Is it true that a video of Ukrainian soldiers laying out corpses in Bucha has leaked online?

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A video has spread across social networks in which Ukrainian soldiers are dragging dead people along the asphalt with ropes, allegedly laying out the corpses for staged filming of the killings of civilians in Buchi by Russian soldiers. We tried to figure out what was actually happening in these frames.

According to the video description, published Telegram channel “Cemetery of Fake” April 9, 2022, the Ukrainian military is laying out corpses on the streets of Bucha, in order to later film them and accuse the Russian side of killing civilians. “According to the director’s plan, all corpses should be included in the frame,” the message says.

As if anticipating questions from incredulous readers about how the process of preparation for filming got into the video, the channel explains: for a report to the curators. “Why was it necessary to film the process of preparing the “set”? We will answer. Ukrainian information centers are part of the special forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and all their employees are military personnel who record their work for reporting. Also, their commanders, who coordinate the result, like all big bosses, are often too lazy to go to filming locations, and approve the work remotely; modern technologies allow you to send videos anywhere. Then they were in such a hurry to send the material to the media that they sent all the sources. But in the editorial offices of the media, will they really know what is happening on camera? They edited it and released it,” wrote “Fake Cemetery.” This version was picked up by the Russians Media, about 480 Telegram channels shared this video, with a total of more than 2.7 million views.

In our analysis, we rely on the publication of colleagues from Factcheck.kz, who found the source of the video footage and were the first to write material on this topic.

There are three obvious inconsistencies in the version of the Telegram channel “Fake Graveyard”. First of all, the original video was published April 2, 2022 by the Associated Press (AP) news agency. According to video metadata in the AP archive, the moment when Ukrainian soldiers pull the body of the deceased with a cable is described as follows: “Soldiers pulling body with cable, wary of the body being booby-trapped.” The fact that Russian troops mined the bodies of those killed before leaving Bucha, spoke President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, and Secretary of the Buchansky City Council Taras Shapravsky on April 1 warned residents:

“A big request to everyone who remains in the city of Bucha: do not approach unfamiliar objects, do not walk through the forest belt, do not approach abandoned military equipment, do not touch the bodies of the dead, which have been lying for a long time, there is a high probability that they are mined.”

If Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers needed to place bodies at the required points for video filming, it would be more logical to drag the bodies with their hands rather than with a cable. Statements some Russian media that supposedly “they are disgusted to touch the corpses of their fellow citizens with their hands, they are disdainful”, do not agree with statements the same publications about the cruelty and unscrupulousness of Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters.

IN publications Media and forums There are questions about why Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers don’t use, for example, sapper uniforms or armored shields, and in general, what kind of strange method of clearing corpses is this - dragging them with a rope. We spoke with a sapper and expert in the field of mine action in conflict zones (he wished to remain anonymous). According to him, this is how, with the help of a cable, the bodies of the dead are usually checked for the presence of fragmentation mines. Presumably, the insufficient length of the cable or the lack of uniforms can be explained by field conditions: during war, it is usually not possible to call a team of trained sappers or wait for the necessary equipment. The expert also suggested that the Ukrainian Armed Forces simply do not have proper training and knowledge of mine action safety protocols. He also gave examples of recent footage where the Ukrainian military does not handle anti-tank mines carefully enough, crucifying with their feet off the roadway and leading civilian vehicles driving through minefields.

Secondly, the statement of the “Fake Cemetery” that the video was shot and posted by an information center that is part of the special forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is also incorrect. As we wrote above, the video was published April 2 by AR. This means that it was filmed by agency reporters (other materials cannot appear in this archive).

Thirdly, the version that the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers “were in such a hurry to send the material to the media that they sent all the sources” raises doubts, and the media edited and published the material without understanding it. The video published by the Fake Cemetery lasts 13 seconds. And in the full video, at the 31st second, AR gives interview a resident of Bucha who comments on the presence of dead bodies on the streets and talks about how the military shot passers-by indiscriminately. Another hero of this story at 01:41 tells about the murder of his friend: “He was a peaceful, honest man who loved to work. And just like that, he was so simply, shamelessly and deliberately crushed to death by an armored personnel carrier.” If this video was edited from the source of the video report that the Ukrainian Armed Forces special forces filmed for the commanders, then it is unclear why they included interviews with ordinary citizens of Bucha in this report.

Thus, it can be argued that the message from the “Cemetery of Fake” channel about the staging is a deliberately fabricated lie. The channel's authors have trimmed the full AP video shown in plot TV channel Freedom.ua, and came up with a false explanation for what was happening in the frame, providing the story with details about the erroneously sent video sources of the Ukrainian Armed Forces special forces.

Correction 04/14/2022: In the AR video, a resident of Bucha, appearing in the frame at 1:41, speaks in Ukrainian about how his friend was run over by an armored personnel carrier, but does not specify whether it is Russian or Ukrainian. When writing original text we relied on the transcript provided at website AR archive in English, which erroneously states that the armored personnel carrier was Russian: ““16. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Yuri (no last name given), Bucha resident: “He was a resident, he worked in landscaping. A peaceful honest person. A smart man who loved to work. And they simply, shamelessly, and in full knowledge, crushed him to death with a Russian APC (armoured personnel carrier)." Perhaps the AR reporter who did the transcript and translation came to the conclusion that the armored personnel carrier belonged to the Russian military based on the words of a resident of Bucha, which were not included in the video.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Factcheck.kz: Fake | Ukrainian soldiers lay out corpses on the streets of Bucha
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3. Is it true that the Ukrainians falsified a report about the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol?
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5. Is it true that the Ukrainian army used the synagogue in Uman for military purposes?