There have been many reports coming from a war-torn Ukraine and the mainstream media is reporting apparent atrocities being carried out against the Ukrainian people by Russian soldiers, including satellite photos that allegedly showed mass graves near Mariupol.
One journalist, however, has said that these mass graves are nothing more than a fabrication after she visited the area, according to her first-hand account which was published in NewsPunch.
Eva Bartlett, an independent journalist from Canada, traveled to the city of Mangush, Ukraine and did not find any mass graves.
“What I saw were new, orderly grave plots including some still empty ones – an extension of a cemetery that already exists at the spot. No mass pit. Many of the graves have placards with the names and dates of birth of the deceased when available, and the remaining plots were numbered according to burial,” she noted.
“Since the media is essentially copy-pasting from the same source – the former mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko (who seems to be far from the city now) – I’ll cite from the Washington Post’s article,” Bartlett’s account noted further, adding:
Boichenko, the article notes, “called the site the ‘new Babyn Yar,’ referring to one of the largest mass graves in Europe located in the outskirts of Kyiv, where 33,000 Jews were killed by Nazis in 1941 during World War II.”
This is ironic on several levels. A mayor who is whitewashing the neo-Nazis who have run amuck in his city – notably those from the Azov Battalion, who have used civilians as human shields, occupied and militarized civilian infrastructure, point-blank executed civilians – is comparing an alleged (non-existent) mass grave to a Nazi massacre of WW2.
“Meanwhile, the Kyiv regime has re-written history, making WW2 Nazis and their collaborators heroes of the nation. The most notorious example being the World War Two figure Stepan Bandera,” Bartlett continued.
“Boichenko’s other alarming claim was that the alleged ‘mass grave’ was ‘the biggest war crime of the 21st century,’” she continued. “We are only 22 years into it, but we’ve already seen the US-led invasion and destruction of Iraq, the leveling of Syria’s Raqqa, Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war in Yemen – all of which are much stronger contenders than the nowhere-to-be-found ‘mass graves’ of Mangush.”
Bartlett went on to describe what she did see – ordinary burial plots with individual marked graves.
“In reality, the site has around 400 individual plots, including nearly 100 empty ones. The 9,000 bodies and ‘biggest war crime of the 21st century’ were unverified claims made by a mayor who fled his city, promoted by media which down the page admitted they could not independently verify the claims – but by then, the damage had been done,” she wrote, noting that the story went viral throughout the West, thanks to the push from news media.
When she was at the site of the alleged “mass graves”, Bartlett said that the men who were present to look after the site, were asked about the mass graves, to which one of them replied, “This is not a mass grave, and no one is throwing bodies into a pit.”
She noted: “According to them, they bury each person in a coffin and separate grave, details are logged in the morgue, and when any documents regarding name and age are given, the plot is marked with a placard containing those details. Otherwise, a number is used.”
One of the men also noted that a section of the site was used to bury Ukrainian soldiers. “They’re human, too,” he said.
Bartlett also offered up proof of her own claims, including photos.
“For those in doubt as to the location, see Roman’s report: his drone footage shows that it’s precisely the same location as shown in the satellite images used by Western media,” she wrote.
DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU HEAR AND ONLY 1/2
OF WHAT YOU SEE!!!!!!