MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. The UN's failure to respond to Russia's requests concerning the alleged killings in Bucha near Kiev in 2022 once again proves that they were a Western-orchestrated provocation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a TASS press conference presenting a report by the International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis that exposes the falsification of the events in Bucha.

She stressed that the falsification was initiated by Western sponsors of the Kiev regime, primarily the UK, which were unhappy with the Istanbul agreements.

TASS has compiled the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman's key statements.

Provocation organizers, their actions

The falsification of the Bucha events was initiated by Western sponsors of the Kiev regime, which were unhappy with the Istanbul agreements: "These talks did not just dissatisfy the West (with the UK being in the center of this little group) - these countries needed to derail the negotiations. Which is exactly what was done."

The available figures and facts make it clear that the entire Bucha story was a complete falsification commissioned by the UK: "We have both figures and facts that allow us to state with absolute confidence that the entire Bucha story is a highly brazen falsification, in which a key role was assigned specifically to the BBC and Western media, a term that now also has to be put in quotation marks because it betrayed itself by engaging in the provocation. The British government was the one to commission all of this."

After the falsification, Bucha became a "pilgrimage site" for Western leaders, heads of international organizations and Western journalists.

None of the representatives of international organizations, including the UN, or Western media outlets, let alone the Kiev regime, have provided lists of those killed in Bucha over all these years: "No actual names of civilians who supposedly fell victim to Western-alleged atrocities by Russian troops have been found. Neither the UN nor other international organizations, Western media or, what's more, the Kiev authorities have provided lists of those killed in Bucha over all these years."

While "everything is clear" with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, questions remain for the media: "And not only Western media, but many others that relied on what they regarded as the professionalism of Western colleagues and rebroadcast their reports without any additional verification. We also urged them not to succumb to this hype."

The Kiev regime is presenting eliminated militants from the Azov nationalist battalion (an organization designated as terrorist and banned in Russia) as civilians allegedly killed in Bucha: "They passed off Ukrainian servicemen as civilians, primarily, as we understand it, extremists from the terrorist Azov nationalist battalion."

"They mixed up first and last names and committed a crime not only when they devised and carried out the provocation, but also when they sent the world down a false trail."

There are also oddities and contradictions surrounding the appearance of names of victims of the Bucha provocation on a city memorial, while the Kiev regime has still not provided a list of the dead: "This is what really prompted everyone to start looking into what these names are, how they appeared there, who these people are and what all of this means."

No UN response to Russian requests

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has not provided lists of those killed in Bucha despite numerous requests from the Russian side: "Throughout all these years, Moscow repeatedly approached the UN secretary-general, both publicly and in letters. He himself and his colleagues visited Bucha, the site they call a crime scene. And we demanded that they provide lists of those whom they supposedly honored there, whose memory they commemorated there, whose names were mentioned there. After all, they were commemorating someone."

The UN's failure to respond to Russian requests concerning the Bucha events once again proves that they were a provocation: "This was only one of the reasons to believe that this entire story was nothing other than a bloody provocation. I would say it was another factor that convinced us that all of this was not just a provocation by the Kiev regime, but a global information campaign."

The UN secretary-general became part of the Bucha provocation by playing along with the anti-Russian campaign: "Guterres - and I can officially state this - knowingly played along with the anti-Russian campaign."

This amounted to "a violation of the principle of neutrality, which is fundamental for a United Nations' chief."

A report by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, released in December 2022, became "one of the main fabricated sources on Bucha": "What is most surprising is that the secretary-general not only did not question its conclusions, which contained an entirely baseless and somehow unwavering accusation against our country, but made no attempt to recheck those findings throughout all these years."

The UN Secretariat's involvement in the Bucha provocation will not go without consequences: "An admission will have to be made, especially in light of the new facts discussed today. It will take a long time to wash this disgraceful stain from the UN's reputation."

"Anonymous interviews cannot be the sole and exclusive source of information, yet for [UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker] Turk they were."

Contrary to its mandate, the UN is involved in the Bucha provocation as a biased party supporting the West and the Kiev regime rather than conducting an honest investigation: "They are not involved in an investigation. They are involved as a biased party supporting the Kiev regime and NATO."

Russia's position

Russia immediately stated in 2022 that the events in Bucha were a provocation, "a false, disinformation story involving the dissemination of obviously fake narratives."

Moscow appealed to international organizations to inform them right away that such a provocation had taken place and to point out that it clearly bore the hallmarks of a commissioned effort developing into a full-fledged information campaign.

The Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will present the report on the Bucha provocation on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly: "We will use every opportunity to do so."

The report will also be circulated at the Dialogue about Fakes 4.0 forum: "I am sure there will be another appeal there to the international community to conduct independent investigations."

Russia is calling on international media to continue investigating what happened in Bucha in light of new information as it emerges, although it has no illusions given the UN's bias: "We call on everyone to do this, but seeing that such investigations were blocked at the UN before, we have no illusions in this regard."

Fact-checkers' work

Fact-checkers around the world are investigating the Bucha provocation along several lines: "The investigation is now being conducted by fact-checkers around the world along several tracks. <...> And those who falsified all of this really need to be held accountable now."

Report

Materials exposing Kiev's falsification of the March 2022 events in Bucha have been presented in Russia.

The report containing evidence was presented by its author, Maxim Grigoryev, chairman of the International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, at a TASS press conference attended by Maria Zakharova, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department.

It contains documents exposing falsifications as well as eyewitness accounts.

According to the report, the Kiev regime employed practices used by Nazi Germany to stage incidents in Bucha, "including the mass presentation of its own servicemen killed in combat as 'civilians.'"

In addition, the International Public Tribunal documented "the classification of people killed by Ukrainian shelling as victims of Russian troops, the presentation of elderly citizens who died from illness as people killed by Russia, as well as the deliberate killing by the Ukrainian armed forces of their own citizens so that Ukrainian and foreign journalists could record them as 'victims of Russia.'"

Bucha provocation

On March 30, 2022, amid negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul, Russian forces withdrew from the area around Kiev, including Bucha, as a gesture of goodwill.

On March 31, the head of the local administration confirmed this on camera.

Several days later, Western TV released footage showing bodies lying in the streets and described as people allegedly killed by Russian servicemen.

Moscow opened a criminal case over the provocation on charges of knowingly spreading false information about its armed forces.