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full screen A burned-out car in the town of Volnovacha in Donetsk. Archive image. Photo: Alexei Alexandrov/AP/TT
Two Russian soldiers have been sentenced to life in prison for carrying out a massacre of a family of nine in Ukraine, Russian state-run media reports.
The two, both aged between 20 and 30, were convicted in a secret trial in Rostov-na-Donu of a “mass murder motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred”.
The crime was committed last October in the town of Volnovacha, north of Mariupol in Donetsk, in the Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.
The murders attracted great attention in Ukraine when they became known. The country’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said at the time that “the occupiers killed the family that was celebrating a birthday and refused to leave their home” because Russian soldiers were to live there.
Russian forces captured Volnovacha early in their war of invasion. The city, which before the war had around 20,000 inhabitants, is said to be almost completely destroyed.
The convicted soldiers belonged to the then paramilitary Wagner Group before joining the army, US-funded Radio Free Europe reports.