Notes From the Upside Down XII: The ‘Bucha Massacre’—According to Ukrainian Media, courtesy of Thomas Röper

Ukrainian Media reports that 'on 2 April, a "mop-up operation" against "Russia's accomplices" took place in Bucha

I don’t have much time today, hence you’ll ‘only’ get something written by someone else. As the title of today’s post indicates, if you’re following ‘Western’ media and politics, the so-called ‘Bucha massacre’ is all the rage. I’ll spare you (most) media BS here, but to set up properly the below piece, here’s a screen shot from the de facto Ministry of Truth:

While it’s hard to figure out what happened in the heat of the moment, I propose that it’s important to obtain as much information as possible about any event. This, in turn, allows for a more comprehensive contextualisation of, well, everything, in particular as there’s always more than meets the eye. While reading on, please consider the following:

The material presented here reveals an event that is more varied than the one depicted in articles based on governmental and official sources. If the media’s presentation of the facts, commentary, and official records provide a moving image of the Bucha massacre, records from Ukraine furnish the soundtrack of the event, thus bringing the scene closer to life than either set of information would do on their own.

Below you may find a translated version of what independent Russia-based German journalist Thomas Röper published yesterday, 5 April 2022, over at his website. The work is Röper’s, the emphases and translation are mine.

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Ukrainian Media: On 2 April, a ‘mop-up operation’ against ‘Russia’s accomplices’ took place in Bucha

Answers to the question as to who murdered the people of Bucha are becoming more and more clear: there are very interesting clues in Ukrainian media.

The Ukrainian portal lb.ua is one of the leading news portals in Ukraine, publishing articles in English, Russian and Ukrainian. In the English section, an article entitled ‘Special Forces Regiment SAFARI Begins Clearing Operation in Bucha from Saboteurs and Accomplices of Russia—National Police’ appeared on 2 April. The article itself is rather vacuous and contains little information, but it is interesting that it talks about a ‘cleansing operation of accomplices of Russia’.

The Russian army left Bucha on 30 March, which was confirmed by the town’s mayor in a video message on 31 March. Thus, the question arises as to who the town had to be cleared of, if the Russian army was no longer there at all.

This video should provide the answer. [either click the link or go to Röper’s website]

In the video, a soldier asks his commander if he can shoot at anyone who is not wearing blue armbands, and the commander allows it. The blue armbands are identifying marks of the Ukrainian army and its sympathisers, and the white armbands are identifiers of the Russian army and its sympathisers. The fact that the corpses in Bucha are wearing white armbands therefore indicates anyway that they were victims of Ukrainian forces. Why would Russian soldiers shoot their sympathisers?

Ukrainian media are generally an interesting source. For example, when I looked around lb.ua I found this very recent article headlined ‘Andriy Kryshchenko: “You can kill occupiers and nothing will happen. You can use a gun, a pitchfork or a Molotov cocktail. As you like”’, which is written in Ukrainian. There are many such appeals in Ukrainian media, and they reflect the mood in which people are supposed to be put. When radical militants read these pieces, the messages naturally fall on particularly fertile ground and when they [Ukrainian radical militants] then see civilians wearing white armbands, anything can happen.

The days between 30 March and 2 April must have been difficult for the people of Bucha, because during those days the Russian troops had already left, and the Ukrainian army had not yet arrived. There must have been a lot of uncertainty in the town as to who would take over in the end. This may explain why there were people wearing both white and blue armbands at the time.

When appropriately named regiment ‘Safari’ moved in to ‘cleanse the city of Russia’s accomplices’, there may have been casualties. And they are now presented to the world as victims of the Russian army who, according to alleged satellite images, have been lying in the street for a fortnight.

However, anyone familiar with decomposition processes will realise that such exposed corpses would have been almost putrefied after two weeks, especially since the temperatures in Bucha during the second half of March were around 10 to 15 degrees [Centigrade]. But, this is not the case, and the corpses in the pictures all look fresh, which further suggests that these people were shot only after the Russian withdrawal.

On 2 April the ‘cleansing operation’ took place and on 3 April Kiev presented the bodies to the world public as victims of the Russian army…

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Brief Concluding Comment

Given that this is by far not the only report of atrocities committed by Ukrainian and de facto Ukrainian troops, I think it’s quite obvious what happened.

Also, note that Reuters also ran a piece telling the world that the US DoD cannot confirm the veracity of the Ukrainian claims:

False flag, I’d say.

It also begs the question whether or not Mr. Zelensky is actually, you know, in charge (I doubt it).