MOSCOW: A Russian court on Friday sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine in their home in occupied Ukraine.
Russian prosecutors said that in October 2023, the two soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the home of the Kapkanets family in the city of Volnovakha, armed with guns equipped with silencers.
They shot all nine family members, including two children aged five and nine.
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national, or religious hatred,” the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement source.
The incident triggered an uproar in Ukraine.
Kyiv alleged at the time that the Russian soldiers murdered the family in their sleep after the Kapkanets family refused to vacate their home to make room for Russian soldiers.
“The occupiers killed the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and refused to give up their home,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said the day after the murder.
Russian forces seized Volnovakha, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, at the start of their full-scale military offensive. The city was virtually destroyed by Russian artillery strikes.
Russian soldiers have been accused of multiple instances of killing civilians in Ukrainian towns and cities they have occupied since February 2022.
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Moscow has always denied targeting civilians and has attempted to claim reports of atrocities, such as those in Bucha, were fake, despite widespread evidence from independent sources.
The arrest and sentencing in this case are a rare example of Russia admitting to a crime committed by its troops in Ukraine.
State media did not specify the reason for the attack.
TASS suggested it could have been a “domestic dispute,” while both the independent Radio Free Europe and the Kommersant business outlet indicated it may have been linked to a dispute over obtaining vodka.
The trial was held in secret.
Independent media reported that Rau, 28, and Sopov, 21, were mercenaries with the Wagner paramilitary group before joining Russia’s official army. They had both received state awards just months before the mass murder, according to Radio Free Europe._AFP
