The Massacre In Bucha

Over this past weekend pictures and videos started to circulate online of what the Rusian army left in the wake of its occupation of Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. The images are grotesque — a mass grave, dead bodies left on the street, civilians who were murdered execution-style with hands tied behind their backs, one man shot dead while riding a bicycle. Add to those the images the bodies of those who died from shelling attacks and the enormous amounts of property damage left behind for residents to make do in.

Of course, the Russian Ministry of Defense (and certain useful Western idiots) claimed the scene in Bucha was staged by “Ukrainian radicals” in order to elicit sympathy and more assistance from Western countries. As the story goes, everything that is happening in Ukraine is the result of the country wanting to start World War III and is willing to use every trick in the book to do so, including staging dead bodies to pin on Russian forces.

One wrinkle in that narrative — satellite imagery exists. The New York Times, with an assist from Maxar Technologies, proved that the bodies discovered after the Russian troop withdrawal were present on Yablonska Street since early March. That reporting is consistent with on-the-ground reports that other bodies found were, to put none too fine a point on it, in a state of decomposition consistent with having been dead for weeks.

And yet there are still those in the West who cling to the conspiracy theory that this war and its atrocities are all staged for the purpose of…well that changes depending on who you ask and what the prevailing contrarian narrative is that day. I wonder about the motives of those who refuse to accept the truth of what is taking place. As I’ve mentioned on our podcast I don’t like accusing a person of being a paid mouthpiece for Russia, despite that being the trendy accusation. I actually think it’s worse than that — they’re doing it for free, for whatever reasons they have fallen for. Whether it is an “anti-war” posture that is really anti-West, carving out an online niche for being against the current thing, or being genuinely pro Putin, the Kremlin doesn't have to pay a dime for Western idiots to be Western idiots.

But how much is it going to take to convince those who don’t want to believe this is really happening? How many more pictures and videos taken via cell phone from those who live in the affected areas have to be posted? How many confirmations that an unprovoked massacre is taking place? If they are so sure all of this is fake, why not go to Ukraine and prove it?

You know as well as I do the answers to those questions. Still, it is disturbing and heartbreaking to see people choose their online persona and clout chasing over the victims of a hot war.