The Russian military behaved humanely towards the Ukrainian population and army during the invasion of southern Ukraine, according to the Russian state media, which quotes the self-proclaimed mayor of a city in the Kherson region. Mass graves and torture chambers have been discovered in southern Ukraine that show how humane the behavior of the Russians really was.
The pro-Kremlin media claim that the Russians even tried to save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers
NEWS: “Russian soldiers were an example of a humane attitude at the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine, the mayor of Nova Kahovka, Vladimir Leontiev, said in an interview for UKRAINA.RU.
The special military operation has been on for 11 months and it’s necessary, for objective reasons: Ukraine was ready for war. The Russian troops have tried to avoid any loss of human lives since the start of the operation, Leontiev said.
When the special military operation began, the Russian side, the armed forces of the Russian Federation were doing everything possible to avoid the loss of human life, including from among the Ukrainian army. I saw this with my own eyes. The Ukrainian military had been notified in advance that the Russian army was going to attack them so as not to cause casualties. Here is a great example of a humane attitude, he said."
NARRATIVE: The actions of the Russian military in the Kherson region are an example of humane behavior.
In reality, the occupation was brutal, and many Ukrainians disappeared or were tortured
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: To build this propaganda narrative, Russian state media quotes Vladimir Leontiev, presented as the mayor of Nova Kakhovka. The truth is that Leontiev is not the mayor of this city, he is a member of the occupation bodies of the Russian Federation. He entered the city hall of Nova Kakhovka at the same time as the Russian troops, being named “head of the civil administration”. After Ukraine liberated the city on November 15, 2022 , the Russian media started referring to Leontiev as the mayor, inviting him to various shows to tell Russians about the “Ukrainian-occupied city”.
Vladimir Leontiev does not represent the city's residents, being accused by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine of collaboration with Russia. At the same time, the real mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Volodymyr Kovalenko, spoke in July 2022 about the terror organized by Russia against civilians. The mayor said people were disappearing from the streets and some were being tortured for their political beliefs. Journalists, teachers, local councilors, who were seen as a danger to the Russian occupation authorities, disappeared without a trace from the city.
Video footage of March 6, 2022 from the town of Nova Kakhovka, shared on social media , shocked the world. In the very first stages of the “special operation”, Russian troops opened fire on a protest against the Russian occupation, injuring several people.
After the liberation of several towns in southern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that in the Kherson region, the Russian army “left behind the same atrocities as in other regions”. He promised to “find and bring to justice each and every criminal” .
A team of researchers from the Humanitarian Research Laboratory at the Yale School of Public Health released a report in November 2022 documenting 226 cases of arrests and disappearances of people in the Kherson region during the Russian occupation. Ukraine has invited specialists from the West to support Kyiv's efforts to document the war crimes committed by Russia.
Veridica has debunked a series of fake news about the nature of the war in Ukraine. The Russian press wrote that Moscow shows restraint when bombarding Ukraine because it knows that the population does not support the neo-Nazi government. Also, according to the Russian propaganda, half of Ukraine’s troops are foreign fighters, which means that NATO is already taking part in the war, and the West is forcing Russia to expand its military operations in Ukraine.
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