On the night of October 28, in a house in the city of Volnovakha in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, an entire family of nine people was killed.
The youngest of the victims was only five years old, and the oldest was 53. Neighbors say that the head of the family had quarreled with the military the day before, and at night the Russian occupiers returned to the house and, using firearms, shot and killed all 9 family members.
The evening before the massacre, the family was celebrating a birthday, and guests were also staying overnight in the house. Among the adults were two children: schoolgirl Nastya and five-year-old Nikita. The murderers spared no one. They came to kill the family at night, while people were peacefully sleeping, and the bodies of the victims were found in their beds. From the reconstructed picture of the massacre, it is clear that well-equipped military personnel were involved, who came to commit the massacre with night vision devices and rifles equipped with silencers. The killers certainly made targeted shots to hit everyone in the house. Two suspected Russian mercenaries from the Far East have been arrested for murder, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. A rare case where Russian media confirmed the massacre of civilians and the suspects in the murder were arrested and taken to the investigative department. «The motive for the crime was a domestic conflict,» — the Russian Investigative Committee did not provide further details and did not disclose the names of the detainees. But how many other similar, no less resonant cases has the Russian Investigative Committee simply turned a blind eye to?
Russians systematically violate the rights of the population in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine: murders, torture, deprivation of liberty, robberies, and deportations are widespread. Russian occupation forces behave in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine as they did during the wars in Chechnya. And as the Nazis did in occupied territories during World War II. The photos from Volnovakha do not differ from the photos from those Israeli settlements where Hamas broke into homes and executed whole families with children. Moreover, there is nothing surprising about this after Russia’s warm and friendly meetings with Hamas and Jewish pogroms.
The cruel murder of the Ukrainian family was noted by the representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for human rights, Dmitry Lubinets: «There is no doubt that the bloodstained hands of the Russians are involved in this. The same traces of Russian torture were found in Boecha, Irpin, Izyum, and other Ukrainian cities where the ‘liberators’ were present.»
Both the Russian state and its ordinary representatives commit crimes against Ukrainians, feeling like «masters» in the occupied areas. Russian propaganda also contributes to the crimes. Russian propaganda makes murders commonplace and even an encouraged norm. For example, on Russian television, propagandists, commenting on heavy fighting in Avdiivka, stated that there were still hundreds of civilians in the city. But they advised not to spare them, because the lives of Russian occupiers were worth more. They simply explained that the residents of Avdiivka were guilty of not leaving yet. And they compared them to the residents of Berlin, who were not spared in 1945. Previously, these people claimed to be «protecting and saving the people of Donbas from the Nazis.» Now they don’t hesitate to directly call for the killing of the residents of Donbas. The same situation is occurring in other occupied regions of Ukraine, which have become a gray zone without law and rights.
Russia leaves death everywhere. And must be held accountable for it. If these «Russian world» individuals are not stopped, they will go much further than some people can imagine in the civilized world.