The cold-blooded murder while the victims slept of nine members of a family in a town of Donetsk under Russian occupation has shocked public opinion in Ukrainewhere photographs of several adults and two children executed in their own home circulate on the networks among displays of horror.
According to information from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, which does not have access to Ukrainian territory under Russian control, the crime occurred Friday, October 27when a group of Russian soldiers entered the family’s home at night and shot dead its nine members, including two children born in 2014 and 2018.
The alleged murderers carried out the massacre, according to this version, in retaliation for the family having refused days before to leave their home for Russian soldiers to settle there.
The town of Volnovaja where the victims lived is about 30 kilometers from the front line. The municipality also has a railway station, which makes it a valuable logistics center for Russian troops.
The official Russian version broadly coincides with that presented by the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office.