Some French online news outlets are helping Putin’s propaganda machine cover up his crimes. We’re talking about the killing of civilians by Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. This happened back in March 2022, at the start of Putin’s large-scale aggression against Ukrainians.
Due to the Russian bombing of the city, residents, mostly women and children, took refuge in the theater. Volunteers organized hot food distribution points there and brought in generators to charge phones. In front of the theater building, on the sidewalk, the word “Children” was written in large letters (in Russian, the word “ДЕТИ”). It was clearly visible, whether from a drone or an airplane. This was done so that the Russians would understand that there were civilians there.
But on March 16, 2022, Putin’s air force bombed the theater. As a result, the theater’s roof and interior floors collapsed, burying the children and their parents beneath them. After a while, information began to come in that some children and adults were managing to crawl out from under the rubble.
Overall, the results of the journalistic investigation established that at least 600 children and their parents died as a result of this bombing.
Official Moscow does not admit its guilt. According to local residents, the occupying authorities secretly removed most of the bodies of the dead to mass graves. The rest of the victims in the theater, during its renovation, were simply covered with concrete and chlorine. And now, more than three and a half years later, the occupying authorities have renovated the theater. They are trying to present this as a symbol of the restoration of the city they destroyed.
Putin’s propaganda (rt) could not ignore this. Their media outlets are happily reporting on the theater’s reopening. And some websites within the European Union are helping them do so! This was published by: newsnet.fr account on network “X” REF_INFO.
These resources reprint reports from Putin’s propaganda channels almost verbatim. In particular, they claim that the defenders of the city blew up the theater themselves. Despite the absurdity and cynicism of such accusations, Moscow propagandists lack logic. Ukrainian soldiers were mainly armed with light small arms. They used the small amount of explosives and grenade launchers they had against Russian tanks and other armored vehicles. Ultimately, the defenders surrendered to the Russians after they ran out of ammunition and other supplies.
However, Putin’s apologists in Europe are not going to use logic and are talking at length about which prominent occupiers were present at the theater’s opening. At the same time, they ignore what Igor Solonin, the theater director appointed by the occupiers, said. When asked about the fact that the theater’s opening was being celebrated on the bones of the dead civilians of Mariupol, he replied, “Weren’t Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw also built on the bones of others?”
