The Russian media dismisses photographic evidence of atrocities in Ukraine as ‘fake.’

State tv packages in Russia haven’t shied away from exhibiting photographs of loss of life and destruction in Ukraine. Viewers have seen corpses within the streets of Bucha, blasted-out vehicles at a prepare station in Kramatorsk and the stays of a hospital advanced attacked in Mariupol.

However the photographs are accompanied by rhetoric that blames Ukraine or the West for the assaults, or accuses the Ukrainian authorities of falsification. The phrase “pretend” is thrown round continuously — in some circumstances printed in vibrant pink letters throughout grotesque movies and images.

When the primary images and movies of the slaughter in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, started rising on April 3, Russian propagandists rapidly responded by saying that the our bodies within the streets have been these of actors.

“They name this proof,” stated a information host on Channel One. “That is yet one more pretend. The footage is staged.”

On Telegram, an app with broadcasting capabilities, channels dedicated to supposed “fakes” pump out the identical message, falsely claiming, for instance, {that a} nearer have a look at a video of our bodies strewn throughout Yablonska Road in Bucha exhibits one of many corpses elevating an arm and one other one standing up.

One of the vital standard information packages within the nation, “60 Minutes” on the channel Russia-1, makes use of the English phrase pretend liberally, stamping it on screenshots of articles printed by the Western information media and on movies and images from Ukraine.

“There is no such thing as a proof of victims, however the West doesn’t want the reality,” the present’s host, Olga Skabeyeva, declared in a single episode. As she spoke, large screens within the studio behind her projected a video exhibiting corpses in Bucha, with “pretend” written in pink in a single nook.

On Channel One, a complete program dedicated to exposing “fakes” is hosted by Alexander Smol, who additionally hosts the Russian equal of “America’s Funniest Residence Movies.”

In every episode of “AntiFake,” Mr. Smol convenes three specialists in historical past, army ways, social media or information — often males — to select over the main points of social media posts or articles in regards to the warfare in Ukraine printed in Western publications like The New York Instances, The Guardian, the BBC and The Related Press.

Mr. Smol and his visitors have argued that the scenes in Bucha should have been staged. There may be not sufficient blood, they are saying. The our bodies are positioned in several methods in images, they declare.

They haven’t restricted their marketing campaign to Bucha.

In a current episode, Mr. Smol broadcast a video of docs making an attempt unsuccessfully to revive a 6-year-old lady who was rushed to a hospital in Mariupol after a catastrophic shelling. The video was first launched in late February by The A.P. and circulated on Ukrainian tv and Western information media websites.

Because the video of the dying lady was performed again and again — the phrase “pretend” stamped throughout it — the boys on Mr. Smol’s present stated it had been shot from too many angles and in too easy a fashion to be actual. And so they stated a digital camera operator wouldn’t be allowed into an emergency room.

Mr. Smol and others on his program have additionally echoed the state narrative that Ukrainian forces have been behind the assaults on the hospital advanced in Mariupol — a strike that killed a pregnant girl and wounded employees and maternity ward sufferers — and the prepare station in Kramatorsk, which left at the very least 50 folks lifeless.