Thread by @neil_abrams

For the past year, Russia apologists have tried to sow doubt about Russia’s culpability for Bucha—this despite overwhelming evidence of it emerging within days of the town’s liberation.

So let’s take a look at this parade of grifters and fame-seekers. 🧵

With April 1st marking the one-year anniversary of Bucha’s liberation, now’s as good a time as any to survey the evidence of Russian guilt as well as the sundry propagandists who pushed the conspiracy theory that Ukraine did it.

Disclaimer: If, upon reaching the end, you find you are dumber than you are right now, I shall not be held responsible for that. Sorry; I’m just the messenger.

Anyway, the first part of this thread will review the voluminous evidence that Russian forces committed war crimes in Bucha. The second part will introduce the Bucha-deniers and examine their absurd attempts to absolve Russia of guilt.

Between 3/31/22 and 4/1/22, Ukrainian forces liberated Bucha after weeks of Russian occupation. Grisly video footage soon emerged showing dead Ukrainians lying in the street, some with hands tied behind their backs. The video quickly went viral.

https://twitter.com/StratcomCentre/status/1509953626520920066?s=20&t=09nkGiNUoZxdBB3P_LV2hw

Note the date of that video: Apr. 1st, the very day of Bucha’s liberation, as we’ll see below. This will become important later when we examine a very stupid conspiracy theory based on a false timeline which claims Ukrainian forces staged the massacre after liberating the town.

By now, the evidence of Russian responsibility for Bucha is simply staggering—so much so that it removes any doubt that Russian forces committed these crimes. It was not some false-flag operation by Ukraine or some secret scheme by NATO to make Russia look bad.

That Russian forces executed civilians in Ukraine should not come as a surprise. They’ve done the same in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, and Syria (and that’s not even to mention the record of Soviet Red Army before all that).

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1622694391096741902?s=20

The well-documented history of Russian war crimes over the past 30 years will prove relevant below when we meet ostensible leftists who pretend to faint at the thought that Russian forces would possibly conduct themselves in such a heinous manner.

BTW, before you tankies start pulling your hair out…

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1622695921963175945?s=20

What makes the evidence of Russian blame for Bucha so compelling is not just its volume but the numerous forms it takes, all of which reinforce each other. It includes photos, satellite imagery, video, drone footage, phone records, accounts from witnesses and investigators, etc.

Let’s start with the eyewitness evidence, which is vast. It started appearing even while Bucha was under Russian occupation. Below are reports from Ukrainska Pravda (March 22) and La Strada, an NGO (March 25th).

life.pravda.com.ua/society/2022/0…

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1509488012786290692?s=20&t=89lFbSjTh65QLBhlOy5IYQ

Once the viral 4/1 video of bodies in the streets emerged, more reports based on eyewitness- and investigator-accounts began flooding in. Some examples:

theguardian.com/world/2022/apr…

wsj.com/articles/ukrai…

washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/…

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

bbc.com/news/world-eur…

In June, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report based on interviews with victims and witnesses, among other sources, noting it had recorded at least fifty extrajudicial killings in Bucha by Russian forces at that point. ohchr.org/en/documents/c…

Aside from witness accounts, incredible work has been done pulling together satellite imagery, cell phone video, text messages, and other records, all of which have helped shine a light on the barbaric conduct of Russian forces during their occupation of Bucha.

Days after Bucha’s liberation, the NYT offered satellite footage showing the same bodies from the viral 4/1 video lying in the same locations back in mid-March, when Russia controlled the town—thus disproving the false-flag theories blaming Ukraine. nytimes.com/2022/04/04/wor…

Here's a Bellingcat investigation from April 5th. It shows drone footage of Russian soldiers shooting a civilian.

https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1511284174921076736?s=20

Here’s a remarkable investigation by the Associated Press and PBS. It uses security camera footage and cell phone records to prove Russian forces were responsible for the deaths of specific civilians in Bucha. apnews.com/article/bucha-…

Here’s an equally impressive NYT investigation. It marshals video evidence, phone records, documents, and eyewitness testimony to identify the Russian military unit responsible for the Bucha atrocities. nytimes.com/video/world/eu…

Non-English-language outlets in Ukraine and elsewhere have also done outstanding work on Bucha.

Examples:

New Voice (Ukr): nv.ua/ukr/ukraine/po…

*Denis Kazansky (Ukr): glavcom.ua/kyiv/video/yak…

*Vot-tak (Belarus): vot-tak.tv/novosti/03-04-…

*SAM (Ukr):

That Russia has engaged in the mass-killing of Ukrainian civilians is no surprise to those of us who have followed the genocidal rhetoric saturating its state media since Feb. 2022.

Take this batshit RIA Novosti article, for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Russ…

There are also the crazy genocidal fantasies that are constantly aired on Russian state TV. Hats off to @JuliaDavisNews for chronicling this dismal stuff:

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1584054018145685504?s=20

@JuliaDavisNews Still, despite the fact that Russia *told us* they were gonna commit genocidal acts only to then *commit* the genocidal acts they promised to carry out, the mere intimation Russia has committed such acts sends tankies, flush with moronic incredulity, onto the fainting couch.

@JuliaDavisNews The denial-discourse around Bucha began, as it often does, with a some juvenile gaslighting by official Russian government sources which tried to argue the whole thing was staged.

@JuliaDavisNews Just as soon as they emerged, however, Russia’s various false-flag theories blaming Ukraine for Bucha were quickly and thoroughly debunked. See, for instance:

bbc.com/news/60981238

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1510695095703646212?s=20&t=B2xzGv4e5zyABv0oVUvT_g

@JuliaDavisNews That didn’t stop the tankies, who, as they are wont to do, went ahead and repeated the lie anyway.

In fact, we can trace a line from the Russian foreign ministry to the account of a specific Western propagandist.

@JuliaDavisNews On 4/3, days after Bucha’s liberation, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) pointed to a suspicious time-gap between Russia’s withdrawal, which supposedly ended on 3/30, and the first discovery of bodies in the street, which it claimed only happened on 4/3.

@JuliaDavisNews The left-hand screenshot above is from a Bellingcat article debunking Russia’s claims.

Right-hand screenshot is the actual Russian MoFA statement. bellingcat.com/news/2022/04/0…

@JuliaDavisNews This gap of five whole days, the Russian MoFA suggested, gave Ukrainian forces plenty of time to stage the scene and blame it on Russia.

Small problem, though: The time gap didn’t exist. Russia finished withdrawing on 4/1, the same day the viral footage of the bodies appeared.

@JuliaDavisNews Russia’s withdrawal from Bucha was confusing and rushed. Adding to the uncertainty was a recorded video by the mayor announcing the town’s liberation on March 31st. That video turned out to be premature. facebook.com/watch/?v=27016…

@JuliaDavisNews First, Zvezda, a Russian state-owned TV channel, reported on Apr. 1st that Russian marines were still present in and around Bucha as of that day.

Translated screenshot below: tvzvezda.ru/news/20224151-…

@JuliaDavisNews This report on the continued presence of Russian marines in Bucha as of 4/1 is backed up by a video posted the same day by Bucha city council head Taras Shapravsky, who warned of the danger posed by Russian forces still conducting operations in the town:

@JuliaDavisNews Credit to Bellingcat for assembling the above evidence. It proves the last remaining Russian forces didn’t leave Bucha until 4/1, the very day the video of the bodies appeared. bellingcat.com/news/2022/04/0…

@JuliaDavisNews Still, on 4/3, Bernhard Horstmann, a Western propagandist who goes by the name “Moon of Alabama,” repeated the false timeline put out by Russia’s MoFA—this despite the fact that the entire world had spent the past two days consumed by the viral footage of the bodies in the street

@JuliaDavisNews In other words, after surely seeing and hearing about the video of the Bucha corpses for two whole days, this schmuck, Horstmann, aka Moon of Alabama, posted a tweet on April 3rd implying that the first evidence of the bodies didn’t appear *until that day*.

Seriously?

@JuliaDavisNews By the way, hats off to internet sleuth @JettGoldsmith for figuring out that Horstmann is the guy behind the Moon of Alabama account:

https://twitter.com/JettGoldsmith/status/958594550934786048?s=20

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith Anyway, once Horstmann/Moon of Alabama repeated Russia’s own false Bucha timeline, Western Russia apologists started doing their thing. In an idiotic game of telephone among grown-ass adults, they began spreading the same piece of bullshit propaganda based on nothing at all.

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith Instead of spending—what, two minutes?—locating the viral Bucha video to check the date, prominent tankies just took Horstmann’s false timeline and ran with it. Here, for instance, is our friend @aaronjmate retweeting Horstmann:

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate As my followers are surely aware, this wasn’t the only time Maté has engaged in atrocity-denial during Russia’s war on Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1506394055672213505?s=20

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate To take another example, just last week we examined Maté’s pathetic attempt to cast doubt on Russia’s mass-deportations of Ukrainian children, despite Russian officials spending an entire year proudly confessing to these criminal acts.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641106053118189571?s=20

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate Here’s unhinged Sputnik-hack turned Grayzone-hack @KitKlarenberg repeating the false Bucha timeline, albeit compressing the Russian MoFA’s suspicious “time-gap” from the five days between March 30th-April 3rd to a mere three days, March 31st-April 2nd.

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate @KitKlarenberg And here’s Gonzalo Lira, mid-transformation from manosphere-blogger to fake forensics-expert, spending a whole-ass hour “analyzing” the viral Bucha video—which, again, WAS POSTED APRIL 1st—only to then endorse Horstmann’s false claim that no such evidence appeared until 4/3.

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate @KitKlarenberg Then there’s certified head-case Scott Ritter who, after concocting an imaginary fantasy about how downright cordial Russian forces were to the good people of Bucha, goes on to propagate his own version of the false Bucha timeline to try and blame Ukraine for the atrocities.

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate @KitKlarenberg Finally, we have serial atrocity-denier @mtracey who, on 4/3, appeared to suggest that the only available evidence for the Bucha killings came from Zelensky’s government, despite the widespread availability—a full two days after liberation—of independent photo/video evidence.

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate @KitKlarenberg @mtracey Then, two days later, on 4/5—*after* the NYT satellite footage and other evidence had come out—Tracey, who evidently has a public-humiliation fetish, got savagely owned on Indian TV for saying there was no reliable evidence of Russian atrocities.

https://twitter.com/andrewkimmel/status/1511385554243444738?s=20

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate @KitKlarenberg @mtracey Nor were these the only examples of atrocity-denial by Tracey. Like Maté, he has poured scorn on allegations that Russia has engaged in the mass-deportation of Ukrainian children—this, again, despite Russia telling the world they’re doing it.

https://twitter.com/neil_abrams/status/1641106053118189571?s=20

@JuliaDavisNews @JettGoldsmith @aaronjmate @KitKlarenberg @mtracey In sum, the pathetic saga of atrocity-denial around Bucha involved a chain of braindead conspiracy theories, one that started with the Russian government and spread to Western tankie-land through the tweet of a single propagandist.

Feeling dumber now? I certainly am.

/end