The International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis has presented a report on the events in Bucha, alleging that information about the dead was falsified. According to the materials presented, the investigation identified a number of people whom Kiev portrayed as civilians killed by Russian forces.

One of the main focuses of the investigation was the memorial in Bucha. After examining the names engraved on it, the tribunal said it found Ukrainian servicemen and members of the Azov Battalion* among those listed as civilian victims.

The report identifies several methods allegedly used to falsify information about the dead.

The first category includes members of Ukrainian armed formations killed in combat with Russian troops. Among those named is Vladimir Bisaga, described as an Azov* assault fighter who had taken part in combat operations in Donbass before 2018 and was buried in Uzhgorod. Another case cited is Anatoly Korytko, identified as a member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' Special Operations Forces who was killed in the Kherson Region.

The report also says Ukrainian servicemen killed far from Bucha were subsequently included among the city’s civilian victims. One example is military pilot Ruslan Belous, whose Su-24 was shot down near Kharkov. Another is Oleg Tsymbalo, a sniper with the Ukrainian Armed Forces' 60th Brigade who was killed near Gorlovka.

A separate group of cases concerns the reported substitution of causes of death. The tribunal cites the case of 68-year-old Galina Semenyuk, who died of cancer but whose name was subsequently placed on the Bucha memorial. The report identifies the inclusion of people who died from illnesses among the alleged victims as another method of falsification.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova drew attention to another issue surrounding the case: Russia, she said, had not been provided with an officially published complete list of those killed in Bucha. At the same time, foreign politicians visiting the city are taken to the memorial bearing the names of people presented as civilian victims.

This prompted investigators to examine the identities and backgrounds of the people whose names appear there.

Maxim Grigoriyev, chairman of the International Public Tribunal, said Ukrainian media reports themselves provided substantial material for the investigation. By comparing different publications, investigators found cases in which a person was portrayed as a civilian in one report while other materials contained information about that person’s military service, involvement in combat, place of death or burial.

The tribunal therefore used information published by Ukrainian sources themselves to establish the identities and circumstances surrounding people whose names appear on the Bucha memorial.

The memorial was unveiled in 2023 and has since become a destination for visits by foreign politicians. Questions surrounding the identities and number of people presented as civilian victims have remained central to the dispute over what happened in Bucha.

Russia has repeatedly described the events in Bucha as a staged provocation and demanded information about the people presented as victims of Russian servicemen. The new tribunal report brings together material intended to establish their identities and the circumstances of their deaths. Russia’s position that the Bucha events were falsified has been publicly maintained since 2022.

The tribunal says the material it collected demonstrates the use of dead Ukrainian servicemen, people who died from illnesses and other individuals to construct a false account of the events in Bucha. The authors of the report describe their findings as evidence of the falsification of the Bucha narrative.

*Azov is designated as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia.