The spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, rejected this Monday in categorical terms the implication of the military of your country in the murders of Ukrainian civilians in Buchaa city near kyiv that had been dominated by the invading forces and in which, after the withdrawal, video images and photos showed hundreds of corpses scattered through the streets, some with their hands tied.
“We flatly deny all accusations.. Furthermore, we believe that it is necessary to discuss this issue at the highest level; hence our initiative to examine it in the (UN) Security Council, an initiative that has been blocked,” Peskov told reporters.
The spokesman questioned the images of Bucha that are circulating these days in the international media.
“This information should be seriously questioned (…) Much of these videos are not trustworthy, the experts of our Ministry of Defense have detected the signs of montage in these videos,” he said, quoted by the Sputnik news agency.
The Kremlin representative recognized the seriousness of the case, but asked not to jump to conclusions.
“This is a serious situation, no doubt. We would ask everyone, especially many international leaders, to avoid rash statements and gratuitous accusations, request information from various sources and, at a minimum, pay attention to our arguments,” he insisted.
Peskov thus made reference to the voices that since Sunday began to condemn what according to the images it was a massacre on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, which included authorities from the United States and the main heads of government in Europe, among many others.
The Russian Defense Ministry called the published photos and videos “a new provocation”, by assuring that during the stay of the Russian military in the city “no local civilian suffered any aggression”.
The military entity pointed out that “on March 31, the mayor of Bucha, Anatoli Fedoruk, in his video message confirmed the absence of Russian soldiers, but did not mention any local inhabitant shot to death with their hands tied.”
“So it is not surprising that the so-called ‘evidence of the crimes’ in Bucha appeared four days later, when employees of the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the city,” the ministry stressed.
At the same time, he indicated that “the southern suburbs of the town, including residential neighborhoods, were bombarded 24 hours a day by the Ukrainian military with large-caliber artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems.”
The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrikin, ordered to study the photos and videos, and pointed out that “according to available information” they were disseminated to “distort the image of the Russian military”, reproduced Sputnik.
Bastrikin further ordered that measures be taken to “identify those involved in this farce, as well as assess their actions from a legal point of view, under the criminal code based on the article Public dissemination of deliberately false information about the Russian Armed Forces “.
Users of social networks who saw the videos questioned their veracity and pointed out that in the images, there is no blood near the bodies, and drew attention to the white armbands that some of the dead were wearing, which are used by Donbass militiamen. , the Russian-speaking zone that claims its independence and that according to Moscow was criminally fought by the kyiv government, even though it is in its own territory.
Users also noticed that the “dead” suddenly begin to move their arms, and in the rear-view mirror of the cameraman’s car it is observed that one of those allegedly murdered changes position as soon as a car passes by.
On February 24, 40 days ago, Russia launched a military offensive in Ukraine under the justification that the kyiv government had been committing crimes against the inhabitants of two provinces in the Donbass region. which Moscow had previously recognized as independent states.
The Kremlin’s claim includes Ukraine’s violation of the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Peace Accords, that forced kyiv to give those two cities – Lugansk and Donetsk, which in separate referendums voted to separate from Ukraine – autonomy and the possibility of electing their own regional authorities.
Ukraine, on the other hand, affirms that with the military operation Russia intends to destroy Ukrainian culture and history, and overthrow President Volodomir Zelensky. to encourage a leader close to Moscow to come to power.