Two Russian soldiers sentenced to life for murdering family of nine in occupied Ukraine

A court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced two Russian soldiers to life imprisonment for murdering a family of nine in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region. 

According to state prosecutors, contract soldiers Stanislav Rau and Anton Sopov broke into the Kapkanets family’s home in the city of Volnovakha on October 28, 2023, and used silenced automatic weapons to kill everyone inside, including a nine-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. 

The newspaper Kommersant reports that the soldiers were searching for alcohol, which is prohibited for soldiers in combat areas. Sopov was previously convicted of violently hazing his fellow soldiers. 

Rau and Sopov’s case was closed to the public for national defense reasons, though Kommersant said the two men pleaded not guilty. In July 2024, the state news agency TASS reported that Rau and Sopov admitted to the murders but denied any motives related to “ethnic hatred.”