Bucha Massacre: Russia Denies Responsibility, but Already Convicted by Media
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Russia denied allegations that its forces were behind the horrific killings in the town of Bucha, which is outside Kyiv, that many Western countries see as game-changing incident that puts Moscow on the path to even greater isolation.
GRAPHIC IMAGE WARNING BELOW
The images sparked widespread condemnation of Russia. Some of the victims were found with their hands tied behind their backs, tortured, burned alive, and a massive grave was also discovered. Dozens of pictures emerged, including what appeared to be entire families that had been executed.
The killings are a stain on humanity.
Residents in the city told Reuters that hundreds were killed by fleeing Russian troops. Reuters described the scene: “Bucha's still-unburied dead wore no uniforms. They were civilians with bikes, their stiff hands still gripping bags of shopping. Some had clearly been dead for many days, if not weeks.”
But Russia has denied the killings and called for a special hearing at the U.N. to “bring to light the presumptuous Ukrainian provocateurs and their Western patrons,” RT.com reported.
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Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy to the Iran nuclear talks, tweeted, “The U.K. Presidency in the UN Security Council refused to convene an urgent open UNSC meeting on Monday to discuss without delay the tragic events in Bucha, as it was requested by Russia. Unprecedented! What they are afraid of?”
For Moscow’s critics, the decision to call for a UN hearing was simply a charade, a flimsy attempt to “feign outrage,” according to one Western official. But Moscow claimed that the purported “evidence” emerged four days after the troop withdrawal, RT.com reported. Moscow said the evidence emerged when Ukrainian intelligence and “representatives of Ukrainian television arrived in the town.”
FALLOUT
President Joe Biden said on Monday that the evidence emerging from Bucha solidified his earlier claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is indeed a war criminal.
“He is a war criminal,” Biden said. “This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it. I think it is a war crime…He should be held accountable.” (SEE: “POT CALLS KETTLE BLACK: BIDEN CALLS PUTIN A WAR CRIMINAL”)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of committing genocide, CNBC reported. He said Ukrainians are being “destroyed and exterminated.” (The White House did not call the killings a genocide.)
The New York Times said it reviewed satellite imagery that confirmed the claim that the civilians were killed while Russians were in the city.
TRENDPOST: The massacre in Bucha is tragic and another example of why The Trends Journal is completely opposed to the Russian invasion. But Russia has been charged, found guilty and hung by the West and its media, which is also troubling.
Joe Lauria questioned the claim in a column published in Consortium News. He pointed to how city leaders celebrated reentering the city, calling it a “glorious day.” He said that would be a hard claim to make if there were bodies littered in the street.
“It is possible that on Saturday the full extent of the horror had yet to emerge, and that even the mayor was unaware of it two days before, though photos now show many of the bodies out in the open on the streets of the town, something that presumably would be difficult to miss,” he wrote.
He wrote that the Bucha incident occurred at a critical moment in the war.
"An impartial investigation is warranted, which probably only the U.N. could conduct," he wrote. "The Azov Battalion may have perpetrated revenge killings against Russian collaborators, or the Russians carried out this massacre. A rush to judgment is dangerous, with irresponsible talk of the U.S. directly fighting Russia. But it is a rush to judgment that we are getting."
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