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A Russian court sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine in their home in occupied Ukraine, state media reported Friday.

Russian prosecutors said that in October 2023, the two Russian soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the Kapkanets family home in the town of Volnovakha with weapons fitted with silencers.

They then shot all nine family members who lived there, including two children aged five and nine.

The military court in the southern district of Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred,” state news agency TASS reported, citing an unnamed law. . source of compliance.

The incident sparked outrage in Ukraine.

kyiv alleged at the time that Russian soldiers had murdered the family in their sleep after they refused to move out of their home to allow Russian soldiers to live there.

“The occupiers killed the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and refused to give up their house,” Ukrainian human rights defender Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the murder.

Russian forces seized the town of Volnovakha in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region at the start of their large-scale military offensive.

It was practically destroyed by Russian artillery attacks.

Russian soldiers have been accused of multiple cases of killing civilians in Ukrainian towns and cities they have occupied since February 2022.

Moscow has always denied attacking civilians and has tried to claim that reports of atrocities in places like Bucha were false, despite widespread evidence from multiple independent sources.

The arrest and sentencing in this case is a rare example of Russia admitting a crime committed by its troops in Ukraine.

State media did not say what the motive for the attack was.

TASS suggested it could have been an “internal dispute”, while both independent Radio Free Europe and commercial media Kommersant said it could have been related to a dispute over the procurement of vodka.

The trial was held in secret.

Independent media outlet Radio Free Europe reported that Rau, 28, and Sopov, 21, were mercenaries for the paramilitary Wagner before joining Russia’s official army.

Both had received state awards a few months before the mass murder, it said.

strawberry/giv