Original article (in Serbian) was published on 05/04/2022
Over the weekend, dramatic footage surfaced from the Ukrainian town of Bucha near Kyiv, testifying to the massacre of civilians. The footage shows dozens of bodies lying by the road or in the middle of the road as a convoy of Ukrainian military vehicles passes by. Ukrainian soldiers recorded the video, and the Russian side immediately tried to deny that they had anything to do with this crime. On the Russian side, the website Srbijadanas.com published a text claiming that one of the killed civilians moved his hand while the Ukrainians were passing by and that later the same man allegedly got up, which should be “proof” that civilians were not killed but that it is a directed scene. Videos of better resolution show that none of this is true.
The website Srbija Danas writes that a video appeared, which is a potential proof that “the event in Bucha was edited”, and calls this massacre “an alleged Russian massacre”.
“Looking carefully, you can see how one of those “dead people” moves his hand while the vehicle is passing by, and then, when it passes, he thinks that his job is done and gets up!” You can see this if you look carefully in the vehicle’s rearview mirror”, writes Srbijadanas.com.
As proof, they provide a video from the Odysee platform – an alternative to YouTube that became popular during the coronavirus pandemic, when channels that spread fake news and conspiracy theories were deleted and banned by YouTube. The platform gained additional popularity during the war in Ukraine, especially among those who spread Russian propaganda.
In this very poor quality video, it looks as if a person on the ground is raising his hand, and then in the rearview mirror, it looks as if he is getting up from the ground into a sitting position.
Mrtvi oživljavaju – Raskrinkavanje manipulacije u Ukrajini (odysee.com)
However, better quality shots show what looks like a hand movement is actually a stain on the vehicle’s windshield. Also, in the rearview mirror, it can be seen that the body does not get up into a sitting position. It appears like that on a low-resolution image due to distortion of reflection, which the mirror makes. In the same way, the surrounding houses were “distorted” in the rearview mirror.
Apart from this, there are other videos of the same scenes but taken from other angles, which show that the bodies of those killed are lying on the road, i.e., that they are not “actors” who are faking a massacre to use it against the Russians.
The website Srbijadanas.com states that “Moscow denies and claims that the Russian army withdrew the day before the alleged massacre”. However, as the New York Times found by analyzing satellite images, many of these bodies were lying on the street three weeks ago, during the Russian control of Bucha, which lasted until March 30. The bodies were removed from the street only during the weekend after the Ukrainian army entered this Kyiv’s suburbs and filmed those scenes.
These claims were exposed, among others, by Bellingket, the British BBC and the fact-checking website Politifact.