In the News April 7

Accusations of Russian War Crimes in Bucha

Russia Exercises Right of Reply on
What Took Place in Bucha

At the UN Security Council Meeting held on April 5, the Russian representative exercised Russia’s Right of Reply to address the lies blaming Russia for the cold-blooded murder of civilians in Bucha by Ukrainian forces after the Russians pulled out in a good faith gesture. Here is what Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said:

Mme. President,

This does not bring us closer to adjourning this meeting, but since the topic under discussion is of utmost importance, I must say a few words about the cause of this meeting. We had no opportunity to say this yesterday, because we were not allowed to convene a separate Council meeting on the issue. Unfortunately, our colleagues did their best to bust the initiative for having a meeting yesterday. It gave us another clear demonstration of what “rules-based order” looks like.

Let me once again turn to the events in Bucha that gave the reason for convening this meeting and also for drawing far-reaching conclusions that many of you already made. All divisions of Russian armed forces fully withdrew from Bucha as a good will gesture back on 30 March — the next day after a round of Russian-Ukrainian talks that had taken place in Turkey. Russian Defence Ministry published a corresponding notification on its official web resources on the same day.

Over the time that the town was controlled by Russian forces, no local resident suffered from any violent action. People moved freely around the town and had access to mobile networks. Besides, Russian military servicemen delivered and distributed 452 tons of humanitarian aid among civilians in towns of the Kiev Region. There is evidence confirming this. City exits were not blocked, residents could freely leave in the northern direction. At the same time, Ukrainian troops were shelling the southern borders of Bucha (including residential quarters) round the clock from large-caliber artillery and multiple rocket launchers.

Once the Russian troops withdrew, the mayor of Bucha Anatoliy Fedoruk in his video-address of 31 March spoke of it as of a heroic liberation of the town by Ukrainian forces. We will leave this slyness to his conscience and focus on him confirming the fact: on 31 March there were no Russian troops in Bucha. What’s more, the mayor never mentioned any locals shot in the streets with their hands tied. Can you believe a mayor could not notice bodies of, as they say, 280 dead people in the streets?

To view the video click here.

On April 1, member of Bucha’s township council Katerina Ukraintseva in a two-minute-long video repeatedly warned her fellow-residents that Ukrainian Security Service had entered the town and was cleansing it. She asked everyone to be very cautious. An almost eight-minute-long video clip is accessible on the Internet that informs about an announced cleansing of Bucha by Ukrainian National Police on April 2.

This video does not show any dead bodies of civilians in the streets. In addition to that, the video features Ukraine’s National Guard interviewing the local residents, none of whom mentions any corpses or mass shootings. One of Ukrainian news portals also published a heads-up about an upcoming cleansing of Bucha from Russia’s accomplices. They deleted the publication afterwards, but web users managed to save it.

So-called evidence of crimes of Russian forces in Bucha popped up only on April 3 — four days into the presence of Ukrainian armed forces there.

Once again, without any proof and only based on “presumption of guilt,” Russian military are being inculpated for some atrocities. Of course, we could not fail to notice how rapidly footage of Ukrainian journalists was picked up by Western politicians and famous rights advocates who pretend to be impartial and unbiased.

While doing so, they purposefully ignore obvious discrepancies of the narrative promoted by Ukraine and the West. Had those bodies indeed lain in the open for several days, they would have definitely shown certain signs that are well known to forensic experts. Our Western colleagues however seem to be little worried by that. Otherwise The New York Times would not have gone as far as to say that corpses had lain in the streets since 20 March. If this had been the case, can you imagine what they would have turned into?

The footage disseminated by the Ukrainians shows that some bodies had specific insignia on their upper arms — a white stripe. Civilians wore such stripes after the arrival of Russian military.

One of the video clips that Ukrainian radicals uploaded on the web, contains a distinctly audible call to shoot all those who wear no blue stripes. This video of Bucha’s cleansing was uploaded by a leader of one of so-called territorial battalions, among which Ukrainian authorities distributed weapons without requesting any accountability.

Besides, Katerina Ukraintseva whom I already mentioned admitted in an interview to Russian platform “Meduza” that she never saw Russian troops shoot people. Later in that same interview she confirmed that Ukrainian military were to blame for all major violations. Of course, our Ukrainian and Western colleagues easily forsake those details.

President Zelensky, however, already argues that all that clearly staged footage from Bucha allegedly gives Ukrainians a moral right to an “uncivilized response.” One can only guess what that means judging by what Ukrainian radicals did in the east of the country. Evidence of their crimes is abundant and truly shocking. Unfortunately, it seems that Kiev’s experts who specialize in disinformation and staged provocations are not going to stop at that.

Russian Defence Ministry reported that according to verified data, members of 72nd Ukrainian Center for Information and Psychological Operations filmed another staged footage of civilians, allegedly killed by Russian troops in order to have it disseminated via Western media. This was done on April 4 in the town of Moshchun (23 kilometers northwest from Kiev). Ukrainian special services also conducted such operations in Sumy and some other cities.

In conclusion, let me address our Western colleagues. We understand too well what you are doing when you play this Ukrainian card and propel hysterical anti-Russian propaganda campaign by the day. That is why we think further appalling provocations (like the one in Bucha) will take place with further attempts to besmirch Russian soldiers, present them as sadists, murderers and rapists. As I already said, this is a vile thing to think. You do not care that latest technology makes it possible to make any video. Today we saw footage presented by the Ukrainian side. The Internet is already full of refutes of that. According to those disproofs, what we were shown had been filmed in another place at another time, and with other people.

One last point — to my American colleague, who declared a “crusade” to exclude Russia from the Human Rights Council (HRC). Let me underscore that this is said by a representative of a country that strongly criticized the HRC only three years ago because it had dared to condemn the methods and acts of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. As we know, the United States quit the HRC. I hope that our colleagues here at the U.N. will not yield to manipulations and play up to Washington in its extremely dangerous ventures.

Thank you.

TML Daily, posted April 7, 2022.