In the News April 7

Accusations of Russian War Crimes in Bucha

Facts Behind the Accusations that Russia Massacred Civilians in Bucha

Allegations of a massacre of civilians in Bucha dominate the pages of the western media propaganda war. Russia is blamed for committing war crimes and Canada, the U.S. and European Union have announced more sanctions against Russia. Calls for military intervention are also being made along with demands to throw Russia out of international bodies and the like.

The timelines point to what is called a false flag operation that has been staged to lay the blame on Russian forces for crimes committed by Ukrainian forces. A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. For example, when Ukrainian forces retook control of Bucha on April 2, no mention of a massacre was made by Associated Press (AP) or Time Magazine in their reports or conversations with “locals.”

Here are some known facts.

No civilian casualties were reported in the Ukrainian town of Bucha when it was controlled by the Russian Armed Forces. The Russian Defence Ministry said the Russian Armed Forces had left Bucha, located in the Kyiv region, on March 30, while “the evidence of crimes” emerged only four days later, after Ukrainian Security Service officers had arrived in the town. The Russian Defence Ministry stressed that on March 31, the town’s Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk had confirmed in a video address that there were no Russian troops in Bucha. However, he did not say a word about civilians shot dead on the street with their hands tied behind their backs.

– AP reported on April 2 that Ukrainian forces had retaken Bucha, nothing more. Time Magazine reported April 2 that “Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, watched Saturday as Ukrainian soldiers backed by a column of tanks and other armored vehicles used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance, fearing they might have been rigged to explode. Locals said the dead — the AP counted at least six — “were civilians who were killed by departing Russian soldiers without provocation.”

It is noteworthy that “locals” made no reference to mass executions by Russian forces at that time.

– On April 3 Agence France-Presse (AFP) carried an item “Zelensky says Russian forces committing genocide” but he made no mention of the assassination-type executions subsequently found in Bucha.

– Also, on April 3 the German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) ran a statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW) which they titled “HRW says Killings in Bucha Could Constitute War Crimes.” The impression which suggests it is a comment on the reported mass murders is deliberately misleading because the director of HRW is referring to a report his organization released on April 3 which makes no reference to the discovery of mass executions in Bucha on April 2. The director is referring to events in March, not April (and those too on events also shown to have been falsely attributed to the Russians).

– Kyiv Independent wrote on April 3 that “The bodies of at least 20 men in civilian clothes were found lying in a single street after Ukrainian forces retook the town of Bucha” on April 2. “They are often found shot dead, with their hands tied behind their backs.”

Then, on the evening of April 3, a Ukrainian station showed a video of Ukrainian troops driving through Bucha with several ‘dead’ people lying in the street allegedly “killed by Russians.” A video posted on twitter shows there are two difficulties with these claims: One of the dead appears to move his arm: Bucha was declared ‘completely liberated’ of Russian troops by its mayor on Thursday, March 31. The video has now been taken down by twitter.

A tweet questioned that “We are to believe it would take three days for such an ‘incriminating’ video to come out. Or that those ‘dead’ were lying there for three days with no one bothering to take note.”

– Vineyard of the Saker, on April 3, carried a video reportedly showing Ukrainian soldiers as they reclaimed control of Bucha. They were asking whether they could shoot any people they found wearing white arm bands, which locals are said to have worn to indicate no hostility to occupying Russian forces. The video goes on to show what is purported to be Ukrainian soldiers rounding up people with white armbands, tying their hands behind their backs. Many of the dead in the streets are said to have been wearing white armbands, which suggests they were killed by the Ukrainian forces re-occupying the town. To view video click here.

Saker also cites other recent examples of faked news reports of Russian atrocities, from the maternity hospital false flag in Mariupol and the missile attack on the civilian mall that turned out to be hosting Ukrainian artillery firing positions to the American journalist said to have been killed by Russian soldiers in Irpin, but subsequently proven by the dead reporter’s companion to have been killed by Ukrainian forces.

– On April 4 Reuters ran an update of its April 3 report, saying the Mayor of Bucha made the allegation of “mass executions.” Titled “Hundreds of murdered civilians discovered as Russians withdraw,” the report said that Bucha’s deputy mayor, Taras Shapravskyi, said 50 of some 300 bodies found after Russian forces withdrew from the city late last week were the victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by Russian troops. Reuters said it could not independently verify the figures but that satellite images showed a 45 foot long trench where a mass grave was found this week.

– Moon of Alabama called it propaganda and posted a separate video which YouTuber Gonzalo Lira on April 2, 2022 said proves without doubt that four different Ukrainian propaganda clips with different actors were all filmed at the exact same location, a ‘battlefield’ with several long-destroyed Ukrainian tanks as props. To view Propaganda BTFO video click here.

Of course, it is very disturbing for people to see such massacres — be they false flag operations to blame the Russians, or staged using actors also to blame the Russians. In either case, they are aimed at inciting hatred of the Russians for committing war crimes and getting people to rally behind whatever the U.S./NATO forces are doing to extend the war to further encircle, humiliate and crush Russia — not a worthy aim as concerns the peoples of the world in any case.

A real problem is that even after these fake news are exposed, NATO governments and media such as those in Canada have adopted the infamous Hearst media practices of yellow journalism to such an extent that they never recant for having promoted the false news. Far from it, massive amounts of money and official resources are being spent to pass laws and regulations which claim that anyone who opposes such fake news is an enemy agent, themselves conveying false news.

All of it confirms the extent to which NATO governments have been literally taken over by the most reactionary forces whose specialty has become to invent lies, spread them, and then have governments such as Canada’s adopt them as official narratives to justify what cannot be justified.

Since then, other videos have been found and analyzed, adding to the evidence that a false flag operation was staged at Bucha. One of these shows uniformed Ukrainian troops brutally beating and humiliating people in civilian clothes they accuse of collaborating with Russia. In other videos, green ration boxes of the kind said to be used by the Russian military are scattered on the ground close to the corpses. Merely accepting humanitarian food aid from the Russian military or bartering something else and getting a ration kit in return is enough to get ordinary people lynched as “Russian collaborators.”

This is worrisome indeed.

Notes

Kyiv Independent – English language media launched roughly one year ago using an emergency grant from the European Endowment for Democracy which also donated office space and web services.

Vineyard of the Saker is the blog of Andrei Raevsky, a former Swiss intelligence analyst and consultant of Dutch and Russian extraction, currently living in the U.S.

Moon of Alabama is an independent news and current affairs internet forum and online discussion site covering topic of politics, philosophy, economics.

TML Daily, posted April 7, 2022.