On Monday's edition of CNN's "The Lead," fact-checker Daniel Dale deconstructed all the lies being used by Russian state media and government officials to try to wave away their military's massacre of civilians in Bucha.
"The Russian government and its allies, they've been trying to deceive people," said anchor Jake Tapper. "They've been lying about the killing of civilians in Bucha outside Kyiv. What can you tell us about the misinformation?"
"The Russian government has claimed that not a single local resident was killed while Russian troops were in Bucha, that evidence to the contrary was staged or faked or a hoax," said Dale. "These claims are frankly ridiculous. They're totally false. It has been conclusively demonstrated that civilians were indeed killed while Russian troops were in Bucha, and they say by Russia."
"Let's walk through some of the deception here," Dale continued. "I want to show people just how hard Russia and its allies have been working to trick people. In early April, videos emerged of dead people on a street outside Bucha. So Russian officials quickly settled on a way to cast doubt on these videos. They claim it showed that a person lying on the road was actually alive, that their hand was moving. But journalists quickly proved that the so-called moving hand was just a drop of water moving across the windshield of the car from which the video was filmed. Journalists also found still photos of that same personal on the road, clearly deceased."
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"So end of story? Not for the Russian government," said Dale. "They also suggested that the bodies only appeared on this Bucha road days after Russian troops withdrew from the area. So they were hinting the bodies had been placed there by Ukrainian forces. But that is false, too. Satellite photos proved there have been bodies on the road for more than a two week period when Russian troops were present. So now, end of story, surely, with satellite photo proof? No, again. Pro-Russian social media accounts started casting doubt on the satellite photos, claiming the satellite company in question was not even taking pictures on March 19th, the date of some of the photos. But the company was taking pictures that day, either out of malice or ignorance, the people doing the fact check weren't properly doing their online archive search."
"This is exhausting for me to keep track of, and this is my full-time job," added Dale. "I'm sure regular people around the world find it exhausting themselves to keep track of. And I think that's the point. I think what Russia is doing is throwing so much nonsense at the wall. Either some of it sticks and gets believed, or it just tires people out. That people get so confused and overwhelmed by everything being contested, even the most obvious facts, they throw up their hands and say, I don't know what's true. I can't keep track of all this. And I think we as journalists have to fight hard against that."
Watch below:
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