Masha’s aunt Olga Sharnikova asked at the girl’s funeral how such a killing could happen in a “humane society”.

The shocking case is believed to be one of hundreds of examples of violent crimes committed by war returnees in Russia. 

A report from Ukraine highlighted the brutality of those involved in the conflict, describing them as individuals who kill indiscriminately and take pleasure in their crimes, all for monetary gain.

Speaking on Shingirey’s case in particluar, the report added: “Shingirey is calm because he knows that nothing will happen to him.”

They believe that he will serve only a short time in jail before being shipped back off to the battlefield.

Putin has quashed the criminal cases and sentences of tens of thousands of Russians so they can fight in his war. 

Last year, Putin signed a bill that enables offenders to dodge prosecution and criminal proceedings against them if they enlist to fight in Ukraine.

Legal professionals criticized the judicial approach, arguing it compromises the core principles of criminal justice, which demand accountability, The Times reports.

Ekaterina Schulmann, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin, said on her weekly YouTube show: “This is a daring legal experiment on society.

“You have to be really desperate to do it — or you have to display sheer legal nihilism and an utter lack of understanding of how law works and why we need it.

“No society can carry on like this: it cannot encourage crime and murders at this level.”