DISINFO: Kyiv created a new "Bucha" in the Kharkiv region
SUMMARY
After Russian forces withdrew from the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian media began to spread stories about torture and mass murder of residents, creating a new Bucha-like provocation. Ukraine supplements their evidence for torture with stories from a group of youths aged 15 to 17 who claim that they were held in the basement for several days.
Almost all of the bodies discovered in the around 400 graves in Izyum belong to soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, who were buried because Ukrainian commanders refused to accept their own remains.
RESPONSE
The material and links may contain distressing/graphic content.
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about the atrocities of the Ukrainian army, such as war crimes and genocide, similar to the narrative denying the involvement of Russian troops in a massacre in the town of Bucha near Kyiv. This is part of a disinformation campaign aiming to justify Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
There is no evidence to support the claims of Ukraine creating a new "Bucha" in the Kharkiv region. There is no evidence presented that it is Russian soldiers in the mass graves. Additionally, the Ukrainian authorities did not systematically exterminate or abuse the people living in the conflict zone. The dead people – military and civilian alike - are the result of a war Russia has started in Ukraine. It was not an internal civil conflict but a well-documented act of aggression by Russian armed forces, ongoing since February 2014. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine which has closely monitored the conflict has observed no such genocide.
On the contrary, there is numerous evidence that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, such as the shelling of shopping malls, killing civilians, raping, as well as using unprecise weapons.
In the city of Izium, in the east of Ukraine, that was recently liberated, a mass grave with more than 440 bodies was discovered. It appears that some of them were Ukrainian soldiers who took part in defending the city in March. Izium was under occupation since 1 April 2022. Numerous Ukrainian and foreign investigative organisations try to establish the reason of the deaths in each case.
Preliminary results, according to Ukrainian police, show that some people were victims of a Russian airstrike on an apartment block in March, in which 47 people were killed. They also found 20 soldiers, some with their hands bound and one with a noose around his neck.
See more disinformation cases, alleging that Mariupol maternity hospital shelling and Bucha massacre are fakes, that Ukraine commits wild provocations and war crimes, that Bucha is a fabrication, or that Bucha is a cover up for Ukrainian fascists torturing Russian prisoners of war.