Not only the Russian army has nothing to do with it, but in addition, it is the victim of a terrible conspiracy… This is the message that the officials and their relays are bludgeoning. The corpses of civilians discovered by the hundreds in the streets of Boutcha are only a staging, a provocation. These first elements of language are broadcast from Sunday April 3 on the official Telegram accounts of the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs. Then relayed inside Russia and abroad, in real life and on social networks.
By the pro-government media too, which to support their demonstration rely on a report broadcast by Ukrainian television. The journalists cross Boutcha by car behind a pick-up of soldiers, they film the bodies everywhere on the asphalt or on the sidewalks. The Russians who scrutinized the images ensure that one of the civilians presented as dead raises his hand as the camera passes: like the others, he is an actor paid to do extras.
Except that the video has been analyzed by several specialist image verification sites. Their conclusion is without appeal: the corpse in question does not move a millimeter, the movement perceived is only a reflection on the windshield of the vehicle.
The string is big, very big, but there are many examples like this.
This is not the first time that the Russians have used the set-up rhetoric. Remember the bombardment of this maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9, which shocked the whole world. Photos then show a pregnant woman in shock. She is a beauty influencer. Moscow accuses her of being an actress. His injuries? “A very realistic make-up”, even tweets the Russian Embassy in England. His post has since been deleted. Already in 2013, during the war in Syria, Vladimir Putin had used and abused identical conspiracy theories to clear his Syrian ally.
For a few hours, however, the official thesis has changed on Boutcha. As the image proof did not really hold water, the Kremlin changed its version. Today Boutcha’s victims are very real, but they were not killed by the Russian army. They were by the Azov battalion, this Ukrainian regiment created in 2014 presented as “fascist” Where “neo-Nazi”. Pro-Russian social networks are filled with comments about his supposed atrocities. The advantage of this new argument is that it allows Moscow to justify its special military intervention, the objective of which is to “denazify” Ukraine. According to official propaganda, the bodies were placed there “after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Boutcha”.
Not true, Russia. Here’s the evidence. https://t.co/MjaCcq764u https://t.co/J0fkwlE5Ja pic.twitter.com/cmSkKefVZk
— Malachy Browne (@malachybrowne) April 4, 2022
Except that the American daily The New York Times has completely invalidated this theory, thanks to the analysis of satellite photos of the city of Boutcha. Images that date back several weeks, when the city was under Russian domination. On March 19, in particular, we already see bodies lying in the streets.
Russia asks for a new meeting of the Security Council, it promises to “present evidence of Boutcha’s deception“. The performance of its representative on Monday April 4 did not convince. The world is likely to wait a long time.