Bucha Mass Execution Video: A False-Flag?

May 21, 2022

(rough, incomplete)

< Bucha Massacre {masterlist} 

May 25: I'm finally pulling down my entire post on this rather than trying to fix it in place. I'll be re-working it alongside a post on who controlled Bucha where and when. It will be some days at least. 

I raised questions about the recent New York Times investigation and article: "New Evidence Shows How Russian Soldiers Executed Men in Bucha: Witness testimony and videos obtained by The New York Times show how Russian paratroopers executed at least eight Ukrainian men in a Kyiv suburb on March 4, a potential war crime." https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/world/europe/russia-bucha-ukraine-executions.html

I'd have to subscribe to the rag to read it there, but I read an archived copy where the videos don't work, saw the most relevant videos on Twitter, posted in a short thread by NYT freelance video journalist Masha Froliak, and had people share some other bits from other videos.

But I hadn't read the article when I first did this post, nor correlated everything well at all, and then I ran ahead assuming another video of the site was dated March 4. In comparison, that suggested the "Russians" seen arresting the 9 men earlier that day and the "Russians" seen there on March 5 were different groups, who seemingly fought a battle in between their occupations of the massacre site. That is, I thought I had Ukrainian false-flaggers playing Russians in charge at the murder time, then chased away by the actual Russians. But upon learning more, most logically, that video was from March 3, and fits fairly well with the NYT report. It's interesting in different ways I need to work out.

A Twitter discussion with Qoppa, Kobs, and Collapse Into Now that started here has been super helpful. For now, I concede it's likely enough the Russians committed a war crime in this case, as the impressive-seeming investigation clearly found, I still more-than-half-suspect it was a false-flag, but that could just be habit, or anyway the case for that isn't so clear. I'm not arguing any one answer for now, just trying to get a basis to know what to argue. 

As part of the Bucha massacre story I've chosen to stick with, I will need to actually get this. A firm answer seeming unlikely, there are at least some questions worth raising, and more discussion might help decide which those are. I invite more of that here, and I plan to engage in it this time, including to catch up on what's already here.