Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the reports of human atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha are “fake” and instead blamed British special agents.
Putin made the claim alongside Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at a news conference at a spaceport in Vostochny, in Russia’s east, marking Putin’s first appearance outside of Moscow since his invasion of Ukraine began, CNBC reported.
At the news conference, Putin compared the allegations of war crimes in Bucha to the ones Western powers made about Russian forces deploying the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Reuters reported.
“It’s the same kind of fake in Bucha,” Putin said.
Lukashenko also took time to blame British authorities for the atrocities in Bucha, saying that British operatives conducted a “psychological special operation” in the city without citing any evidence for his claim.
Lukashenko also said that he discussed Great Britain’s “special operation” in Bucha with Putin, noting that Russian authorities plan to give material to back up his claim, CNBC noted.
“If you need addresses, passports, license numbers and brands, on which date they arrived in Bucha, and how they did it, then the FSB can provide these materials,” Lukashenko said, referring to the Russian security agency.
This comes as Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces of executing, raping and torturing residents in Bucha, a town near the capital of Kyiv. Russian forces occupied the town for weeks before withdrawing from the area.
President Biden said on Tuesday that Putin has committed acts of genocide in Ukraine, and his administration has accused Putin of committing war crimes in the region.
“It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being Ukrainian,” Biden said. “The evidence is mounting.”
“And we’re going to only learn more and more about the devastation and we’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me.”
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