Lavrov: Ukraine’s Bucha allegations ‘fake attack’ to undermine Russia

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Ukraine’s account of what happened in the town of Bucha is a “fake attack” aiming to undermine Moscow.

Kiev and the West accuse Russian troops of killing ‘hundreds of people’ in the Ukrainian town.

On Monday, Lavrov reiterated that Russian forces were not involved in any act of killing civilians once they were in control of Bucha. The so-called dead bodies in footage circulating the internet, the minister said, were “staged” and the images of them plus Ukraine’s false version of events had been spread on social media by Kiev and Western countries.

“The other day another fake attack was carried out in the city of Bucha in the Kiev region after the Russian servicemen left the area in accordance with the plans and agreements reached. A fake attack was staged there a few days later, and it’s being fomented on all channels and social media by Ukrainian representatives and their Western patrons,” the Russian foreign minister said at talks in Moscow with UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, TASS reported.

Kiev on Sunday urged major Western powers, including the United States, to impose crippling fresh sanctions on Moscow over what it called a “massacre” in Bucha, a newly liberated town 37 kilometers northwest of the capital.

In a video message on Saturday, the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, claimed that 300 people had been killed by the Russian army with some appearing to have been bound by their hands and feet before being shot. He also presented footage and photographs showing the dead bodies of those allegedly killed or executed by Russian troops, claiming that 280 bodies had been buried in mass graves while nearly 10 others were either unburied or only partially covered by earth.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian forces were committing “genocide” in Bucha, vowing to investigate possible war crimes. His Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also labeled it a “deliberate massacre.”

The allegations of “mass graves” and “executed” civilians caused anger in Western capitals. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union all called for those responsible to be brought to book at the international tribunal in The Hague.

Lavrov also said on Monday that Russian troops completely pulled out of Bucha on March 30.

ME