What just happened
- Zelensky prepared to accuse Russia of genocide at a UN Security Council meeting called initially by Moscow.
- France and Germany said they would expel 75 diplomats between them in response to the murder of civilians in Bucha and elsewhere.
- Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski said they would join Susan Collins and Democrats in voting to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court later this week.
The murder of civilians by Russian troops in occupied Ukraine would be troubling enough even if Moscow acknowledged and condemned it. Instead, lies about the dead are being added to lies about the invasion and previous atrocities, and if Putin’s approval rates are any guide they are falling on fertile ground. This is a moral disaster but also an urgent practical problem: the more Russians believe the propaganda, the less chance there is that they will remove Putin from power and the longer Ukrainian civilians will have to suffer while their army fights his on the battlefield.
The filter. State-controlled Russian TV virtually ignored the story of apparent war crimes in Bucha as it broke on Sunday evening, and hit back on Monday with familiar claims that it was a provocation staged by Ukraine.
Day one. Channel 1, the Kremlin’s most powerful mouthpiece, quoted foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying the killings were staged to derail peace talks and escalate the violence. A detailed story in the ostensibly serious business paper Kommersant claimed inaccurately that Russian troops had withdrawn from Bucha three days before bodies were first filmed on its streets. BBC Monitoring’s Russia watchlist for April 4 shows how the piece established a narrative picked up by other state-backed media and outlets in China, Venezuela and Iran.
The reality. Contrary to Russia’s claims that its troops withdrew from Bucha on 30 March, its own channels were still reporting military operations there on 1 April, the same day images of bodies on the streets first appeared on social media. Later yesterday the NYT established with satellite imagery that many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago.
Double down. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, said without evidence the killings were “fakes” as Channel 1 and other approved networks rounded out their prime-time bulletins with stories about
- a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians and foreign nationals from Mariupol (Rossiya 24);
- searches of homes in “liberated” (Russian-held) areas by Russian soldiers showing “utmost courtesy” to homeowners (Rossiya 24); and
- motor rallies in Athens and Berlin supposedly to protest against Russophobia and show solidarity with Russia (Rossiya 1).
Day two. Without compelling answers to the NYT’s satellite image analysis, the main Russian networks have sought today to change the subject to
- unsubstantiated claims that Russia’s UN representative, Vasily Nebenzya, has “proof” Russian troops were not involved in the Bucha killings;
- claims the UK sought to veto Russia’s request for an emergency UN Security Council meeting, which will in fact happen today;
- claims that western countries are ignoring evidence of Russian prisoners being tortured by their Ukrainian captors.
Today’s Russian papers don’t ignore the Bucha killings but they blame them squarely on Ukraine – a “PR tragedy” (Moskovsky Komsomolets); an “information spectacle” (Rossiskaya Gazeta). Komsomolskaya Pravda goes a step further. The massacre, it says, is a carefully prepared false flag operation to turn the world decisively against Russia – just like the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines MH-17 eight years ago.
