Anna Plaksyuk: Russian Teacher Who Locked 11-Year-Old in Class and Then 'Stroked His Privates,' Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison
A female teacher has been handed a nine-year prison sentence by a Russian court over "violent acts of sexual nature" she commited against an 11-year-old student.
Anna Plaksyuk, 26, worked at a school in Toksovo in Leningrad Region, Russia, when she is said to have began abusing the child in November 2023.
Plaksyuk Accused of Stoking the Boy's Genitals as He Touched Her Breasts
Plaksyuk and the boy would allegedly lock themselves in her classroom during break times and kiss while she "stroked his private parts" over his clothing and "let him touch her breasts," local media reported.
The pair also allegedly communicated via text, telling each other they loved each other and exchanged explicit photos via WhatsApp. The alleged grooming continued until the child's mother found messages on his phone on January 31 and alerted the school's headteacher and local police.
Plaksyuk Claimed the Attraction was Mutual, Claimed Boy Showed 'Signs of Attention' and 'Made Compliments' Towards Her
Plaksyuk was arrested and charged with committing violent acts of a sexual nature against a minor. Upon her initial arrest, Plakysuk admitted to the police that she had secluded the boy in her classroom for their inappropriate encounters, but seemed to insinuate that the attraction was mutual.
She informed officers that her actions were initiated after the boy started showing "signs of attention" and "made compliments" towards her over several months.
Before being handed a nine-year prison sentence, Plakysuk had already spent over a year in pre-trial detention, and the married educator is now 27. At her trial, she was found guilty of "violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person under 14 years of age", and has been prohibited from teaching for a year following her release from prison.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
6 hours ago
- Straits Times
US adversaries fuel disinformation about LA protests
Protestes waving Mexican and US flags face off with police during a protest in downtown Los Angeles, on June 9. PHOTO: AFP WASHINGTON - Russia, China and Iran are amplifying disinformation about protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles, researchers said on June 13, adding to a surge of domestically generated falsehoods and conspiracy theories. The findings from researchers at the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard illustrate how foreign adversaries of the United States are exploiting deep divisions in American society as a tactic of information warfare. NewsGuard said Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state-affiliated sources have published around 10,000 posts and articles about the demonstrations that recently erupted in Los Angeles, advancing false claims framing the city as 'ground zero in an American apocalypse.' Seizing on the political rift between President Donald Trump and Governor Gavin Newsom, pro-China accounts on X and Chinese platforms such as Douyin and Weibo have peddled unfounded claims that California was ready to secede from the United States and declare independence. Meanwhile, Tehran-based newspapers have peddled the false claim that popular Iranian singer-songwriter Andranik Madadian had been detained by the National Guard in Los Angeles, in an apparent effort to portray the United States as an authoritarian state. NewsGuard quoted Madadian, better known by his stage name Andy, as denying the claim, stating: 'I am fine. Please don't believe these rumors.' Russian media and pro-Russian influencers, meanwhile, has embraced right-wing conspiracy theories, including the unfounded claim that the Mexican government was stoking the demonstrations against Trump's immigration policies. 'The demonstrations are unfolding at the intersection of multiple vulnerabilities such as eroded trust in institutions, AI chatbots amplifying false claims about the unrest, political polarization, and a rollback of safety and moderation efforts by major platforms,' Ms McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher with NewsGuard, told AFP. 'As a result, foreign actors have a wide-open playing field to flood the zone with falsehoods at a faster rate and fewer barriers compared to previous moments of unrest,' she added. The apparent alignment across the three countries was noteworthy, Sadeghi said. 'While Russia, China, and Iran regularly push their own unique forms of disinformation, it's less common to see them move in such a coordinated fashion like this,' she said. 'This time, state media outlets have escalated their messaging to advance their geopolitical interests and deflect attention from their own domestic crises.' The disinformation comes on top of false narratives promoted by US-based influencers. In recent days, conservative social media users have circulated two photographs of brick piles they claimed were strategically placed for the California protesters to hurl at police and inflame violence. The photos were cited as proof that the protests were fuelled by nonprofit organisations supported by George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who has long been a bogeyman for the far right. But AFP's fact-checkers found that one photo was lifted from an online marketplace, where a Malaysian hardware dealer uploaded it years ago, while the other was snapped near a construction site in New Jersey. 'Every time there's a popular protest, the old clickbaity 'pallets of bricks' hoax shows up right on cue,' the Social Media Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on the platform Bluesky. 'The fact that these types of fake images are used isn't a coincidence. It's part of a pernicious (and) persistent narrative that protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic.' AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
14 hours ago
- Straits Times
Russian aircraft intercepted over Baltic on Friday, Poland says
WARSAW - A Russian aircraft was intercepted over the Baltic Sea by two British fighter jets on Friday after it flew two kilometres inside Polish airspace, the Polish armed forces said on Friday. The planes intercepted and identified the Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft, which then left Polish airspace. "This is another case of provocative testing of the readiness of NATO countries' systems," the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command wrote on social media platform X. Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Western military alliance ramped up its presence along its eastern flank, sending more fighter jets there and setting up ground-based air defences. The army said a pair of British fighters, stationed in Poland as part of NATO's so-called Air Policing effort, were scrambled before the Polish border was breached. The planes intercepted and identified the plane, and the incident is being analysed by the appropriate NATO commands, the army said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
16 hours ago
- Straits Times
From a Russian prison, US schoolteacher tells lawyers he was grabbed by Moscow's soldiers
FILE PHOTO: Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine against Russia in the course of a military conflict, is seen on a screen while being escorted in a court building during a video link to a hearing in Moscow, Russia October 7, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo FILE PHOTO: A view through a fence shows a court building following a hearing of the case of Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen convicted of serving as a mercenary for Ukraine against Russia in the course of a military conflict, in Moscow, Russia October 7, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo FILE PHOTO: Journalists work in a court building during a hearing of the case of Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine against Russia in the course of a military conflict, via a video link in Moscow, Russia October 7, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/ File Photo FILE PHOTO: Stephen Hubbard, a U.S. citizen accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine against Russia in the course of a military conflict, is seen inside an enclosure for defendants on a screen during a video link to a hearing in a court building in Moscow, Russia October 7, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo From a Russian prison, US schoolteacher tells lawyers he was grabbed by Moscow's soldiers LONDON - A 73-year-old American jailed by Russia as a mercenary for Ukraine protested his innocence when his U.S.-based legal team and family finally tracked him down in April, months after he vanished into the vast Russian prison system, they said. Stephen Hubbard, a retired schoolteacher, was sentenced last October to almost seven years in a penal colony after a court found him guilty of serving in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit against Russian forces, tasked with manning a checkpoint. Russian state media reported that he had entered a guilty plea in the closed-door trial. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has not been granted consular access to Hubbard, a State Department spokesperson said, adding that U.S. officials have requested his immediate release. Martin De Luca, his U.S.-based lawyer, told Reuters it was not until this April that his legal team learned Hubbard was being held in a facility in the Mordovia region, east of Moscow. "The first thing Hubbard wanted to talk about when he was able to make contact with the outside world was: 'It's not true,'" said De Luca, who made his first public comments on the case to the New York Times this week. "They (Russian soldiers) grabbed him from his house. He was not in any combat or military unit", De Luca recalled Hubbard saying. Joseph Coleman, a son from Hubbard's first marriage who lives in Cyprus, said he spoke to his father in prison by phone for less than five minutes on May 28. "He did sound a little down," Coleman told Reuters. "He said, 'I'm tired of being a slave.'" At least eight other Americans are currently imprisoned in Russia, which has stepped up arrests of alleged mercenaries for Ukraine since its 2022 invasion of its neighbour. But Hubbard is the only one designated by the U.S. as "wrongfully detained," making him a top candidate to be returned in any future prisoner exchange. The Kremlin said last month the two sides were discussing a possible swap involving nine people on each side. A document written on the letterhead of the IK-12 penal colony, signed by a prison official and seen by Reuters, says that Hubbard is incarcerated there. Russia's federal prison service did not respond to an emailed request for confirmation from Reuters. Other U.S. citizens previously jailed in Russia have been incarcerated in the same region. VIDEO CLUES Hubbard, a Michigan native who taught English abroad for decades, had moved to Izium in eastern Ukraine in 2014 to be with a Ukrainian girlfriend, but by 2022 he was living there alone, his family said. Russian forces captured Izium in April 2022. After his arrest, his family struggled to establish what had happened to him. They caught glimpses of him in videos posted online in pro-war Russian Telegram channels. One showed what appeared to be a staged interrogation. In another, Hubbard appeared with his hands zip-tied and whimpered as a man slapped him with a plastic sandal. His sister, Patricia Hubbard Fox, identified her brother in both videos in conversations with Reuters. The agency could not verify when and where the videos were taken. "He is so non-military," Hubbard Fox told Reuters last year, expressing doubt that her brother would have taken up arms for any state. "He never had a gun, owned a gun, done any of that... He's more of a pacifist." TRACKING HIM DOWN After Hubbard's trial, De Luca and his team at a U.S. law firm began working to secure his release. They picked up the case in late February. It wasn't easy to find him, De Luca said. "Russia is still a functioning country. There are laws, bureaucracies, processes that get followed," he said. The team located Hubbard at the penal colony in Molochnitsa, a very small town about a seven-hour drive from Moscow. De Luca said the team has been able to call Hubbard three times since April. He described him as weak after months living in a prisoner-of-war camp. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
