About childbirth and people: Kaliningrad doctors were repeatedly asked for a three-year limitation period

The prosecutor's office has requested 9 and 9.5 years in prison for Kaliningrad doctors Elina Sushkevich and Elena Belaya in the case of the murder of a baby. They were already sentenced to this term in September 2022, but then the Supreme Court sent the case for a new hearing. According to investigators, in 2018, Sushkevich, at Belaya's request, injected a lethal dose of magnesium sulfate into an unviable baby. So the doctors decided to simulate the intrauterine death of a child so as not to spoil the hospital's performance. In their last words before the verdict was announced, the defendants pleaded not guilty. The details of the case are in the Izvestia article.

What are Kaliningrad doctors being tried for?

During the debate of the parties in the Moscow Regional Court, the prosecutor's office asked the court to sentence neonatologist Elina Sushkevich and former chief physician of Kaliningrad Maternity Hospital No. 4 Elena Belaya to 9 and 9.5 years in a penal colony in the case of the murder of a baby. The state prosecutor also asked to ban Belaya and Sushkevich from practicing medicine for a period of three years.

The Kaliningrad doctors' case is being considered for the second time — in September 2022, they were already convicted. Then they were given a similar deadline, but the Supreme Court sent the case for a new hearing. Now the jury has unanimously found Belaya and Sushkevich guilty of intentionally causing the death of a child.

According to investigators, on November 5, 2018, Zarimkhon Akhmedova, an Uzbek citizen, was admitted to maternity hospital No. 4 in Kaliningrad, who gave birth to a very premature baby boy weighing about 700 g. The neonatology intensive care unit of the regional perinatal center was called to the hospital. Anaesthetist and intensive care specialist Elina Sushkevich was among the doctors who arrived.

The acting chief physician of the maternity hospital, Elena Belaya, is believed by investigators to have instructed the newly arrived Sushkevich to inject the infant with a lethal dose of magnesium sulfate in order to simulate his death in the womb. High levels of magnesium in the infant's body during autopsy could make forensic experts believe in this version, investigators believe.

As a motive, they cite the fact that Belaya was then waiting to be reassigned to the position of chief physician. And the deterioration of infant mortality rates could have influenced this decision. The case file contains an audio recording of Belaya's conversation with her subordinates on November 6, 2018, that is, the morning after the baby's death. On the recording, the former head doctor chastises subordinates and demands to rewrite the child's medical history.

Larisa Guseva, a representative of the mother of the deceased child, told Izvestia that the accusation against the doctors was based on the results of a forensic examination, which showed a high concentration of magnesium sulfate in the internal organs of the baby.

"When the investigation began to look into this, the doctors of the fourth maternity hospital began to testify against Belaya and Sushkevich," the lawyer said. — Their testimony, combined with the expert examination, formed the basis of the charges.

According to witnesses, after the child's death, Elena Belaya ordered the birth history to be rewritten to indicate that the child was stillborn.

Maternity ward: Kaliningrad doctors were again found guilty of murdering a child

After the verdict of the jury, Elina Sushkevich and Elena Belaya will receive a new verdict, it may be tougher than the previous one.

What the defendants said earlier

Falsification of documents is the only thing that Elina Sushkevich admitted guilt of. She told the court that she had indeed made changes to the medical record at Belaya's request.

"But I didn't administer magnesia to the child, Belaya didn't ask me to,— Sushkevich said in court in October 2020.

The defendant told her version of events. According to her, when she arrived at maternity hospital No. 4, Belaya invited her and the head of the newborn department, Tatiana Kosareva, to the office. There they discussed the child's condition and prognoses for his care. According to Sushkevich, she said that the prognosis is bad and the child is difficult.

— Then she (White — Ed.) asked: "What do you do with such children so that they are not so heavy?" says the neonatologist. — I replied that the treatment of such children begins in the maternity hospital. I had all my thoughts about the baby, so I didn't continue this conversation with Bela and went to the intensive care unit.

There, Sushkevich discovered that the nurse had not given the baby all the IVs she had prescribed. The neonatologist reminded me about the necessary medications, the nurse followed the recommendations and left. Then Tatiana Kosareva appeared, and the monitor connected to the child on a ventilator beeped, and his heart rate began to drop. Sushkevich, along with Tatiana Kosareva, began performing resuscitation measures.

"I started giving him an indirect heart massage and instructed Tatiana Kosareva to get adrenaline," Sushkevich said. — It had no effect, the heart was not listening, and the resuscitation had to be stopped.

Next, Sushkevich filled out the documents, where she wrote about all the actions. Later, the documents were rewritten — the child was enrolled in "antenatal" (stillborn).

What do other doctors say about the incident?

After the first guilty verdict in September 2022, representatives of the medical community began to actively stand up for Belaya and Sushkevich. For example, Galina Sukhodolova, a toxicologist and professor of the Department of Pediatric Anesthesiology and Intensive Care at the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, published an open letter in 2022 stating that there was no "material evidence of intravenous administration of magnesium sulfate to a preterm newborn child."

"According to the medical examiner, the high magnesium content was detected not in the blood, but in the organs of the newborn child: in the liver, kidneys and stomach wall (...) For one or even four minutes (which allegedly passed from the moment of the incriminated injection to the death of the infant), no magnesium entered the stomach wall or kidney in large or I couldn't get a small amount from the blood," she wrote.

After the verdict of the jury on July 30, 2025 in the Moscow City Court, Leonid Roshal, President of the National Medical Chamber, told Izvestia that the high concentration of magnesium sulfate in the baby's organs could not serve as evidence of his murder.

"I am convinced that the child was not killed and that no magnesia was administered,— the doctor said. — There is no evidence of this — there is no syringe, no ampoule, no witnesses. There is only a doctor, the head of the department, who was interested in punishing Sushkevich, otherwise (she would have been responsible for falsifying documents — Ed.).

Leonid Roshal considers it impossible that the head of the newborn department, while in the room where the child was lying, would calmly observe how they were trying to inject him with a lethal injection.

— If they take a syringe with magnesia in front of me to inject it into the umbilical vein of a baby, am I going to keep quiet? I'm going to yell at the whole clinic," the doctor said. — But she didn't say anything. And I witnessed what seemed to be a murder.

Probably, the deeply premature boy was born in an agonal state and died because he was not viable, he argues. The surgeon also does not consider the testimony of doctors on Sushkevich to be evidence of a crime. In his opinion, they rather serve as proof of the "unhealthy situation" that had developed in the Kaliningrad maternity hospital at the time of the incident. At the same time, Leonid Roshal stated that he considers Belaya guilty of falsifying medical documents.

However, not all representatives of the medical community are convinced of the innocence of the defendants. For example, Igor Artyukhov, editor of the Medical Russia professional website, recalled Belaya's compromising conversation with doctors and her instructions about falsifying documents, considering this to be weighty evidence of her guilt.

An obstetrician-gynecologist, who delivered the victim, also spoke at the trial.

"The child was alive, and the mother was very worried about him because she knew about his serious condition," the doctor said. — At the general meeting, all the doctors also knew about the child's condition.

What happened at the debate of the parties

The victim, Zarimkhon Akhmedova, took part in the meeting via video link and filed a civil claim for 2 million rubles for compensation for moral damage — one million for each defendant.

"It was a long—awaited baby, we were really looking forward to it," she said. "It's been painful for me for so many years. I couldn't get pregnant for a long time and lost the baby because of you.

"I consider the victim's demands immoral," Elena Belaya said in response. — She (the victim. It was not studied after the first miscarriage, changed the climate, and was not observed during pregnancy. At the reception, she was offered hospitalization, and she refused it.

Elina Sushkevich, in turn, also did not recognize the civil claim.

— I'm against the lawsuit, how can a child's life be valued with money? — She said. — I do not admit my guilt, but if it helps Akhmedova to numb her pain, this is my human position — I am ready to pay.

The defendants also opposed the stated procedural costs, noting that they have no permanent job and no sources of income. Nevertheless, the claim was attached to the case.

Vyacheslav Zhukovsky, Sushkevich's lawyer, stated in his speech that his client had a "risk of a suicidal reaction to a traumatic situation" related to criminal prosecution.

— This is a normal reaction of a person who saves the lives of children, and she is blamed for the death of a baby, — says the lawyer. — The defendants have been in custody for 5 years and 10 months, in conditions of legal uncertainty, and this has led to emotional exhaustion. But Sushkevich does not admit guilt, she continues to fight.

"There is no motive to take a person's life, and there are no statistics," says Kamil Babasov, Sushkevich's second lawyer.

"We haven't seen any syringe or any evidence, and we disagree with the jury's verdict," he said.

Belaya's defense agreed with these arguments.

—Your Honor, the case is fabricated, it's a contract case," the doctor said in her last words. — What is happening on the audio recording is that I was provoked into a conflict and a statement was written against me.

In her last speech, Sushkevich pointed out the completely different possibilities of the perinatal center and the maternity hospital in terms of caring for deeply premature babies. In her opinion, "Akhmedova's child was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

—The experts (who conducted the examination of the case — Ed.) did not know how the child was helped," she said. — For me, Akhmedova is not a victim. To me, she's a mom who lost her child. I did everything I could to save the child.

The defendants have already appealed the guilty verdict once, and in the case of a new one, no one can guarantee that the process will not happen again, Egor Panin, lawyer at the Avex Yust law firm, shared his opinion with Izvestia.

— It is not a fact that the new guilty verdict will withstand a subsequent appeal, — said the expert. — There is a feeling that this review is also a step into a new circle. Apparently, the defendants will fight for their innocence as long as the opportunity presents itself.

If the jury returned a guilty verdict to the defendants, the court will almost certainly pass a guilty verdict, says Andrei Orlov, a lawyer at the Moscow Bar Association Aronov and Partners.

At the same time, the term of imprisonment under the new sentence may be either milder or stricter than the previous one, Andrei Orlov pointed out.