The regional French newspaper “Sud Ouest” has reported that in the city of La Rochelle, France, a former Russian soldier, who fought in Chechnya tried to kill his wife.

According to the report, on January 8th, 52-year old Russian Sergey Gounin wounded his wife Marina by stabbing her eight times. She is in serious condition.

A family friend of the victim and the eyewitness told the journalists, “We knew them for a few years. Marina was trying to leave her husband. She told us that when she met him, he was a nice man. But then he went to Chechnya to fighting. He saw many terrible things and when he came back he was totally changed… They were at our house. He wounded Marina in the front room with his pocket knife. When I saw Marina, I thought that she was dead. Sergey didn’t threat us. He sat in a chair and started to smoke a cigarette. He threw the knife under the cabinet. Before police arrived, he ran away”.

The former Russian soldier was arrested inside the La Rochelle train station at around 10:00pm.

*Text was translated by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco