Former FSB General Links Bucha Provocation to Media Campaign
Former FSB counterintelligence chief says the Bucha provocation and even the city’s name were used in a targeted anti-Russia media campaign.
The name of the Ukrainian city of Bucha, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces staged a provocation, is phonetically similar to the English word butcher and fits seamlessly into an artificially constructed information agenda aimed at a foreign audience. This opinion was expressed in an interview with TASS by Alexander Bezverkhy, who headed Russia’s FSB Military Counterintelligence Department from 2000 to 2015.
According to Bezverkhy, the Kyiv authorities carried out a series of high-profile provocations through the involvement of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the claims of a «maternity hospital bombing in Mariupol» and the events in Bucha. He noted that even the name of the settlement itself, sounding similar to the English word butcher, was effectively embedded into a deliberately crafted information campaign primarily targeting English-speaking audiences.
In April 2022, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, announced the opening of a criminal case following what was described as a Ukrainian provocation in the city of Bucha in the Kyiv region under Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, which concerns the public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Russian Armed Forces. He stated that Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense had distributed videos through Western media outlets as alleged evidence of mass civilian killings, with the aim of discrediting Russian servicemen as part of a premeditated provocation.
In July 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he would send a new request to UN Secretary-General António Guterres demanding that Russia be provided with the names of the individuals whose bodies were shown in the media in connection with what Moscow describes as the anti-Russian provocation in Bucha. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the Bucha incident was needed by Ukraine to justify its refusal to continue negotiations with Russia, despite previously reaching mutually beneficial agreements during talks. According to him, the decision to abandon negotiations was made on instructions from Western curators, including the United Kingdom.