“It is the same scenario as in Bucha, and they used the same script, but of course everything is a lie, it is false and we will defend the truth of this whole story,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov stressed on Monday.

The head of the Kharkiv region administration, Vitali Ganchev, said that Kiev will try to repeat Bucha’s provocative scenario in the city of Izium, which previously suffered numerous shellings by Ukrainian troops.

Early in last April, Kiev and several international media outlets released images from cameras and satellites showing dead bodies of civilians in the streets of the city of Bucha, which was under the control of Russian troops until March 30th.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Irina Venedíktova, announced on April 4th that in total the authorities found 410 bodies of murdered civilians on the outskirts of Kiev.

The Kremlin categorically rejected the involvement of the Russian military in the killings of civilians in Bucha and insisted that an international debate be held on the matter, but at the same time was skeptical that a “truly impartial investigation” could be carried out.

pgh/llp/mem/gfa