Russia imprisons soldiers who killed an entire family in Ukraine

A Russian court has sentenced two Russian soldiers to life in prison for killing a family of nine in occupied Ukraine. This is a rare example of the country holding its troops accountable for alleged war crimes.

The entire Kapkanets family was killed in their home in the Donetsk region by Anton Sopov, 21, and Stanislav Rau, 28, in October last year, prosecutors said. Among the victims were two children aged five and nine.

The family was celebrating their birthday at the time, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said a day after the murders.

Some details of the case are unclear, such as whether the soldiers pleaded guilty, as the trial was held behind closed doors due to military secrets, Russian media reported.

Sopov and Rau were found guilty of killing 53-year-old Eduard Kapkanets, his wife Tatiana, their adult sons with their wives, a nine-year-old granddaughter, a four-year-old grandson and a distant relative of the family.

At the time, Ukrainian officials said they believed the family was murdered because they refused to give up their home to Russian troops.

The state news agency Tass reported that the men were convicted of murder “out of political, ideological, racist, national or religious hatred.”

The Ukrainian city of Volnovakha was captured by Russian forces just weeks after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Most of the city was destroyed.

Russia denies all allegations of war crimes in Ukraine, despite well-documented evidence to the contrary.

These include the bombing of a theater in Mariupol that housed hundreds of people in March 2022 and the killing of hundreds of people in the city of Bucha this month.

Russian forces are also accused of waging one Network of torture chambers throughout occupied Ukraine, where civilians and prisoners of war are tortured and in some cases killed.

The United Nations has accused Russian forces in Ukraine of rape, “widespread” torture and killings, and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.