Posts casting doubt on evidence of alleged war crimes in Bucha have been shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue has found.
Researchers analysed the 10 most shared posts on Facebook mentioning Bucha – a suburb of Kyiv formerly occupied by Russian forces – in 20 countries and found 55 posts disputing evidence of violence against civilians.
These posts were shared 208,000 times in the week to 6 April, compared with 172,000 shares that did not question the veracity of images emerging from the town.
Among the most popular posts mentioning Bucha, the average number of shares was three times higher for posts casting doubt on alleged war crimes compared with those which did not.
The mayor of Bucha told Reuters that 400 dead bodies had been uncovered since the Russians withdrew from the town, though this figure has yet to be independently verified. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians and claimed photographs of corpses were staged.
However, satellite images published by the New York Times contradict Moscow’s claim that Ukrainian forces placed dead bodies in the street as a “staged provocation” after Russian soldiers had already withdrawn.
The images, taken in mid-March, show corpses on the streets in the days before the Russian retreat and their positions match those seen in other smartphone photos.
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