Caitlin Johnstone

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Ukrainian Official Behind Western Media Reports Of Russian Atrocities Fired By Ukrainian Parliament

Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ A Ukrainian government official frequently cited as a source by western news media for her allegations of atrocities committed by Russian troops has been fired by the Ukrainian parliament, in part because of the unevidenced nature of those claims. Newsweek reports: A Ukrainian official has been relieved of…

Caitlin Johnstone
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Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

A Ukrainian government official frequently cited as a source by western news media for her allegations of atrocities committed by Russian troops has been fired by the Ukrainian parliament, in part because of the unevidenced nature of those claims.

Newsweek reports:

A Ukrainian official has been relieved of her duties over her handling of reports detailing sexual assault allegations made against Russians in Ukraine.

 

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, removed Lyudmila Denisova, the parliament’s commissioner for human rights, from her post, according to Ukrainska Pravda. No new appointment has been made to fill the role.

 

The move to dismiss Denisova came after outrage about the wording used in public reports about alleged sexual assaults committed by Russians, as well as the alleged dissemination in those reports of unverified information. Despite accusations from Ukraine, the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russian soldiers have committed war crimes or sexual assaults during the invasion.

As it happens, Newsweek is one of the many western outlets who have uncritically cited Denisova’s unevidenced claims in their reporting of events in Ukraine. She was the “Ukraine official” in Newsweek’s incendiary April headline “Russians Raped 11-Year-Old Boy, Forced Mom to Watch: Ukraine Official,” an article whose entire first half featured unevidenced claims by Denisova.

Denisova’s name featured just the other day in my own critique of the western media’s blind-faith regurgitation of Ukrainian government assertions when multiple western media outlets parroted her unevidenced claims about two Russians raping a one year-old baby to death.

Business Insider, The Daily Beast, The Daily Mail, The Sun, Metro, The Daily Mirror and Yahoo News all published reports on the same story, and the one and only source for all of them was a post made by Denisova on a Ukrainian government website which contained no evidence and concluded with a call for more weapons and sanctions against Russia from the western world.

Moon of Alabama has compiled other western news media reports which have been uncritically regurgitating claims made by Denisova and disguising those claims as news stories, like Business Insider’s “Ukraine says it received more than 400 reports of sexual violence, including rape, by Russian soldiers within 2 weeks” and Time’s “Ukrainians Are Speaking Up About Rape as a War Crime to Ensure the World Holds Russia Accountable.”

This is not just brazen journalistic malpractice, this is actual atrocity propaganda. This latest development shows that even the Ukrainian government is more skeptical of Ukrainian government claims than the western mainstream press.

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40 responses to “Ukrainian Official Behind Western Media Reports Of Russian Atrocities Fired By Ukrainian Parliament”

  1. Боян Avatar
    Боян

    They are openly making movies now:
    https://twitter.com/milicbojan/status/1532695477594083328?s=20&t=PccRDu8fsjuKzoV6gld1dA

  2. ricardo2000 Avatar
    ricardo2000

    John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873): “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally conservative.”

    War is a complete negation of all humanity and beauty. The Guardian supports photogenic bombing campaigns, staged political lies, and pompous declamations about human rights. No war is started with human rights in mind. The wars in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Palestine were begun with the aim of replacing stable societies unpopular with the West. The strategy is to arm brutal bigots and emplace chaos, then churn their societies with bullets and explosives until they are shattered, and no threat to the White West and their collaborators.

    Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them.”

    MSM media cloaca must be held to account for their support of these bigots. Western talking heads and media cloaca will tell outrageous lies, make bigoted judgements, and will not listen to reasoned arguments. They will support horrific crimes to further domestic political careers and the wealth of their oligarchs. In supporting them with political lies, weapons and money, the Guardian has crippled genuine resistance against brutality. Now it will be decades before democracy can exist in Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, Africa, and Latin America.

    William Casey (CIA Director 1981-1987): “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

    1. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      Who said?
      ~
      “I don’t claim to know more than God, just more than he did at my age.”
      ~
      a) Barack Obama
      ~
      b) George W. Bush
      ~
      c) Joe Biden
      ~
      d) Hillary Clinton
      ~
      e) All of the above

  3. Allan Howard Avatar
    Allan Howard

    I wonder if the Daily Mail et al will be updating their collective millions of readers? I doubt it somehow!
    .

    For those that didn’t read the DM ‘coverage’, here’s the headline and the first part of the article:
    .
    Ukraine claims baby boy, one, has died after being raped by Russian soldiers ‘who also attacked nine-year-old triplet girls in front of their mother’
    .
    Ukraine is accusing Russian soldiers of raping children during its occupation of towns and villages surrounding the eastern city of Kharkiv.

    They include allegation of the rape and death of a one-year-old baby boy by Russian soldiers.

    Other allegations in the report, listed by Ukrainian journalist Iryna Matviyishyn, include the rape of three nine-year-old triplets in front of their mother, the rape of a two-year-old girl who survived, and the rape of two ten-year-old boys, among other unspeakable crimes.
    The Twitter page for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence attributed to Denisova’s report: ’10 reports of rape by the occupiers, including 8 children, were received from newly liberated villages in the Kharkiv region in just one hour.
    ‘Yesterday – 56 reports. Among the children: two 10-year-old boys and a 1-year-old boy who died of his injuries.’

    The report also accuses Russian soldiers of raping two men aged 67 and 78.

    ‘Reportedly, the Commissioner’s Psychological Assistance Line receives calls about such war crimes every day now,’ tweeted Matviyishyn.
    .

    And check out a few of the Best Rated comments (the DM/Establishment have their full-time paid shills who play along with the narrative, and which the DM keeps at the top of the comments section). But HERE’s an interesting comment, albeit a reply to the highest rated comment:
    .
    it’s a fake story in a war staged by the globalist Elite’s /\/\asonic political puppets like Putin and Zelensky. It’s called bla<k propaganda and has been used since WW1. Eventually it was admitted B a b y K i l l i n g WW1 German S o l d i e r s propaganda was fake. Just like the B a b y K i l l i n g lraqi s o l d i e r s story. was fake. The B a b y Incubator Nayirah "testimony", where a daughter of a Kuwaiti ambassador pretended to be a nurse witness to B a b y K i l l i n g. It's all to manipulate guileless sheeple. The Elite regard the masses as D u m b animaIs to be herded towards a new world order. Farm AnimaIs herded to an easier to control Farm. They regard emotions, not intelligence,. as what drives idiots, and so they like to manipulate the sheeple through emotion.
    .
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10837971/Ukraine-claims-baby-boy-one-died-raped-Russian-soldiers.html

    1. Allan Howard Avatar
      Allan Howard

      Oh, just found that such claims were being made, and reported by the MSM, back near the beginning of April. Here are some clips from a Sun article on April 10th:

      BEYOND BELIEF Russian soldier arrested after ‘filming himself raping baby in Ukraine’ in unspeakably evil video
      .
      ONE of Putin’s soldiers has reportedly been arrested in Ukraine after a horrifying video of a baby being raped was shared online.

      The soldier, believed to be just 24, is said to have filmed himself abusing the baby before sending the sickening footage to a Russian comrade.
      Alexei Bychkov was detained in Russia on Saturday after the vile clip emerged on social media over the weekend.

      The day before, a threat about Bychkov was published on Twitter detailing the horror abuse.

      In the footage, he is reported to say he is recording a “fierce video” before assaulting the baby.

      It isn’t known exactly when and where the footage was filmed.
      Bychkov is also alleged to have shared other videos of despicable child abuse with friends and colleagues.

      Information about Bychkov was later published online on the Russian-language social media app VKontakte.
      On April 8, Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova said Russian soldiers had kidnapped more than 120,000 Ukrainian children.

      Some of them were reportedly raped, and thousands have allegedly been smuggled over the Russian border.

      Denisova said that Russian troops raped an 11-year-old boy in the town of Bucha, while five soldiers also sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, who had become pregnant.
      .
      https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18222506/russian-soldier-rapes-baby-ukraine-war-arrested/
      .
      No doubt the 120,00 kidnapped children has risen to around 300,000 by NOW. God, the shite these fascist scumbags come out with! The bigger the lie…..

      1. Allan Howard Avatar
        Allan Howard

        Just came across the following:
        .
        Russian Soldier Arrested for Allegedly Filming Himself Raping a Baby-In Russia, Not Ukraine
        .
        https://sofrep.com/news/russian-solider-arrested-for-allegedly-filming-himself-raping-a-baby-in-russia-not-ukraine/

      2. Realist Avatar
        Realist

        Aren’t those the kind of acts that Joe Biden was accused of doing in the White House?

  4. Markos Avatar
    Markos

    By Contrast there are a rash of atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalist gangs against he Russian speaking eastern Ukrainians, well documented by the main UN human rights body , including the rape of a two (2) year girl AND her mother, images of which crimes were posted on Ukrainian neo-nazi social media accounts

    1. JONATHAN PRATT Avatar
      JONATHAN PRATT

      Do we have a source on this? My first page googling only got the US embassy report (with shitty grammar) from 2018, which says precisely the opposite of what you are saying here, Russian forces engaging in atrocities in Eastern Ukraine.
      ~
      Not saying I believe any of it in particular. But a source would be nice.

  5. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    Perfect timing!
    Scary Poppins’ former position as head of the US Disinformation Governance Board is still open!
    Does Denisova speak English at all?

    1. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      I think the Denisovan line of Hominins predated the Neanderthals. So, probably no savvy English.

  6. brad Avatar
    brad

    “No new appointment has been made to fill the role.”

    Parliament’s commissioner for human rights? We don’t need no damn parliament’s commissioner for human rights!

  7. Glenn Avatar
    Glenn

    “Former President Donald Trump is calling on the Pulitzer Prize Board to revoke prizes awarded to the New York Times and Washington Post in 2018 for their coverage of the Russia investigation, threatening legal action if they do not comply.”

    Hillary Clinton, so upset that Trump would derail the Democrats’ progress to war, claimed that Trump was “Putin’s Puppet”.

    This made the diplomatic alternative to nuclear war more difficult for Trump at a time when it was (and continues to be) dangerous to be without the diplomatic option.

    Even war criminal Henry Kissinger recognizes the need to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

    I have never voted Republican, but I will note that Ronald Reagan reduced cold war dangers while the Clintons, (Bill and Hillary) have both acted in bad faith in their provocation toward nuclear war with Russia.

    1. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      It takes a village idiot… but, I think both Clintons simply adopted the Dem Party and its wishy-washy “ideology” strictly out of convenience. Bill wanted to become a governor and eventually a president. At that time in history Arkansas, like most of the “Solid South,” was still strong Dem turf and it was Bill’s home state where he had some clout. Southern conservatism eventually converted most southerners to the GOP. If Bill and Hill were starting in politics today in Arkansas, they’d run as GOPers. Bill would run as a good ole boy with none of this “first black president” nonsense that he peddled. Willie is still slick with the verbiage, but he is often very foolish, even stupid, and has the morals of an alley cat. Hillary is a “she devil” who grew up in Mayor Daley’s (the first one) Chicago but naturally gravitated to the Goldwater far right wing of the Republican Party. She had no morals so she switched to the Dems when she shacked up with Bill. Them’s the Cliff Notes on the Clintons.

      1. Max424 Avatar
        Max424

        Thanks for the Notes. I didn’t know that about Hillary. I thought she started out as a do-gooder, and became what … spiteful? … and …full of revenge?… only after getting bashed around by the GOP when she was put in charge of “health care reform” as First Lady.
        Became the mad dog mean infighter we’ve come to know and love from there on out.
        Lmao … I’ve been so misinformed my whole life. Still would be if it weren’t for the internet.
        My only wish is that whomever or whatever is in charge of this global shitshow, at least leaves the internet up until Phase 3 in Ukraine plays out.
        I’m finding the intense geo-political action surrounding the drama quite riveting, and don’t want the plug to be pulled before the thrilling climax.

        1. Realist Avatar
          Realist

          She grew up just a few blocks from my house. Went to same HS as Harrison Ford. Exact same age as me. Luckily I did not know her at the time. Apparently always an over achiever with illusions of grandeur and entitlement. Now the world knows.

        2. Realist Avatar
          Realist

          Ah, yes, phase three, which neither the US nor Russia can allegedly afford to lose and remain intact, which will unquestionably require a Strangelovean denouement–otherwise known as the Samson Option in Israel. Sorry, but the internet will not withstand the high altitude EMP that will spread from sea to shining sea. Neither will you or any web surfers for that matter. Best to hope you are not one of those unfortunate survivors that linger for days. Fear not, however, Joe Biden’s brain will probably be preserved for weeks longer down in its bunker, though probably not long enough for regrets to coalesce in his already mostly dead and decaying grey matter.

          1. Max424 Avatar
            Max424

            “Stangelovean Deonouement … ”
            Lmao … I will expect my bunkered President, regardless of his advancing decripitude, to do his duty.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8icpnrLqx0
            Humans will repopulate this world with the spawn of Joe Biden, and all will be well again.

    2. Allan Howard Avatar
      Allan Howard

      Glenn, the fascists who run the show are all on exactly the same page. Everything else is just manufactured illusion.

  8. peter mcloughlin Avatar
    peter mcloughlin

    Propaganda is an important part of war: it’s also as dangerous as the violence. It adds to the fever of war – more importantly what motivates war – and that is power. And power is the objective of every war, except it is an illusion. The illusion eventually leads every empire into the conflict it is desperate to avoid: its own destruction.
    https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/

  9. John Day Avatar
    John Day

    Her role in narrative-management is being reassigned. She’s a faithful functionary and will be reassigned by the empire when this blows over.
    There are other “Practical Matters” requiring urgent action as the empire crumbles around all the edges.
    https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/practical-matters?s=w

    1. Max424 Avatar
      Max424

      “It’s time for EU citizens to start planting oats and raising goats.”
      ”Four of the lactating vaccinated women in the Pfizer documents reported “blue-green” breast milk.”
      The post-WWII Morgenthau Plan … “called for the complete destruction of Germany’s industrial infrastructure and the transformation of Germany into a purely agricultural society at a medieval technology level.”
      Thanks for the link to the links.
      Perhaps most distressing for me was the Helmer piece. I want to root for this Vlad character, but I can’t. Putin is a NEO-LIBERAL, and neo-liberal’s cannot change their stripes any more than zebra can. It’s in the DNA.
      That means Putin is part of the problem, not part of the solution. It also means that any future Russia-China partnership will be an illusion. Whether it is Putin or some other neo-liberal replacement, China will play Russia the same way they’ve played all the other privatized Western nation-states, as enemies to kept close.
      To better play them for fools.
      I tremble for the people of Russia, I really do. I wrote recently that they seem to be almost as clueless as Americans when comes to this Ukraine busines. But maybe this was a monumental misread.
      Perhaps the Russian people understand full well that the greatest threat to them is not external, but internal.

      1. brad Avatar
        brad

        Every leader requires deep skepticism. Switching allegiance from one to any other shows you’re not learning. Their rot only differs in degree. As far as external/internal threats go, nobody has more to fear than Americans without big bank accounts.

        1. Max424 Avatar
          Max424

          Switching allegiances from one leader to another? Are you talking about Putin?
          He does seem to be doing some flip-flopping as of late, as Helmer points out.
          Are you saying Vlad is a slow learner?

      2. Realist Avatar
        Realist

        Blue-green breast milk, eh? Does it ferment to a Roquefort or Gorgonzola blue cheese?
        ~
        The child is sure to have refined taste because epigenetics.

      3. Markos Avatar
        Markos

        Yes, Putin is a miserable anti-communist, and Russian anti communists are the worst kind…How ironic that he will go down in history as a revolutionary while western liberals will be remembered as nazi loving halfwits

  10. Alan Avatar
    Alan

    This, the logo change, and the first desperate whines for rethinking “Let’s negotiate” are just the initial responses to the military reality on the ground.
    In an effort to preserve infrastructure and civilian lives, Russia has been taking its time and consolidating its gains, but when the tanks come through the stage set, story time will be over, and the west’s narrative spinners must by then be busily pretending they haven’t been pretending Ukraine could “win” this conflict.

    1. John Day Avatar
      John Day

      Ukrainian army bunkers in the Donbas have been fortified since 2014. They are almost completely overtaken now. Russian artillery dominates when one has no deep bunker…

    2. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      After Russia wins the war (or operation) it must make for damned sure that it also wins the process of hammering out a treaty. Western Ukraine must be defanged and not allowed to become a de-facto Nato member. They must be disarmed (small arms only for policing, no combat weapons, not even AR-15’s) and occupied by Russian troops for at least two generations (40 years). (Ask Germany, that’s quite a break.) I hope Putin is cognizant of fucking up the Minsk2 arrangement big time. Expect the thoroughly depraved Ukies to feel empowered to repeat that performance under the aegis of their American patrons. So hang tough in the “negotiations.” Frankly, there should be no negotiations. Terms should be dictated to the Ukies, but Putin is too much the “nice guy” and “good Christian.” That pissant Zelensky is still asking for the effing moon on the terms for simply negotiating. I’d tell him, “talk to the hand”… Then, “talk to your own large intestine,” literally, if he failed to comprehend his situation.

  11. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    There may be a change in the wind

    1. albert khomani Avatar
      albert khomani

      The claim that she was dismissed for “her allegations of atrocities committed by Russian troops” is suspect. It’s not as if she acted without the knowledge of Kiev, and it’s not as if they have just found out now what she has been doing. This is a whitewashing exercise, just like the Azov battalion’s change of logo. They are beginning to realise that the lies are starting to show and they understand the damage it could do to the highly sympathetic sentiment Ukraine currently enjoys in the west, which they use to great advantage.

  12. Realist Avatar
    Realist

    When this whole fiasco, sponsored in turns by Obama, Trump and Biden (the modern day reincarnations of Curly, Larry and Moe), is eventually uncovered as the product of a mountain of lies and provocations by Washington and its sleazy gang of Eurotrash allies (just as the Iraq escapades were under Bushbaby), basically done to sabotage Russia as a potential emerging peer of the US, completely deprive that country of its vast energy market throughout Eurotrashland (who now get to pay more for less reliable deliveries), rob the place of its foreign currency assets and bleed it dry in a deliberately long but unwinnable carnage in Ukraine, will the AMERICAN media have a single critical word to say about the matter? Will the real “new Hitler,” resting his fat dumb ass in the White House, please stand up? Will Volodimyr Zelensky still be offered a contract to play a Churchillian/Tony Stark super hero role in the latest “America saves the world!” Hollywood action movie co-starring the Rock, Vin Diesel and Tom Cruise–as “Maverick” the best American jet pilot who ever flew the F-35 money pit? Is all that potential lucre flushed down the crapper because the entire premise was so conspicuously built on a shitload of Yankee lies? Or do we get cut a break because we are soooo freakin’ special and lovable? If we do say so ourselves…

  13. paulholdsworth Avatar
    paulholdsworth

    Well, it was pretty obvious that the bullshit coming from the Ukrainian government with the compliance of a very willing western media was ..you guessed it a bag of lies, but then why should this come as a surprise to anyone who has intact mind, although that probably disqualifies about half the population of the west, we are i suspect witnessing the death throes of the west .

  14. Max424 Avatar
    Max424

    ” … the Ukrainian government is more skeptical of Ukrainian government claims than the western mainstream press.”
    Lmao … Got me again.

    1. Max424 Avatar
      Max424

      The homeless situation in China is out of control!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCC402A_pxc
      Kidding, of course (what you are seeing are picnic tents ;–). There are no homeless people in China, such thoughts are absurd. Nor are there any children under daily threat of being murdered in their classroom. The greatest threat to children in China is they will overdose on having too much fun.
      Gonna keep linking, so there are no excuses. After 150 hours now of deep analysis, I know that I was wrong about one thing for sure; the United States is not a gnat on China’s ass. It is something less that. A gnat in China’s stool perhaps.
      Note: Damn, but aren’t those HSR trains quiet as hell? Rippin’ by just overhead and you can barely hear em. Probably another brutally harsh dictate from Central Command.
      Rule 42b: No bullet train can exeed X amount of decibel levels, else they might disturb the growth and vibrancy of our flowers.

      1. Max424 Avatar
        Max424

        And if you grow tired of tired of being around joyous riotous children, well, just switch parks. China seemingly has an inexhaustible supply.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnvYNbzQXew
        Imagine having a park this size – not to mention this spectacular! – all to yourself in a city of 17 million people. I know for me as an American, such things do not compute.
        A park for every citizen! Well done Emporer Xi, well done.

  15. Inna Avatar
    Inna

    Strange times

  16. Antiwar7 Avatar
    Antiwar7

    They did the exact same thing in Bosnia. With less pushback.

  17. Hoseyn Vosouq Avatar
    Hoseyn Vosouq

    Is this supposed to be to their Credibility?
    How exactly is one to translate that; the amount of Information & Misinformation War between the two, has been equal if not more that the Bombs & Bullets exchanged.
    Are we to Cheer for Parliament?

  18. Susan Mercurio Avatar
    Susan Mercurio

    What!!!
    You mean a government body actually held a lying reporter to account for misinformation?
    Maybe this will set a precedent for the US government…oh, wait…

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