“These images are presented cynically as the cruelty of the Russian forces,” Alexander Small, the show’s presenter, said at the start of Tuesday’s show. The show’s panel dismissed as directed shots of civilians lying dead on the streets of Bukha, a city near Kyiv, following the withdrawal of Russian troops last week. “FAKE” was painted all over the screen in red. The broadcaster then cut scenes that are said to show Russian forces distributing aid to locals. Russia’s state-run media has been overreacting to allegations that its forces have committed war crimes across Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion in February. Top TV presenters told Russian viewers that “there are no reports of casualties” in Bucha. They accused Ukraine of colluding with the Western media to stage “provocations” by recruiting “poorly trained actors” to play victims or “cynically picking up corpses” to throw on the road to the cameras. The sparkling news broadcasts devoted to the Russian version of the war have displaced the normal entertainment programs during the day and the first hour, broadcasting almost all of the twenty-four hours since the beginning of the invasion. Any information contrary to the government’s view has been effectively banned. But while the Kremlin denies that Russian forces have committed war crimes, its narrative is increasingly trying to justify violence. State television commentators have portrayed Ukraine as possessed by a collective madness, portraying anyone hostile to Russian “liberators” as “Nazis” and justifying their efforts to “cleanse” the country of Moscow’s enemies. Ukrainian officials and human rights groups claim that Russian forces have targeted local activists, war veterans, intellectuals, journalists and even teachers. “This was pre-planned – [Russia] understands [that such people] “It’s the force that built the Ukrainian identity, and that’s the reason they are being targeted,” said Greg Yudin, head of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. “This narrative is used to guide businesses on the ground.” Moscow’s attempt to discredit Nazi-ruled Ukraine dates back to Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution in 2014, when pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych swept power. The Kremlin used what it called a “nationalist coup” in Kyiv to justify its subsequent annexation of Crimea and its support for Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbass region. The allegations have little to do with the reality of life in Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew who lost several relatives in the Holocaust, won a landslide victory in 2019. However, there are strong feelings in Russia about the 27 million Soviet casualties of World War II. Putin therefore sought to rally support for the invasion by calling for the “de-zoning” of Ukraine and calling the Donbas war, in which more than 14,000 people died before the full invasion of Russia, a “genocide.” against the Russian-speakers. “Putin said we are a people. Now it turns out that the split was inevitable and the Ukrainians will be very hostile to the Russians for many years to come. . . This means that they are all Nazis [in the Kremlin’s eyes]Said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at Carnegie Moscow Center. “So this nation is the enemy, even though this hostile ideology [that Ukrainians] the supposed I have is completely made up “. Some pro-Kremlin commentators in Russia have called for Ukraine to be “denationalized” to conclude that the country must be effectively destroyed. “Ukraine, as history has shown, is not viable as a nation-state and efforts to ‘build’ it logically lead to Nazism,” expert Timofey Sergeyev wrote in a column for the state-run Ria Novosti news network on Sunday. He called for Ukraine to cease to exist as a state, for its elite to be “liquidated” and added that “the social swamp that actively and passively supports it must endure the hardships of war and assimilate experience as a historical lesson and atonement.” Timofei Sergeitsev, a Russian media expert, called for Ukraine to cease to exist and its elite to be “cleansed” © Vladimir Gerdo / TASS / Alamy Although the narrative of “denationalization” has so far failed to provoke a popular outburst of support resembling the euphoria that followed the annexation of Crimea, it seems to resonate with many Russians. Eighty-one percent of those polled last week by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent pollster, said they supported “the actions of the Russian armed forces,” although sociologists have warned against skepticism. any measures of public sentiment in Russia. where any disagreement is suppressed. “There are clearly important sections of Russian society who, if they do not actively want to see Ukraine destroyed, are at least willing to accept this result because the state has told them it must be done,” said Eugene Finkel, an associate professor. at Johns Hopkins University, which studies genocide. The mood has been created in the context of the effective ban by Russia of all independent sources of information about the war. Independent media outlets have shut down, while ordinary Russians could face up to 15 years in prison for new crimes such as “discrediting the Russian armed forces” on social media. “Many people who are against the war do not say anything or share anything critical. “And this creates the illusion that everyone supports Putin and is behind the war,” said Anton Shirikov, a Russian state media expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Zelensky promised to resume peace talks after the alleged Bhutanese massacre and said he remained open to meeting with Putin if that could help end the war. But even as Moscow withdrew its call for Ukraine to be “de-zoned” from a draft ceasefire document last month, some senior Russian officials have begun repeating the rhetoric of elimination advocated by Sergeyev. On Tuesday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote in the Telegram messaging application that the Ukrainian nationality, “[that has] feeds on anti-Russian poison and lies about his identity, it’s all a big fake [that] has never been in history. ” He vowed that Russia would “change the bloody conscience of Ukrainians,” as Putin had ordered. Despite allegations of Russian atrocities and the cynicism behind Moscow’s denials, the intensity of the rhetoric surrounding Bucha indicated that the Russian elite probably believed the narrative itself, Yudin said. “There is not a single difference between what these people say in propaganda and what people around Putin think,” he added.

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