Bucha massacre and propaganda of the Russian Federation

03.04.2022 Off By Redaktor

Russia, with the help of fakes, is trying to blur and disguise the blood trail that its soldiers left in Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel. The scheme for creating disinformation is the same as in July 2014, when Russian proxy troops in the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region shot down a civilian Boeing MH-17. This was reported on his page in the FB by an analyst and media expert of the International Center for Countering Russian Propaganda (IC CRP) Valentyna Bykova.

“The first and main principle of the Russian IPSOs, which we are now seeing in connection with the genocide of Ukrainians in the Kyiv region, is information overload. Many different versions are thrown into the information space at the same time, with some of them contradicting each other, the analyst writes. – The purpose of using such a technique is to create an information “white noise”, in which they try to bury the truth. In addition, a large number of different versions that are heard simultaneously has another goal – to work for different target audiences, each of which can choose for itself the version of disinformation that more coincides with its own beliefs.”

“The first and main principle of the Russian Psy Ops , which we are now seeing in connection with the genocide of Ukrainians in the Kyiv region, is information overload. Many different versions are thrown into the information space at the same time, with some of them contradicting each other, the analyst writes. – The purpose of using such a technique is to create an information “white noise”, in which they try to bury the truth. In addition, a large number of different versions that are heard at the same time have another goal – to work for different target audiences, each of which can choose for itself the version of disinformation that more coincides with its own beliefs.”

Valentina Bykova points to two main theses promoted by Russian propaganda to justify crimes against peaceful Ukrainians: First: “This is a theatrical performance”, “there were no corpses”, “the corpses are not real”. There are kind of “observations” that “one corpse is moving its hand, another corpse is sitting down”, “in one video these corpses lie along the road, and on the other already across” , “In the first videos, these corpses were not, they appeared later.” Here is a direct parallel with the disinformation campaign that Russia waged regarding the downing of MH-17: “stale corpses” and “dead bodies were loaded into the plane in Amsterdam to blame the Russian Federation.” This was written by one of the accused in this case, the former so-called “commander-in-chief” and the self-proclaimed Minister of Defense of the ORDO Igor Girkin (Strelkov).

The second thesis: “There were corpses, but we did not kill civilians”, which aims to distract attention from the real perpetrators of the genocide – the Russian military and blame Ukraine for this. The main messages of propagandists of the Russian Federation: “Ukraine fired on its own citizens” or “Fraternal burial of civilians was made by the Ukrainian military when they left the city.” Here we again see parallels with the MH-17 shot down over the Donbas, when the Russians came up with several similar versions: “Boeing was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet”, Boeing was shot down by a Ukrainian air-defence missile system “Buk” , “Ukraine shot down a plane to substitut Russia”, “It had to be Putin’s plane, which Ukraine wanted to destroy”, etc.”

The analyst also notes that the IC CRP observes in the Russian information space the same scheme of “whitening information”, which was inherent in the work of Russian propagandists during the creation of disinformation about the Boeing 777. “The most marginal versions, for example, about the “theatrical performance” and “live corpses ” are thrown through noname channels, which are then reposted by the News Front, Vladimir Solovyov and other stakeholders with a large audience,” Valentyna Bykova emphasizes.

Fakes about the non-involvement of the Russian military in the genocide in the satellite cities of Kyiv began to appear in the morning, April 3, after the network got photos and videos of shot and tortured residents of Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted: “Apalled by the atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine. Reports of Russian forces targeting innocent civilians are abhorrent. The UK is working with others to gather evidence and support the International Criminal Court war crimes investigation. Those responsible will be held to account,” the statement said.