A young woman in Krasnodar, Russia was sentenced to a year and eight months after being found guilty of a hate crimes stabbing that sent a man to the hospital for weeks, and another assault motivated by ethnic hatred, according to a May 8, 2008 article in the national daily "Kommersant." Regina Khlebnikova, age 16, was traveling on a bus with a friend last December 25 when she noticed a female African student supposedly laughing at her. Being in an inebriated state, she exited the bus along with the Kenyan foreign student Vaneka Vambuya, yanked her down to the ground by the hair, and started to kick her while screaming the neo-Nazi slogan "Russia for Russians!" before running off. Half an hour later, she spotted an ethnic Armenian, Suren Abzumanyan, walking with a Russian woman. Screaming "Die Khachik!" (a racist pejorative), she stabbed him repeatedly in the chest, back, and head. Charged with multiple hate crimes, the defendant tried to argue that she had been motivated by "hooliganism" rather than ethnic hatred, even though she was found to be in possession of hate literature. Facing potential prison time of up to ten years, she pleaded with that court that her father is disabled. The prosecutor then asked for a reduced sentence, and the judge scaled back her prison time even more, stating that the criminal code prohibits the court from going further and giving her a suspended sentence because the crime involved violence.

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