Notebook

A father’s brutal murder by his three daughters has rekindled the debate over domestic violence in Russia.

Maria, Angelina, and Krestina Khachaturyan (17, 18, and 19 years old, respectively) are accused of killing their father, Mikhail Khachaturyan, by stabbing him 36 times in the chest. The sisters claim their father terrorized them and their mother their entire lives, keeping them out of school and sexually abusing them.

The case fueled Russia’s national debate about violence against women that has been running in parallel with America’s #MeToo movement, spurred in part by a move last year by Russian authorities to decriminalize some crimes of violence within families.