Fake Factory: Bucha doesn’t exist

The war in Ukraine has been going on for more than a month and a half with no significant progress on any of Putin’s stated goals – neither on demilitarization, nor on denazification, nor on non-aligned status, nor on the reduction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, nor on the recognition of the “DPR” and “LPR” proxies as independent states. The prospects for a truce are also rather unclear.

Putin, in turn, claims that the Western sanctions “blitzkrieg” against the Russian Federation has failed. The country’s industrial and financial systems are working, the economy is stable and efficient, he says, the tendency to maintain macroeconomic indicators will be delayed.

Last week, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenka met at the Vostochny Cosmodrome (Amur Region). Putin behaved typically. He forced his partner to make a 12-hour flight to participate in an insignificant meeting where they merely repeated a joint position on the war in Ukraine.

Putin declared that reports from Bucha were “fake”, and Lukashenka developed the idea, calling the tragedy in Bucha “a psychological special operation conducted by the British.”- “If you need addresses, passwords, appearances, and so on, then the FSB of the Russian Federation can provide this information,”  he added.

Lukashenka also said that “if Russia had been only a little later with their military operation, they would have to deal with what they believed to be a crushing blow on the territory of Russia.” Last time, Lukashenka told Putin about where an attack on Belarus was being prepared, he only managed to create an internet meme.

Later, during a meeting with the governor of Primorsky Krai, Lukashenka promised to show the world “Kuzkin’s mother” together with Putin. This was the answer to the question of whether the two countries would demonstrate integration from Brest to Vladivostok.  Lukashenka constantly declares that “sanctions are a time of opportunities” (counting on adequate support from Russia) and behaves as if he is a full-fledged participant in the war.

The OSCE, meanwhile, does not consider Belarus a participant in the war in Ukraine, according to the organization’s report published on April 13^th.  “Despite the fact that Belarus provides its territory for a Russian attack on Ukraine,” it cannot be called a party to the conflict until it “commits acts of violence or other actions that constitute direct participation in hostilities,” the report says.

On March 15^th, Lukashenka said that “a new page has been turned” in relations between Belarus and Russia. He positively assesses the decision of his colleague Vladimir Putin on the possibility of participation of Belarusian specialists in the construction of secret facilities, in particular, at the Vostochny Cosmodrome.