‘Bucha massacre’ a false flag orchestrated by UK – Moscow
Published 17 Sep, 2026 15:47 | Updated 17 Sep, 2026 22:01
Britain orchestrated the ‘Bucha massacre’ narrative to prolong the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said, citing a new investigation into the alleged victims.
Zakharova said new evidence proves that Bucha was a “brazen falsification” commissioned by Kiev’s foreign sponsors and amplified by the Western media to eliminate any chance of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
She singled out the UK government as the primary organizer of the false flag operation, adding that the “key role” of spreading the story was assigned to the BBC.
In March 2022, Russian forces withdrew from Kiev Region, including Bucha, as a good-will gesture in support of a potential settlement at the Istanbul peace talks. Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk and residents initially said everything was calm and peaceful in the town, which is around 20 km from central Kiev.
Days later, images of bodies strewn across the streets of Bucha were broadcast by the Western media, supported by NATO-aligned OSINT fact checkers, triggering a storm of international accusations against Moscow that contributed to the collapse of peace talks.
Zakharova noted that there is still “no single website, no single figure, no lists – neither consolidated nor fragmented,” that would provide any verifiable information about the alleged victims of the Bucha ‘massacre’. The UN, Kiev, international organizations, and Western media have never provided a list despite repeated Russian requests.
The unverifiable nature of the incident strongly implies that it was falsified, and suggests that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres knowingly made himself “part of this provocation,” Zakharova said.
Given that no public list of victims exists, Thursday’s report – which was presented by Maksim Grigoriev, the head of the International Public Tribunal on Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis – examined the names on the Bucha memorial instead – the closest thing to an official list, its authors say.
The memorial contains over 500 names and has repeatedly served as a backdrop for visits by Western leaders.
Grigoriev said researchers cross-checked the names against Ukrainian media, military records, and social-media accounts, and found that those they traced were Ukrainian servicemen, including Azov and territorial-defense fighters, rather than civilians allegedly murdered by Russian troops.
The soldiers were also found to have had little or no connection to Bucha, and were killed and buried nowhere near the town.
Among the examples cited were Evgeny Petrash and Vladimir Bisaga, who the investigation identified as Azov fighters buried in Kiev and Uzhgorod, respectively. Two other names, Ruslan Belousov and Roman Dovgalyuk, were identified as Ukrainian military pilots killed when their aircraft was shot down near Berezovka – far from Bucha.
The report also features a number of eyewitness accounts from several conflict-zone towns, pointing to a wider pattern of Ukrainian forces killing civilians and then blaming Russia once Western reporters arrive.
One witness said Ukrainian troops opened fire on civilians collecting water, with journalists arriving to film the aftermath within minutes.
Grigoriev said these testimonies show that Kiev repeatedly used civilian deaths to manufacture material for the Western media and claimed that the same method was used in Bucha.
Zakharova stated that the new findings will be submitted to Russian law enforcement, international organizations, and international courts. The investigators behind the report also urged foreign journalists to conduct their own examination.
Read the full report here.
