Maria, Angelina and Krestina were sexually abused and beaten daily. So they killed their dad.

Maria, Angelina and Krestina Khachaturyan spent their childhoods in fear, scared of the wrath of their violent, abusive father who made their lives hell.

They were beaten daily, sexually abused and shot at with an airgun, court filings as reported by AFP show.

The sisters refused to go to police fearing the ramifications and would beg their school friends to keep the violence a secret.

In 2016, one of the girls tried to take her own life but was saved by her sisters.

But in July 2018, the sisters snapped and decided if they didn't act soon, one of them would die.

It was a summer evening in Russia's Moscow when Mikhail Khachaturyan decided his living room wasn't clean enough.

He summoned his daughters, and one by one sprayed them in the face with pepper spray.

The punishment left the eldest Krestina unconscious.

The teenagers waited until their dad fell asleep in his rocking chair and attacked him with a kitchen knife and a hammer. He put up a fight but died within minutes.

The sisters, who were 17, 18, and 19 at the time of the killing and have confessed to their parts in it, have been charged with murder and face a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

Sidenote: Here are the hidden domestic violence numbers in Australia. Post continues after video. 

Prosecutors have acknowledged the extraordinary violent circumstances that pushed the girls to attack their father, but still  insist the trio be tried for murder.

The Khachaturyan case is indicative of how domestic violence is treated in Russia.

The country doesn't have dedicated laws for domestic violence and two years ago decriminalised domestic battery for first-time offenders. Reports of domestic violence sharply declined as a result.

Of the 2,500 women who were convicted of manslaughter or murder from 2016 to 2018 in Russia, nearly 2000 killed a family member in a domestic violence setting, according to data compiled by Media Zona.

The case of the Khachaturyan sisters has sparked outrage with more than 200,000 people signing an online petition urging prosecutors to drop the murder charges.

Last month hundreds gathered beside the headquarters of the Investigative Committee in Moscow with signs that read "necessary self defence cannot be a crime".

A major rally was planned for the weekend, but the city refused to provide security for the gathering.

Moscow has refused to approve Saturday's march for the teenage Khachaturyan sisters, who face <20 years in prison for killing their abusive father. Without police on board, "Men's Gov't" & others could attack with pepper spray as threatened, activists say https://t.co/sVGpQhMKZT pic.twitter.com/gZGOaEMIe2

— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) July 3, 2019

One of the girl's lawyer has slammed the prosecutors case as "strange".

"The investigation was silent that the trigger that day was the bullying... the girls were scared and, as experts confirmed, they feared for their lives. These facts and the conclusions of the experts were specifically ignored as they confirm the girls were in a state of necessary defence," Alexei Parshin wrote on Facebook.

In the year before the attack, the girls attended less than two months of classes in total, and yet the school administration asked no questions and did not interfere.

Despite the charges hanging over their heads Mr Parshin says the sisters are in good spirits.

“The first day we met, she [Krestina] said she’s better off here, in jail, than living at home the way she had been," Mr Parshin told AFP.

"At least, no one is beating them up," he added.

The sister's lawyers have appealed to the head of Russia's Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin, in a bid to overturn the indictment in favour of one that reflects the defensive nature of the women’s actions.

Their trial is due to begin in mid-August.