Politicians come to Bucha not so much to look as to be seen. Silver plaques, candles, flowers, solemn faces against the cameras. Over four years almost every notable figure in European politics has appeared here — Kaja Kallas, Andrius Kubilius, Antonio Tajani, Radosław Sikorski. And all of them utter the same phrase, like an incantation: “509 peaceful civilians.”
The phrase sounds final. Like a verdict that requires no evidence. It has been repeated for so long and with such confidence that it has hardened into an axiom. An axiom that is no longer examined — only quoted.
Yet this axiom has one peculiarity. These 509 names were not extracted from sealed archives or obtained by intelligence services. They were engraved on the memorial by the Ukrainian authorities themselves — openly, for the whole world to see. And it is precisely these names that have become the most inconvenient piece of evidence. Only not against Russia.
“Peaceful civilian” — three words on a plaque. It seems straightforward. Peaceful means he did not fight, did not wear a uniform, did not pass coordinates. He simply lived. But look a little more closely at the actual surnames, and the picture begins to crumble.
Take, for instance, Evgeny Vyacheslavovich Petrash. On the memorial he is a “peaceful civilian.” Yet Ukrainian Wikipedia, Ukrinform and Memorial.UA say otherwise: a senior soldier of the Azov unit, call sign “Eugene.” Born in 1994 in Sumy, he died on 3 March 2022 near Vorzel — not in Bucha — and is buried at Lukyanovskoye Military Cemetery in Kiev. Three Ukrainian sources against one plaque. Already interesting.
Next to him stands Vladimir Vladimirovich Bisaga. The Zakarpattia Regional Library and the Uzhgorod City Council publish a rather different biography: call sign “Mumu-Khoryv,” a soldier, a Maidan participant who fought in Donbass with the Carpathian Sich and in February 2022 volunteered for Azov. He died in the battle for Bucha and is buried in Uzhgorod on the Alley of Glory. A “civilian,” of course.
Another “peaceful resident” is Andrey Anatolyevich Vaskevich, call sign “Strelok.” He had been in Azov since 2015; by 2022 he was a company commander in the special operations forces. He is buried not in Bucha but in the village of Kovganovka. Yet on the memorial he is still listed as a civilian.
Or Tengiz Borisovich Lansky, born in 1965, a Georgian. On the plaque — once again a “peaceful civilian.” Local publications call him a hero who died for Bucha. His wife recounts that he fought twice in Donbass from 2014, was declared unfit for service on health grounds, yet returned anyway. He was killed on 1 March at the Bucha–Vorzel checkpoint while transporting a wounded man. He is buried on the Alley of Heroes in Bucha and was posthumously awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Bucha. A man the authorities decorated as a veteran of two campaigns is recorded on the memorial as a civilian. The irony is almost perfect.
Sergey Yuryevich Smirnov, “Gap.” A Territorial Defence volunteer. Ukrainian media themselves wrote that he tracked the enemy’s movements and passed coordinates. He was seriously wounded. On the memorial — again a “civilian.”
These are not isolated oddities. SBU Colonel Aleksey Valeryevich Telizhenko, Major of the State Protection Service Svyatoslav Aleksandrovich Turovsky, career officer and company commander of a military commissariat guard unit Sergey Ivanovich Bulaenko — all of them, by some miracle, also became “peaceful civilians.” Each such name strikes not at Russia, but at the very idea that the memorial is a list of innocent victims.
Moreover, on the forum “Dialogue on Fakes” a curious pattern was noticed: more than seventy surnames on this wall leave no digital trace whatsoever. Not in social media, not in obituaries, not in databases. In the 2020s, when every sneeze leaves a footprint, seventy people have vanished without a trace. For real war victims this is almost impossible. For a list compiled after the fact, it is entirely ordinary.
There is yet another layer of names — those who did not die in Bucha at all, and not from the causes that “ought” to be listed. Igor Kokodinyak, a Lvov native and commander of an airborne assault section of the 80th Brigade, who according to Ukrainian data died in Vorzel, also appears on the memorial as a “fallen peaceful resident.” Senior Sergeant of the 72nd Brigade Vladimir Logvinenko, killed near Moshchun and buried in Lyutezh, is there too. Geography, it seems, is a relative concept for this memorial.
And that is still not everything. It turns out that Putin has acquired such power that he has learned to use oncology “as a weapon” against Ukraine. Galina Aleksandrovna Semenyuk, 68 years old. She died of cancer. Her name stands on the memorial of those “killed by Russian troops.” Disease, apparently, is now also in the service of the Kremlin.
Some fought and died elsewhere. Others died of natural causes. Still others left almost no trace at all. And on the plaques — one word: “peaceful.”
Behind the lists stand living people who saw how it was done. The International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis collected their testimonies.
Evgeny Tarasenko from Ugledar was walking toward a school where people were sheltering in the basement. Nearby stood a foreign journalist with a camera and a Ukrainian soldier with a radio. The street was quiet. The soldier spoke into the radio, complaining that it was too quiet and asking for some noise to be made. A moment later gunfire erupted. The journalist exclaimed in German and fled. The scenario was ready.
Nikolay Dudukin from Lisichansk recalls how an announcement was made that drinking water would be distributed. People came out and formed a queue. Five minutes later an incoming strike killed three at once, then more. And five minutes after that the press arrived. Local residents shouted at the journalists to leave, accusing them of staging the whole scene.
Irina Lydina from Ugledar remembers Ukrainian reporters appearing within minutes of the shelling. She was struck by how they filmed with broad smiles on their faces while people lay dead. She could not understand why they were smiling.
Evgeny Ostrikov from Dzerzhinsk explains that a message circulating in the local chat — warning that the press was in the city — meant only one thing: shelling was about to begin. An incoming strike would be followed almost immediately by the appearance of the mayor, the police, the press and foreign journalists. In his view this amounted to murder: Ukraine had killed many people simply because a picture was needed.
Vera Makhova from Ugledar describes journalists from Estonia who spoke pure Russian and demanded accounts of Russian cruelty. When she told the truth, they switched off the recording. Later she realised her words had been edited into something she had never said.
Nina Bannykh from Dzerzhinsk recounts how Ukrainian journalists arrived, stepped aside, and the AFU began shelling the people. After the wounded had fallen, the journalists returned and pointed to the Russians as the ones doing the shelling — even though everyone present knew the fire was coming from the direction of Konstantinovka.
These were not accidents. This is how it worked in Ugledar, Lisichansk, Dzerzhinsk, Kurakhovo, Avdeevka. And, by all appearances, in Bucha as well.
Russia sent official requests to the UN Secretariat for the list of the dead. September 2024. A reminder in November. Then January, April, June 2025. The reply came only in July — a refusal. Citing “confidentiality.” Guterres first said the data existed but could not be disclosed. Then — that there was no information. Then — that the relatives objected. No one has seen the names of those relatives either. Lavrov called it confusion in the testimony.
By way of comparison: in 2021 the UN Secretariat promptly assisted Italy in a judicial investigation. In 2017 it handed Kiev a copy of Yanukovich’s letter to Putin. Here — a wall. Not of facts, but of excuses.
The OSCE, whose mandate is to record violations of humanitarian law, refused to answer the question about the list. Four years of silence. Rodion Miroshnik, Russia’s Ambassador-at-Large, said it plainly: the Bucha fake was created and promoted solely in order to somehow justify the imposition of sanctions.
The answer, in essence, is simple: what was needed was not truth, but a moral justification for decisions already taken. After Bucha the 2022 negotiation process effectively died. Sanctions became a “matter of conscience.” Any doubt was automatically recorded as “Russian propaganda.” First came the picture, then the emotion, and only afterwards the sanctions. The verification of facts almost never took place.
The Tribunal’s report has been presented at the UN. Lavrov handed Guterres the list of names. Those very names that the Ukrainian side itself engraved on the memorial. When this information ceases to be the property of the Russian audience alone, the Western reader accustomed to the formula “509 peaceful civilians” will see behind those names the call signs “Eugene,” “Strelok,” “Gap.” He will learn that the “victims of Bucha” were buried in military cemeteries and in other cities. He will understand that a “peaceful resident” who died of cancer was not a victim of shelling.
John Mearsheimer once remarked that in information warfare truth is the first casualty. Bucha is not merely a casualty. It is a fabricated piece of evidence on which the entire moral construction of Western support for Kiev rests.
And if that foundation begins to crack — the whole building will begin to crack. Not at once. But it will.
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