DISINFO: Ukrainians committed crimes in Bucha, not Russians
SUMMARY
The claims that the Russian army is responsible for the killings in Bucha are baseless. The truth is that some of the victims were killed by Ukraine’s defence forces, as Ukrainian themselves confirm, while the other corpses are a consequence of the bombings carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the withdrawal of the Russian troops. This is proven by the the large number of artillery craters, and also by the Ukrainian and Azov troops shooting indiscriminately as they entered the cities.
RESPONSE
This is part of a wider pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign aiming to deny any Russian responsibility in the Bucha massacres and other atrocities during the war of aggression against Ukraine, despite massive evidence on the contrary.
The material and links may contain distressing/ graphic content.
Several executions and shooting of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha were recorded in video by witnesses and Ukrainian drones. Satellite images show that some of the corpses were already lying on the streets weeks before the Russian withdrawal. Incriminatory radio conversations by Russian troops were intercepted and released by German intelligence.
Dozens of Bucha survivors have been interviewed by world-class international outlets, including The New York Times, BBC, The Washington Post, Associated Press, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Radio France Internationale, Al Jazeera or El País. Ukrainian forensic teams are uncovering further evidence of these Russian war crimes. Other false allegations denying Russian involvement in the Bucha massacres were further debunked by some of those international outlets like Deutsche Welle, El País, France24, or Bellingcat.
Besides, a similar pattern of Russian war crimes is emerging in places like Borodyanka, Chernihiv, Hostomel and others.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that the West is spreading fakes about Russian atrocities in Bucha, that Kyiv’s accusations of killings in Bucha are a provocation, that videos from Bucha are context-and-evidence-free, that Britain is lying by saying that Bucha massacre is Russia’s fault, that Ukrainian “corpses” move, stand up and avoid transport in Bucha, or that the images of dead bodies in Bucha may be a diversion of attention from US biolabs in Ukraine.