The Russian Imperial Romanov family (Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) and all those who chose to accompany them into exile – notably Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp and Ivan Kharitonov – were shot in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. The Tsar and his family were executed by Bolsheviks led by Yakov Yurovsky under the orders of the Ural Soviet. Some historians attribute the order to the government in Moscow, specifically Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov, who wished to prevent the rescue of the Imperial Family by approaching White forces during the ongoing Russian Civil War. However, a recent investigation led by V. N.