Russian media and media in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are disseminating fake news about war crimes committed by Ukrainian soldiers, nationalists in particular, against civilians in eastern and southern Ukraine. In reality, Russia is the one bombarding Ukraine’s cities and destroying lots of civilian targets, including blocks of flats and schools.
NARRATIVE: Ukrainian nationalists started fire at peaceful civilians in Volnovakha, which were leaving the city white flags in hands[…]. The Russian Defense Ministry has stressed that civilians are safe, as the Russian troops are not attacking civilian sites on Ukraine’s territory, only military infrastructure.
WHEY THE NARARATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, the first part of the report of the Russian RIA NOVOSTY news agency contradicts the second part. If the Russian Defense Ministry gives assurances that only military infrastructure targets are hit, why should Ukrainians have to leave town? Another logical question would be why, ‘being attacked by Ukrainian nationalists’, according to the pro-Kremlin media narrative, are the civilians fleeing the city of Volnovakha towards territories controlled by Kiev and not towards the ‘liberating’ self-proclaimed republics?
The head of the Donetsk Regional Administration, Pavlo Kirilenko, wrote on his Facebook page that the city of Volnovakha is practically destroyed by the Russians. Kiev has sent a convoy to evacuate the civilians from Volnovakha, but the convoy was attacked by ‘Grad’ rocket launchers. The Ukrainian side claims that Russia attacked the civilians and did not allow them to leave the city.
Ukrainian deputies from Donetsk say that the buses carrying civilians cannot leave Volnovakha because the Russian soldiers are firing at them and do not allow the evacuation of the civilian.
Against this backdrop, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Moscow of genocide, and announced that Ukraine is filing a complaint against Russia at the UN International Court of Justice in the Hague . The Ukrainian president has accused the Kremlin of inflicting terror and stated that the Russian troops have attached civilians, including children.
Veridica.ro has previously written that the Ukrainian side was the one that addressed the issue of humanitarian corridors, during the second round of negotiations in Belarus. The Kiev delegation spoke of a draft agreement on the organization of “humanitarian corridors” to help evacuate civilians from the combat areas. The two parties agreed on the delivery of food and medicine to the sectors faced with the heaviest fighting. The Ukrainian authorities hope that these corridors will really exist and will not be turned into “traps” and used to kill civilians and destabilize the situation in the area. Moscow had announced it would allow the creation of such corridors for the besieged cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, but the agreement was violated shortly after it’s coming into force, the Mariupol mayor says.
