In the Hermitage, hackers displayed information about the massacre in Bucha on the scoreboard

The investigative committee of St. Petersburg is deciding how to qualify the actions of hackers who hacked into the Hermitage’s electronic scoreboards in order to display information about the tragic events in Ukrainian Bucha, the Fontanka website reports.

“Representatives of the administration of the Hermitage Museum contacted the law enforcement agencies at about nine in the evening on January 29. They reported that at about four in the afternoon unknown persons had displayed information about the events in the Ukrainian Bucha on the screens of electronic scoreboards, which was recognized by the Russian Ministry of Defense as a fake. After the security service discovered a hack, the scoreboard was turned off. According to preliminary information, the server was hacked remotely,” Fontanka writes.

Russian military crimes in Bucha

In March 2022, the Russian military committed a massacre of civilians, accompanied by cases of looting, kidnapping and torture in and around the city of Bucha, Kyiv region, in territories controlled by Russian troops during the invasion of Ukraine. The events have signs of war crimes and crimes against humanity, in which servicemen of the armed forces of the Russian Federation are accused.

On February 25, 2022, the first clashes between Ukrainian troops and Russian special forces took place in Bucha. From March 5 to March 31, Bucha was under the control of Russian troops, who created a rear base in the city for an attack on Irpin (a city for which fighting was going on throughout March). After Ukrainian troops entered Bucha on April 1, international news agencies began to publish photo and video evidence of the killings of civilians, which the Ukrainian authorities accused the Russian military of committing. After the departure of Russian troops, more than 30 bodies of people in civilian clothes were found on the streets of the city, in the basement of the children’s camp and in the courtyards of houses. Another 67 bodies were exhumed from the mass grave near the church of St. Andrew the First-Called. An examination showed that 40 of them were civilians and that several dozen people died as a result of artillery or tank attacks using anti-personnel shells filled with flechettes (metal darts). According to the Ukrainian authorities, more than 1,000 bodies were found in Bucha and other settlements in the vicinity of Kyiv after the withdrawal of Russian troops. As of 31 October 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented the killing of 73 civilians in Bucha, including as a result of mass executions, and is working to verify another 105 alleged killings. According to the BBC, more than a thousand civilians were killed in the Buchansk region during almost a month of Russian occupation. Most – about 650 people, according to the Ukrainian police – were shot dead by the Russian military. Ukrainian investigators, local residents, eyewitnesses and survivors report that there have also been incidents of rape.

The murders in Bucha were condemned by activists, politicians and cultural figures from Russia, Ukraine and many other countries. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and a number of European politicians described the incident as a genocide of the Ukrainian people by Russia.

Russia declared that its army was not involved in the deaths of civilians and falsely accused the Ukrainian side of fabricating numerous evidence (including photo and video materials, eyewitness accounts and journalistic investigations). Russia’s statements are qualified by the international media as propaganda and disinformation, and the arguments cited by the Russian side are not credible.

The American edition of The New York Times published testimonies, including videos, about how the Russian military executed people in Bucha (near Kyiv). We are talking about the execution by Russian paratroopers on March 4, 2022 of eight Ukrainians. Video recordings were made by surveillance cameras in Bucha, as well as from an unmanned aerial vehicle.

How civilians were killed in Bucha. Full Russian translation of the New York Times publication

By Editor

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