Russian soldiers accused of killing family of nine as they slept in Russia-occupied Ukrainian town

Russian authorities say two Russian soldiers arrested over the killings but the motive was a ‘domestic conflict’

Russian forces allegedly gunned down an entire family of nine, including two young children, as they slept in their beds in the Russia-occupied town of Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk, officials in Kyiv said.

Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said Russian soldiers killed all members of the Kapkanets family on 27 October after the civilians refused to give them control of their house.

According to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office in Donetsk, the attackers were in army uniforms and had demanded the family house be vacated, leading to an argument.

"According to preliminary information, the occupiers have killed the whole of the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and who had refused to hand their own house over to occupiers from Chechnya," he said on his official Telegram channel.

The suspects came back later as the family slept and gunned down the members, as per media reports.

Mr Lubinets said that the “Russians’s bloodied hands were involved” in the killings, “just as traces of Russian torture were discovered in Bucha, Irpin, Izyum and other Ukrainian cities”.

The Ukrainian Donetsk Region Prosecutor’s Office alleged multiple family members were shot while in their beds, still tucked in each others arms, according to CNN.

Two children born in 2014 and 2018 were among the victims.

Russian authorities have said two Russian soldiers were arrested over the killings. “According to preliminary information, the motive for the crime was a domestic conflict,” Russia’s official Investigations Committee said in a statement.

The suspects were “Russian military servicemen from the Far East serving under contract”, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Donetsk People’s Republic said in a statement.

An investigation was launched in connection with the murders, the committee said.

Multiple Russian news channels on Telegram who have spoken to the neighbours of the victims blamed the Russian military for the deaths.

“All of the neighbours are saying that the killers were in the military,” one neighbour told Astra, a Russian news channel, adding that locals in the area were scared.

The Ukrainian town Volnovakha has remained under Russian control for more than 20 months after being captured just weeks after the full-scale invasion began.