These are perhaps the most appalling images seen since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Newspapers around the world relayed the photos and videos taken at Boutcha where dozens of civilians were massacred by the Russian army. We see bodies strewn on the devastated roads. If the images shocked the international community, on the Russian side they try to minimize the impact of these atrocities and above all to divert attention. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday evening that the discovery of corpses in Boutcha was a “provocation“aimed at derailing the ongoing negotiations between kyiv and Moscow. According to Moscow, this is “falsifications” and staging for the press. What the Kremlin spokesman had already denounced on Monday by evoking “Ukrainian allegations“. And the tweet from the Russian Embassy in France posted on social networks has just confirmed that the Russians have no intention of assuming these heinous acts.
In the evening of Wednesday April 6, the Russian Embassy delivered a message in a provocative and above all very brutal tone. A tweet, since deleted, where many journalists could be seen in front of the wreckage of a tank, taking photographs, in the town of Boutcha. And below, in legend, this short message: “Filming set, city of Boutcha”.
Very quickly, the reactions of indignation multiplied. Shocked, the Secretary of State for Europe Clément Beaune reacted by affirming: beyond shame, stop”. This Thursday morning, Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Minister of Foreign Affairs took a radical decision that he shared on his Twitter account.”Faced with the indecency and provocation of the communication from the Russian Embassy in France on Bucha’s abuses, I have decided to summon the Russian Ambassador to the Quai d’Orsay this morning“, wrote the former president of the regional council of Brittany.
Thibaud Cruz
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