In the city of Bucha, near Kiev, the Russian army left behind dozens of corpses in retreat. The bodies of the Ukrainian inhabitants are lying on the groundsome with their hands tied.
The Spanish photographer Santi Palacios, among the first to shoot on the Yabulanka road that leads to the town, he told what he saw to Repubblica: “Some have their hands tied behind their backs. Others have a clear hole in the head or chest ”. The photographer speculates that the deaths of these people are “the result of a cursory execution”.
Yet, on social media, other theories circulate. Not about how the people of Bucha died. Many – and among them there are also members of the Russian government – are convinced that the massacre is a fake, a fake news produced by the “Kiev regime”.
This is what Alexander Alimov, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations claims, who writes on Twitter: “The photos and videos arriving from Bucha are another production of the Kiev regime and the Western media”.
This time the conspiracy theorists are betting everything on a video shot on the streets of Bucha, by someone in a car following a pickup truck carrying military personnel. An excerpt from the video was taken by Espreso tv, a Ukrainian web tv. His story about Bucha’s hell has been shared several times, including on Telegram, because he would show two bodies on the ground that – according to conspiracy theorists – are moving.
In the first case, the suspicions concern the movement of the hand of a body located on the right side of the road. In the second case, however, the doubts concern a body reflected in the rearview mirror of the car from which the shots were made: this body, according to some, would move.
It is hard to use the conditional as well, in recounting the fact-checking set up by those who intend to discredit the terrible images shot and taken in Bucha. The longer original video would be enough on its own to counter the conspiracy theories.
But several users, on Twitter, went further, analyzed the footage and explained without difficulty why there is no suspicious movement. Returning to the first case, no hand moves: the movement – imperceptible – that someone has recognized is given by a stain on the windshield of the car on which the filming is located: it would seem a drop of rain. And this can be seen with the naked eye, perhaps slowing down the original video slightly. But it’s even more evident if, as someone on Twitter did, you apply the ‘invert’ filter to the images, resulting in a negative.
The second case, that of the body near the sidewalk that seems to move, is simply due to a distortion of the image that affects – it can be seen in slow motion – even the buildings on the side of the road.
It is an effect, the one observed, which is most likely amplified by the slightly convex surface of the rear-view mirrors of the cars, produced in this way to guarantee a wider vision to the driver.