Russia’s foreign ministry said that footage of dead civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha had been “ordered” by the United States as part of a plot to blame Russia.
“Who are the masters of provocation? Of course the United States and Nato,” ministry spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova said in an interview on state television late on Sunday, Reuters reports. Zakharova said the immediate Western outcry over the images of dead civilians indicated the story had been part of a plan to sully Russia’s reputation.
“In this case, it seems to me that the fact that these statements (about Russia) were made in the first minutes after these materials appeared leaves no doubt as to who ‘ordered’ this story.” Zakharova offered no evidence to back these claims.
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for some reason I found pictures of how it looked before almost more upsetting. Just heard that Odesa is having air strikes on it too, I have happy memories of the trip I took there in 2010 
i was thinking more along the lines of the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure and the attendant loss of civilian lives which has led up to this point. The Russian leadership/military has become increasingly emboldened by a lack of any meaningful response to their previous actions - even drastically punitive sanctions may have had some sort of effect. I will concede that it does not fully explain the atrocities we have seen reported over the last few days though.
