Stanislav Rau and Anton Sopkov were members of Vagner’s group before joining the Russian army.
A Russian court has sentenced two soldiers who killed a Ukrainian family of nine in the Donetsk region last year to life in prison, Russian media reported on Friday. Among the victims were two children aged five and nine. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
Prosecutors said that 21-year-old Anton Sopov and 28-year-old Stanislav Rau entered the home of a family of nine in the town of Volnovacha in the occupied Donetsk region in October 2023. Both Russian soldiers had guns with silencers and shot all members of the family.
Secret process
In a secret trial, a military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced two men to life imprisonment for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious intolerance.” Russian media did not say what prosecutors determined was the reason for the attack.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty claims that Rau and Sopkov were members of Wagner’s group before joining the Russian army. A few months before the mass murder, they received a state award.
After the murder, Ukraine said Russian soldiers killed the family while they were sleeping after they refused to leave their home and leave it to the Russian military.
Moscow denies targeting civilians
The units of the Russian army occupied the town of Volnovacha at the beginning of the invasion and basically destroyed it with artillery, writes AFP.
Russian soldiers have been accused of several cases of killing civilians in Ukrainian cities and towns occupied by Russia. Moscow denies targeting civilians in the attacks and says reports of incidents from places like Bucha are false, despite extensive evidence from multiple independent sources.
According to AFP, the conviction in such a case is a rare example of Russia admitting to a crime committed by its soldiers in Ukraine.
