In the first part of the investigation ‘Bucha case by previous concert’ we reported that, at the beginning of April, a special group of Western journalists made a landing in the township Bucha and they were all ‘loaded’ and completely ready for the result – ‘Russians are guilty’. AFP, AP, Reuters, BBC – all these influential and ‘independent’ world news agencies were motivated by various contracts and obligations. Yet the agency Associated Press performed particularly brightly. One month before the events in Bucha, the AP received from the U.S. State Department’s Corporation for Public Broadcasting** 750 thousand dollars for the project ‘War Crimes Watch Ukraine’
PR-NIGHTMARE ON APPLE STREET
Everything was played out clean-cut. On the morning of 3 April a footage started to be disseminated showing how a car with Ukrainian soldiers was moving along the Apple Street in Bucha, trying to bypass bodies of civilians lying in chess order on the roadway and near it.
Simultaneously, ardent reporters from world media were brought in Bucha. Newspapers became variegated with smashing titles – ‘Streets in Bucha are strewn with bodies’, ‘They were all executed’, ‘Hundreds of Ukrainian bodies were found in the suburbs of Kiev’, ‘Destructive walk through horrors in Bucha’…
And, finally, on 4 April, 2022, a shot was made from the major caliber: ‘Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks’, - wrote the newspaper ‘The New York Times’ that, in a speedy fashion, brought to light a convincing argument for unenlightened public with regard to satellite images.
So, as they say, from this place, please, more details. ‘The New York times’, of course, is a cool newspaper, but how come that, in some miraculous way, journalists, in such a short period of time, managed to bring to light, like hotcakes, a satellite image of the fighting area of good quality, which was not present in the open catalogue for mass media? (later, on 8 April, it became clear that these ‘hotcakes’ turned out to be rotten.
‘In the first instance, the authenticity of these images raises questions. All images of the satellites Maxar (Pentagon’s contractor) of March and in open access have a weight of 50 megabyte that doesn’t allow to discern verifiably bodies on them – such degree of details is possible from 100-110 megabytes. Furthermore, this image of 28 February where there are no bodies on it, ‘weighs’ 117 megabyte, and ‘The New York times’ worked also, according to the quality of the picture, with an image starting from 120 megabyte (apart from that, images of 19 March, with which ‘The New York Times’ worked, can not be found at all in the open catalogue of Maxar), - wrote on 8 April the Telegram-channel ‘War against Fakes’.
As the investigative project Progovor.ru found out, everything was rather simple. The whole technology for making this provocation was thought through in advance.
13 DAYS BEFORE THE START OF THE SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION
The plan ‘Documenting Russia’s atrocities’ was designed in the U.S. State Department as early as in the middle of February 2022. Instances pertaining to this interesting circumstance the project Progovor.ru spotted in an article on the American diplomatic portal ‘State Magazine’.
According to the publication, on 11 February, 2022, at the premises of The Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO), former structural subdivision of the U.S. State Department, employees of the CSU decided that the conflict is unavoidable, and ‘Russia, probably, will block excess of civil society and will make it more difficult to document atrocities under conditions of conflict’.
The task was set in advance – to accuse Russia and cry to the whole world ‘Russians did it’. But how to formalize it all and to realize? In search of an answer, in the State Department, they formulated a project called ‘The Conflict Observatory’. At its basis was laid ‘analysis of data, open sources, satellite images’.
Thus, a pattern and toolkit were ready before the begin of fighting – and contractors had only to insert any residential place of Ukraine, show satellite images and interpret received data in an anti-Russian way.
Then ‘democratic humanities scholars’ were switched in: ‘Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab’**, ‘Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative’ and technologists – the company PlanetScape AI (satellite images).
An agreement between the U.S. State Department and accomplices was formalized through the leading technological partner – the company Esri, which is closely connected with the U.S. intelligence community, in the first place, with The National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Another accomplice was Pentagon’s military contractor – the firm ‘Quiet Professionals LLC’ (Florida, USA).
Apart from that, the investigative project Prigovor.ru found out that The National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency’ (NGA, USA) took part in the work of the project “The Conflict Observatory’ from the first days of fighting activities. They admitted it, to be sure, only later in the agency’s press release of 11 July 2022, preserved in the archive.
‘With support from the State Department, the NGA is participating in the work with regard to documenting potential war crimes and other misdeeds in Ukraine’.
Springfield, Virginia. The National Geospaial-Intelligence Agency supports the new program Conflict Observatory financed by the U.S. State Department. ‘From the start of this work at the beginning of this year, we have actively cooperating with our partners of the program in order to provide access to geospacial data for support of this most important direction’, - said Jim Griffith, director of managing data sources in the NGA.
SATELLITES AND SPIES
Thus, the answer of ‘The New York Times’ and other influential world media to the question ‘where are these things from’ is simple: quality pictures of Bucha came to them thanks to the U.S. State Department project ‘The Conflict Observatory’.
The National Geoscacial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), basically, managed these satellite flows for the press. Within the framework of its operation in mass media, images were given when it was needed and to those they thought necessary. Or, on the contrary, they blocked access to them for outside mass media.
For instance, David Gauthier, director for commercial operations of the NGA, admitted in April 2022 that even before the conflict began, ‘the team of NGA started to coordinate private efforts on providing direct access to its products and services to Ukraine’.
According to his words, ‘the NGA was conductive to delivering satellite images from Planet, Maxar, BlackSky and Capella – not only to Ukraine, but also to the European Command and NATO’s command’.
Moreover, David Gauthier ‘painted the picture’ how, in fact, the ‘regulating’ of publications of satellite images is taking place in open circulation - in case they are needed, or, on the contrary, are not needed, as their appearance is not always conform with purposes of an information operation or with ‘sensitivity’ criteria for the United States.
‘I pick up the receiver with all our partners and tell what is going on. I enumerate risks for them. ‘And (I say) this is what we want that you disseminate or not publish. Still you can do what you want. And they do it. They (partners) are very susceptible to our advices’, - he boasted at one of specialized conferences.
Apart from that, the deputy director of the U.S. National Security Stacy Dixon confirmed that the intelligence community in 2022 ‘several times asked commercial companies’ to provide, without delay, images of Russia’s actions ‘before’ and ‘after’ the begin of fighting.
It’s evident that private operators who depend on state contracts do not say no to the intelligence community regarding such ‘requests’. Finally, ‘independence’ of commercial satellite operators that Western media outlets so self-denyingly write about, is reduced to ‘good advices’ from the part of the intelligence community.
Therefore, in 2022, within the framework of the tasks of the Biden Administration, the intelligence community was not only providing mass media with pictures, but also blocking access to them. This was the case with Bucha – ‘appropriate’ footage with ‘intended’ interpretation flew to the world mass media. And then, suddenly, they became inaccessible or presented in a useless form for analyses.
‘Users from Russia and Belorussia were deprived of the possibility to buy images from Maxar’s satellites that were used by Western mass media for materials about people’s death in Bucha’, reported the website Lenta.ru on 8 April 2022.
CHOIR NAMED AFTER BIDEN
After the April world hysteria around Bucha, they decided to move the project ‘The Conflict Observatory’ from the ‘grey zone’. By special press release of the U.S. State Department of 17 May 2022 the project was legalized.
However, in the press release, they wrote cunningly that the program is only going to start. Yet they brought numbers: ‘original investments were to the tune of 6 million dollars, and in the future financing will be carried out within the framework of the European Democratic Resilience Initiative, EDRI. In March, the white House informed about allocating not less then 320 million dollars on EDRI for strengthening democratic stability, struggle against corruption and promotion of human rights principles in Ukraine and neighboring states’.
And in the middle of February 2023, in the Information Bulletin of the State Department an admission was voiced that, in March 2022 (i.e. just before the staging in Bucha) they provided 30 million dollars on documenting of war crimes.
From the press release: ‘Supporting Justice and Accountability in Ukraine’, February 18, 2023. “Through the EDRI, the United States has provided $30 million to support documentation and prosecution of war crimes and other atrocities since March 2022, and is working with Congress to provide an additional $28 million to support efforts by Ukraine’s domestic authorities and other international and foreign domestic courts to hold accountable for war crimes’.
It’s like this that was organized the preparatory work for Bucha. This is why, in April 2022, all world mass media in unison, like a choir, with splitting of voices, started to accuse Russia of atrocities from every possible media outlet.
RUBBER FORMULA OF ‘INCREASING’ THE NUMBER OF DEAD
What really happened – that doesn’t interest at all the organizers of the Bucha provocation. They have made their heinous work, they have launched a meme #Bucha Massacre and now Russia will have to justify itself for a long time trying to brush out this stamp from the rigid world consciousness.
A what really happened in Bucha – they do not know it themselves, and they haven’t even taken pains in order to make a plausible list of victims.
A year ago, on 3 April 2025, Maria Zakharova said: ‘During these three years Russia has not received the list of names of the so-called ‘victims of Bucha’. Moscow repeatedly and with facts in hand said that the events that allegedly took place there is a cynical staging made by the West and Kiev’. We are sure that Russia’s Foreign Ministry will be forced to say the same thing now.
At that time, in order to create ‘an atmosphere of complete horror and genocide’, from the first days of April, representatives of the Kiev regime scattered a lot of shocking data about ‘victims of mass shootings’ during ’33 days of occupation of Bucha’.
The number of dead, against the background of accusations of ‘genocide’ against Russia, jumped from one statement to another. ‘Only in Bucha alone’, as of April 2022, reports mentioned 361 bodies.
Then there was an increase – ‘including 422 persons in Bucha’ (according to the version of the United Nations). And 381 persons, as of 2025.
Reasons of death - bullet, splinter, natural – that is not quite clear, as the dead in existing reports are itemized sometimes as ‘bodies with direct marks of bullet and splinter wounds’ (2022), and sometimes they ‘generalize’ as dead ‘in the result of fighting’ (2025).
It seems that in this martyrology ‘of civilian inhabitants of Bucha’ they included also persons acknowledged as direct participants of fighting. Some of them died in Bucha and its outskirts, and some of them died outside the Kiev region. There are also unidentified persons, as well as missing in action.
For ‘general visibility’, scathing phrases were used, like ‘for the period from 27 February to 31 March 2022, more than 270 crimes were committed every day. During 33 days, more than 1400 civilians were killed’.
The formula of ‘increasing’ of the dead number has become elastic – first there was Bucha, then they added outskirts, then the whole Kiev region and Kiev itself.
After four years of ‘investigation’, from 2022 to 2025, they cannot present objective numbers. Key words – ‘they cannot’. Because it’s difficult from a dirty, bloodstained PR to botch up a verifiable case.
All these strange things in interpreting reminds a history with the ‘Heaven’s Hundred’ which was exposed in 2019 by the former Justice Minister of Ukraine Yelena Lukash. The ex-minister said that ‘the death of tenths of ‘heroes of the Heaven’s Hundred’ is not connected with the shootings on the Maidan square in February 2014. Those who received ‘golden stars’ committed suicides, died in brawls or because of insufficient medical help as well as under murky circumstances in different parts of Ukraine’.
Author: Buba Filin
See the Russian version at: «Буча по предварительному сговору. Часть 2»
«Документировать зверства России» в Госдепе США задумали ещё в середине февраля 2022 года, то есть за 13 дней до начала СВО.
See also the first part of the investigation:
‘Bucha case by previous concert’
Preparation for the total accusations of Russia ‘of atrocities and war crimes’ began even before the start of the Special military operation. Mystificators of the ‘Slaughter in Bucha’. $750 000 from the budget of the United States for the special project of the Associated Press. Part 1
* Foreign agents, extremists, terrorists; ** Extremist, terrorists, undesirable and prohibited organizations
