The behavior of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenko, at their joint press conference at Vostochny yesterday, in accusing the British of manufacturing the ugly Bucha affair, has caused a monocle or two to crash to the floor. At one point, Putin explained: “I’ve been talking to colleagues from Western countries, often, up until now. And when they say ‘Bucha’ to me, I ask them: ‘Have you ever been to Raqqa? Have you seen how this Syrian city was completely flattened by American aviation?’ Corpses have been lying there decomposing in ruins for months. And nobody cared about that.… There was no such silence when they staged provocations in Syria, when they imagined the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Then it turned out that it was a fake, the same fake is in Bucha.”
Lukashenko added that the two had a lengthy, detailed discussion on “the psychological special operation in Bucha carried out by the British.” (Previously, the 72nd Ukrainian Psychological Information and Operations Center had been charged with being the “on-the-ground” element in Bucha on April 2.) Reference was made to materials in the hands of the Russian Federal Security Bureau. “If you need addresses, passports, license numbers and brands, on which date they arrived in Bucha, and how they did it, then the FSB can provide these materials.” Putin confirmed that Lukashenko had given him “papers” on the murders in Bucha that he gave to the FSB. “How, who came to that settlement, and created conditions to organize this provocation and fake, the FSB have relevant intercepts.”
CNBC quoted unnamed British government officials: “We will not allow Russia’s attacks against innocent civilians during their illegal invasion of Ukraine to be covered up through cynical disinformation. We will investigate these atrocities as war crimes and ensure the reality of Russia’s actions are brought to light.” CNBC made a point that April 12 “Tuesday appeared to be the first time that Belarus and the Russian security services have both helped promote the claim that Great Britain was the secret power behind the conspiracy.”