3 Jun 2022/Nina Webrová

As part of a project on ‘New Propaganda and Disinformation Challenges for Visegrad/EaP states in the Changing Environment’, Prague Security Studies Institute’s (PSSI) researchers monitored Sputnik’s section on ‘Demilitarization and Denazification of Ukraine’. The focus was specifically on articles reporting on the ‘Bucha Massacre’ in order to illustrate how Russian state-owned media report the atrocities committed by the Russian Federation’s army. 

The Czech public was shocked when, following the retreat of the Russian armed forces from the city of Bucha (a city in the Kyiv Oblast) at the beginning of April, images of corpses lying on the streets with their hands tied began to surface. Subsequently, Russian authorities started denying Russian involvement in the massacre, claiming that all evidence concerning the atrocities committed was fake. The ‘Bucha Massacre’ has become an infamous symbol of the invasion of Ukraine, and an important case study on the current Russian information war.

Read the Perspective here.