Execution of Ukrainian civilians ‘a hideous forgery’

London — Western allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes by executing civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha were a “monstrous forgery” aimed at denigrating the army, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Since Russian troops withdrew from towns and villages around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, local troops have been showing journalists corpses of what they say are civilians killed by Russian forces, destroyed houses and burnt-out cars.

The West says the dead civilians are evidence of war crimes. Reuters saw dead bodies in the town of Bucha but could not independently verify who was responsible for the killings.

“It is a simply a well-directed — but tragic — show,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “It is a forgery aimed at denigrating the Russian army — and it will not work.”

“We once again urge the international community: detach yourself from such emotional perceptions and think with your head,” Peskov said. “Compare the facts and understand what a monstrous forgery we are dealing with.”

Ukraine says Russia is guilty of genocide and US President Joe Biden on Monday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes and called for a trial.

The Kremlin said Biden’s remarks were unacceptable and unworthy of a leader of the US.

The outcry over the discovery of so many dead civilians, some shot in the head, after Russia’s withdrawal from areas around Kyiv, has prompted Western promises to impose even tougher sanctions on the country.

The European Commission is to propose sweeping new sanctions against Russia, including a ban on imports of coal, rubber, chemicals and other products, an EU source said.

Russia’s economy is already heading for its biggest economic contraction since the years after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union after the West largely cut Russia out of the financial system and sanctioned its richest businesspeople.

Russia says fakes

Russia casts the evidence of civilian executions in Bucha as a cyclical ploy by Ukraine and its Western backers, who Moscow says are gripped by discriminatory anti-Russian paranoia.

“These are fakes that matured in the cynical imagination of Ukrainian propaganda,” Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said of Bucha.

Medvedev said the fakes had been concocted for vast amounts of money by Western public relations companies and “tame” non-governmental organisations. He did not provide specific evidence.

He suggested that Ukrainian forces had been prepared to kill their own citizens in a bid to discredit Russia.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had evidence that the 72nd Ukrainian Main Centre for Psychological Operations had helped stage such propaganda in a village 23km northwest of Kyiv as well as in Sumy, Konotop, and other towns.

Reuters