On 5 December, Kremlin propaganda — represented by an entity with the telling name “The International public tribunal for the crimes of Ukrainian neo-Nazis” — released yet another batch of blatantly poorly fabricated stories by supposed “victims and eyewitnesses,” loudly packaged under the title “Crimes of the Kyiv regime against women and children.”
First of all, it’s worth noting that the presentation of this propagandistic product gathered, as usual, representatives of Russia’s Foreign Ministry and State Duma. Maria Zakharova also spoke, generously sprinkling her speech with fakes about the “atrocities of neo-Nazis.” But the most amusing part was the involvement of Viktor But — the infamous international arms trafficker, convicted in the United States for his activities and for supporting terrorism, sentenced to 25 years in prison, and later swapped back to Russia by the same people he worked for. Now But is presented as a “civil activist”. They sent him to the presentation of this so-called report, apparently so that any decent person could immediately understand what kind of people and what kind of material they are dealing with.
There is little point in dissecting the document itself, since it consists of supposed testimonies of “interviewed victims and eyewitnesses”. Here’s one typical quote: “According to numerous eyewitness accounts, in Mariupol Ukrainian snipers deliberately shot small children. Another standard method of the Kyiv regime was striking and shelling kindergartens and hospitals, as well as mass indiscriminate mining of civilian settlements with cluster munitions…” In short, classic Kremlin propaganda going all the way back to the early 1990s.
What is important is that, as previously anticipated, the Kremlin has no intention of stopping the production of such fakes under the guise of investigations, and is actively spamming international organizations with them, paralyzing their work. On 5 December, the UN International Court of Justice decided to accept for consideration Russia’s accusations against Ukraine under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. These accusations are based precisely on these fabricated reports that Russian propagandists and arms dealers present with great fanfare. As a result, the Court will now spend time reviewing and evaluating these Kremlin fakes instead of working on holding their authors accountable.
This development is already being presented by the Russian Foreign Ministry as a victory. They claim that “The West’s hopes of using ‘legal weapons’ against Russia have once again collapsed. On the contrary — now this weapon is being turned against Kyiv’s ‘claimants’. Against this background, Western support for Kyiv in this process has begun to rapidly vanish: one-third of the states previously siding with Ukraine have rushed to withdraw, realizing the futility and even risk of continued participation”. Meanwhile, Putin’s propagandists proudly boast that they have submitted more than 10,000 pages of such “documents” — like the report described above — to the International Court of Justice. And they will continue overwhelming international institutions with massive quantities of fakes moving forward.
