DISINFO: Accusations about Bucha are as false as claims that Russia bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol
SUMMARY
Some in the West are taking advantage of tragedies like Bucha to influence the masses, in the same way that they lied when they claimed that Russia had bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation obfuscating atrocities against Ukrainian civilians commited during Russia's war in Ukraine.
Evidence of Russian atrocities in Bucha is overwhelming. 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 or France24. Furthermore, a similar pattern of Russian war crimes is emerging in places like Borodyanka, Chernihiv, Hostomel and others.
Accounts of violence against civilians in Bucha have been collected by the Human Rights Watch:
"On March 4, Russian forces in Bucha, about 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, rounded up five men and summarily executed one of them. A witness told Human Rights Watch that soldiers forced the five men to kneel on the side of the road, pulled their T-shirts over their heads, and shot one of the men in the back of the head. “He fell [over],” the witness said, “and the women [present at the scene] screamed.”
The facts of the Russian bombing of the maternity ward in Mariupol, taking place from 9 March 2022 were carefully documented..
Read more about the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
See a related disinformation claim, alleging that videos from the Ukrainian town Bucha are context-and-evidence-free and the West is spreading fakes about Russian atrocities in Bucha.