Russia Claims Bucha Massacre Was a Western Fabrication – But Why?

Ever since responsibility for the deaths of more than 450 civilians during the 2022 occupation of the town of Bucha in the Kyiv region was attributed to Russian forces, Moscow has protested its innocence. The latest attempt to prove its troops were not guilty of those atrocities is in the publication of a report by the self-styled “International Public Tribunal on Crimes by Ukrainian Neo-Nazis.” The tribunal is an unofficial, Russian-instigated public organization that was founded days after the start of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine to “investigate, document and prosecute Ukrainian war crimes against captured Russian servicemen and civilians.”JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. It is chaired by Maxim Grigoryev and claims representation by civil society from 33 countries. This latest 21-page report is entitled, apparently without any irony, “Heirs of Goebbels: falsification of the events in Bucha and bloody staged performances of the Kiev [sic] regime,” mirroring the Kremlin’s attempts to portray the Ukraine invasion as a continuation of its WWII fight against Nazi Germany. A press conference, sponsored by the Russian state news agency TASS and chaired by Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, was held on Sept. 17 to present Grigoryev’s report, which says it shows that the 2022 Bucha massacre was a poorly executed hoax conducted by Ukraine and Western intelligence agencies. Other Topics of Interest Meloni: Putin Seeks European Escalation to Mask Ukraine Failures Italy’s prime minister says Moscow’s provocations are multiplying and urges Europe to appoint a single envoy on Ukraine. Various investigations – including those by the New York Times (NYT) – have identified the victims and full circumstances of their deaths, so how is Russia “debunking” it? More importantly, why? What evidence does Russia have, and where is it? The press conference restated the Kremlin’s oft-stated view, as represented in the report, that indisputable facts show how Ukraine, the European Union, and European nations positioned deceased Ukrainian military personnel who had died in combat, along with elderly Ukrainian citizens who had died of natural causes, as civilians killed in Bucha. These were then passed off as victims of Russian occupiers in the town. They say the report also presents indisputable evidence of a widespread practice conducted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) of the deliberate killing of their own citizens – including women, children and the elderly – to support Kyiv’s claims of outrages conducted by Russia, during the latter’s so-called “special military operation.” But the majority of the killing took place on Yablunska Street in occupied Bucha, where Russian troops were stationed, when the town was under occupation, and not under Ukrainian control. The bulk of Grigoryev’s “evidence” is also to compare the names of several of those who died in Bucha with open-source images and reports of Ukrainian servicemen, some of whom are known to have died elsewhere or civilians who died trying to defend the town from Russian attack, which, in the report’s view, makes them combatants, not “innocent civilians.” An NYT investigation identified 36 of the victims on Yablunska Street, including mothers, fathers, children and grandparents, and pieced together their final moments via eyewitness accounts, text messages, and satellite imagery. A video from occupied Bucha, contained in another 2022 NYT report, shows a line of Ukrainian men being marched by a Russian soldier at gunpoint to a base, with eyewitness accounts noting that gunshots were heard and the men never returned. Some bodies, including those of men and women, were found strewn across the streets of Bucha following the town’s liberation, while further examinations discovered mass graves in nearby forests containing remains of residents. But Grigoryev’s report also gives its view, after Russian forces withdrew from Bucha, that no time passed before the Western media were allowed to descend on the town, where they bore witness to the bodies that lay strewn about the town, which it suggests were pre-positioned by Ukrainian forces as part of an anti-Kremlin propaganda onslaught. It then seeks to underline the veracity of its hypothesis of what happened in Bucha by recording eyewitness testimony – not from Bucha, but from other towns and cities where it alleges Ukraine staged Russian war crimes or hid its own. However, the premise is undermined by the lack of any truly impartial evidence or corroboration of the evidence presented by any neutral parties. Who is the report for? It is unclear who exactly the report is aimed at, but the claim, long echoed by the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, is often echoed by skeptics of the West. But sometimes, they also coincide with attempts at peace talks. Zakharova said during the press conference that Russia had identified the claims of a massacre in Bucha as a falsification at the time. She asserted that on March 30, 2022, Russian Armed Forces had withdrawn from the area around Kyiv, including Bucha, as a gesture of goodwill amidst the aborted peace negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul. She then said the reports of what had been an obviously orchestrated information campaign following Moscow’s withdrawal, the town had become a “place of pilgrimage” for Western leaders, heads of international organizations and Western journalists. – a claim also echoed by US Vice President JD Vance. For Moscow’s fellow-travelers, it will reinforce the view that the Russian invasion was an unfortunate necessity because of the threat from the West and that accusations against its armed forces are simply propaganda designed to undermine its “righteous cause.” The timing of the release on the eve of the elections of the ninth convocation of the State Duma is also unlikely to be coincidental and again needed to shore up ordinary Russians’ view of the war. From the viewpoint not only of Ukraine and its allies, but also from the numerous inquiries and investigations that were carried out after Russian withdrawals, there is no doubt that Bucha, along with several towns that were previously and are still occupied, did indeed suffer from the outrageous and barbaric behavior of Russian servicemen – from looting and theft, rape, torture and murder. This latest report will do nothing to assuage that view. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.