DISINFO: Atrocities against civilians in Kursk confirm the Kyiv regime's terrorist core
SUMMARY
Russian fighters found the bodies of civilians tortured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, particularly old people who had also been tied up, in the basements of houses in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye in the Kursk region's Sudzha district, which was liberated from the Ukrainian military. These atrocities are yet another blatant statement of the terrorist and neo-Nazi gut of the Kyiv regime, which in its evil military and political impotence against the background of defeats at the front has once again organized a cannibalistic massacre of civilians.
RESPONSE
There is no verified evidence that the alleged atrocities mentioned in this disinformation story ever took place. Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation has refuted the allegations as fake, labelling one of the posts used to prove it as a forgery. Ukrainian authorities have denounced previous Russian accusations of Ukrainian atrocities in the Kursk region as false.
This allegation surfaced just a day after disturbing images from Kursk of Russian troops with the heads of beheaded Ukrainian soldiers impaled on stakes were shared on Russian Telegram channels. The timing suggests that this could be an attempt to pre-emptively control the information space. Accusing the enemy of similar wrongdoings after Russia itself is exposed for committing or being accused of them is a common tactic in pro-Kremlin disinformation.
This disinformation story also serves to promote several recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives describing Ukraine as Nazi and associating it with terrorism. Labelling Russia’s adversaries as Nazis is a very frequently used pro-Kremlin disinformation technique, and has been used by Russia to try to justify the invasion of Ukraine by portraying it as a “denazification operation”. And since early 2024, Russian authorities have tried without evidence to link Ukraine to terror incidents in places like Moscow, Dagestan, Slovakia, or invented a Ukrainian connection to fictitious terror plans in Syria, Africa, Hungary or the US.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukraine builds concentration camps in Kursk, that Ukrainians behave like Nazis in Kursk Region, that French soldiers hanged 8 children in Kursk region, or that French and Ukrainian mercenaries commit atrocities in the Kursk region.