Body of Russian model who branded Putin ‘a psychopath’ found in suitcase year after going missing

The body of a 23-year-old Russian model who called Vladimir Putin a “psychopath” was found in a suitcase more than a year after she went missing.

Gretta Vedler was killed a month after she criticised the Russian president on social media over his drive to “enhance the integrity of Russia,” according to a report from The Mirror.

Over a year after her disappearance, Vedler’s boyfriend Dmitry Korovin confessed to strangling her to death over financial issues in Moscow, the newspaper said, citing a video from Russia’s Investigative Committee.

Her friend Evgeniy Foster – a blogger from Ukraine’s Kharkiv city – allegedly grew suspicious and asked a friend in Moscow to file a missing person’s report.

Mr Korovin told authorities that he slept in a hotel room for three nights with her dead body, which was stuffed in a newly-bought suitcase. The man drove with the body to the Lipetsk region in the western part of Russia and left the body for a year in the boot of the car.

Russian media reported the finding of the body in the boot of the car on Sunday.

Mr Korovin reportedly kept posting photographs and messages on the model’s social media to put a false impression that she was alive.

The accused was made to demonstrate how he killed the model and confess to the crime, according to a video from Russia’s investigative committee.

The killing, however, is said to be unrelated to her criticism of the Russian president, according to The Mirror.

Vedler had, in January 2021, raised concerns over the president’s crackdown on protests and his desire to enhance the integrity of Russia.

“I can only assume, in my opinion, clear psychopathy or sociopathy is seen in him. For psychopaths, it is important to constantly experience a sense of fullness and sharpness of life, so they love risk, intense experiences, intense communication, intense activity - an intense and dynamic life,” she wrote, according to The Mirror.