Tim Kirby
In a multipolar world, the "empty trench" of MSM lies may finally be retaken.
There is no expiration date on false flag events and recently the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has brought the topic of the Bucha Massacre back into the gaze of the international media. On September 17th, 2026 spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said that Moscow would " poke" the UN into taking another look at the events in Bucha. Ms. Zakharova stated that the structures of the UN were not involved in the actual investigation that took place in Bucha at the time, but instead somewhat blindly put their favor onto Kiev's version of history.
"They [the UN] are not involved in the investigation, they are involved as a biased party in favor of the state. The Kiev regime, the NATO regime there, the Western community. <> Another thing is that we will poke them in what they have done," she said at a press conference. Perhaps "prod" might be a better translation than "poke" as it implies forcing the prodded one to move forward, but you see the point, Zakharova wants the UN to take another active look into this issue.
Interestingly, just a few days later the Foreign Minister himself Sergey Lavrov spoke about the Bucha incident at the forum "Dialogue on Fakes" which sounds a lot more appealing in the original Russian. The main themes of this conference revolve around the informational sovereignty of Russia, fighting disinformation from the outside, and dealing with con-artists on the inside, that still have plenty of help from Kiev. This type of event is very relevant to today's Russia as many intellectuals and millions of normal citizens believe their country is the victim of lies and rewritten history. Russian citizens are well aware of the cartoonishly evil interpretation of their nation's past that persists in the West and the unending deflation of their role in WWII.
The main thesis that Foreign Minister Lavrov relayed in his speech is that the West is trying to quickly fabricate anti-Russian fakes and block access to alternative information. "The whole point of Western information policy is to quickly concoct a fake, inflate it to a universal catastrophe in a day or two or three <> and block access to alternative <> information about a specific episode that is developing in this case," he said. These particular words were given during the opening ceremony of the forum.
This statement reflects a classic truth of propaganda warfare. That it is easiest to implant information into an empty mind that has no opinion on a thing, than to change the mind of someone who already has an opinion on said thing. This first-come first-serve reasoning in PR fights is often compared to taking trenches in actual warfare. Taking an empty trench is easy, but the more-and-more that trench is defended, the greater the force needed to take it will be. That is to say, with the Bucha incident, before anyone could potentially form some sort of view or even ask questions, the Mainstream Media pumped everyone's minds with their interpretation of events as the default position. They took the initially 'empty trench' first, meaning that any alternative views would have to displace this established narrative at much greater effort. Ideological warfare and kinetic warfare share a lot in common and if you classically need 300 men to take a trench with 100 that applies to media realities as well. To 'undo' the Mainstream Media's lies on Bucha it might require three times the amount of media hype to retake dominant control of the narrative.
Lavrov's views on the events at Bucha are based on the findings of the recently revealed report by Chairman of the International Public Tribunal for Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Mikhail Grigoriev. The report had they very heavy-handed title "Goebbels' heirs: the falsification of events in Bucha and the bloody dramatizations of the Kiev regime." Going forward it might just be easier to say "The Grigoriev Report" as the name of the document. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided a bullet point breakdown of the report which they published on their social media. Let's take a look at the key points that they provided from this massive tome of information on the tragic event:
"In numerous speeches by representatives of the Kiev regime, as well as in speeches by representatives of European states, it is explicitly stated that the names of the killed civilians are indicated on the memorial in Bucha.
In fact, a significant number of the individuals listed there are Ukrainian military personnel and combatants killed in the fighting.
Some of those identified by Ukraine and the European Union as civilians were not only active military personnel, but also members of the terrorist neo-Nazi organization"Azov".
Another method of falsifying the events in Bucha was the qualification of Ukrainian servicemen killed in other settlements as civilians killed in the city.
The practice of deliberate killings of their own citizens by the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the purpose of disinformation before the arrival of journalists and film crews allows us to reasonably conclude that this kind of situation took place in Bucha."
Besides these points above, regarding the Bucha Massacre, it is important to also look at issues of timing which were brilliantly laid out at that moment in history by former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Sonar21.com. His words were published right as things were unfolding. Mr. Johnson concisely wrote:
"In the case of Bucha, internet sleuths quickly pointed out that the Russians vacated Bucha on the 30th of March; the Mayor of Bucha declared the city free on the 31st without one mention of slaughter; and the bodies on the street did not start showing up until the 2nd of April.
But there is one other big piece of evidence that did not appear-Social Media. I have yet to see a single reference to a social media post from Bucha dated between 30 March and 1 April that had a worried parent, spouse or sibling agonizing over a disappeared relative. Not one post about people being gunned down in the street by fleeing Russians. Not a word."
Whenever some sort of narrative spark or shift happens in the media it is a fair question to ask 'why now?' as there must be a reason. Bucha was an event from the very dawn of the Special Military Operation so why the hype now in 2026 ? The simplest answer was that it took a long time to truly and properly complete this Grigoriev Report. We cannot forget that there is 'the truth' and then there's 'the truth you can prove in court', the latter of which requires a ton of paperwork, evidence, and more so than anything, time. This is very much in line with the belief that the Kremlin, under Putin, is very legalistic and extremely thorough in its documentation that it bases its arguments on, that is to say that this delay is very consistent with normal Kremlin behavior.
If we look at things from a slightly more conspiratorial slant, then perhaps after the massive 'retaliatory escalation' by Russia during the summer of 2026 some in the inner circles of power in the nation think that someone might actually listen or even want to hear their version of events during those dark days in Bucha. As of the hottest times of this year, the operation in Ukraine has already shifted to a new and much more intense state. Should it be too surprising that the informational side of operations is picking up pace and potency as well ? In 2022 it wasn't clear what was happening, but in 2026 it is obvious that the BRICS are strong and that we are entering a Multipolar World, so maybe the 'vibe' at the UN is starting to shift along with geopolitical realities across the globe ? It is possible that with the current zeitgeist the very same bureaucrats could be willing to remove their favor from the Zelensky regime's interpretation of the Bucha Massacre.