RIA Novosti published an article by columnist Vladimir Kornilov under the headline "'They didn't want to do it': the truth about Yelenovka is extremely inconvenient for the West." The main thesis is that the deaths of dozens of Ukrainian prisoners for some reason remain unnoticed by the Western press, which means that "American weapons entering Ukraine are involved in a monstrous war crime." But Kornilov begins with a historical digression:
“The way the Western propaganda machine works when covering events in Ukraine and Donbass is primitive and the same: no matter what tragedy happens there, they immediately blame Russia for it and circulate completely indigestible Ukrainian fakes. It was almost always like that.
Consider, for example, the coverage of the MH17 tragedy in July 2014. The very next day, the Western media "knew the culprits". The most circulated newspaper of the Netherlands De Telegraaf came out with a huge headline "Killers" and photographs of leading figures of the Donetsk People's Republic. And the only grounds for these accusations were the notorious “Nalivaichenko tapes” (audio recordings presented by the then head of the Security Service of Ukraine, in which a wild version was voiced that the plane was shot down by some “Cossacks from Chernukhino”), as well as Strelkov’s “tweet” (message from an obviously fake account). And it doesn't matter that during the investigation, both the version about Chernukhino and the mysterious tweet disappeared somewhere. The verdict by the Western media was issued immediately and is not subject to appeal so far.”
In fact, there was no "Strelkov's tweet in an obviously fake account." There was a message on VK in the public “Reports from Igor Ivanovich Strelkov”, created a few weeks before the death of the Malaysian liner and existed until August 2014, when Strelkov was removed from command of the forces of the so-called DPR. It is quite natural that the message was deleted as soon as it became clear that it was not a Ukrainian military aircraft that was shot down, but a civilian airliner, but the screenshot was preserved on the network.
The administration of the public, trying to declare the message a fake, posted : such a statement (spelling and punctuation preserved):
“The information about the downing of the plane was taken from a forum where local residents and militias communicate. At the time of publication, all users thought that another AN-26 of the Kyiv Nazis had been shot down, and the post about the downing, duplicated by us, had already been circulating in many anti-Maidan publics. Igor Ivanovich Strelkov did not confirm the information about the destruction of the aircraft. We remind you that in our public message Strelkov I.I. are published with a special banner "STRELKOV INFORM". We collect all other messages from open sources, as well as from the diaries of the militias and eyewitnesses of the events. STRELKOV SAM WRITES ONLY ON ONE SINGLE FORUM, but we only duplicate his messages here, ALWAYS accompanying them with a SPECIAL BANNER. If there is no banner, then such a message is NOT from Strelkov, but from open sources (either from the militias, or from eyewitnesses, or from journalists.”
However, the screenshot with the banner is also preserved.
But this is just an introductory part in Kornilov's article. And here is the main content:
“From the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine, this scheme of work of the Western press has reached the absolute. Now American and European (British are the champions in this industry) newspapers do not wait for any statements from Kyiv, but immediately put accusations against Russia on stream, no matter what happens. And they are not shy about using completely outright fakes, even attributing shelling of residential areas of Donetsk to us, when it is absolutely obvious that these strikes were carried out by Ukraine.
And now we are witnessing another high-profile provocation: a strike on the pre-trial detention center in Yelenovka (DNR), as a result of which more than 50 prisoners of war were killed, including militants of the Nazi unit “Azov” (against whose representatives criminal cases are opened in Russia.). Following the standard propaganda scheme worked out over the years, the West should already be screaming about “Russia's fault”, about “punishment of the guilty”, about “Moscow's war crime”, and so on. But the silence draws attention! Not just silence, but loud – even deafeningly loud – silence in the Western media about this high-profile crime.”
That is, according to Kornilov, the situation with Elenovka is fundamentally different from the situation with MH-17. The West is silent about Yelenovka, because Ukraine is allegedly guilty of this crime, but it was not silent about the Malaysian plane, because … Kornilov, it seems, does not understand what a seditious thought he expressed.
But there is in fact no "silence of the West" about which Kornilov writes. Here is a statement by EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell:
“The European Union condemns in the strongest possible terms the atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces and their proxies. These inhuman, barbaric acts constitute serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocol and amount to war crimes.”
Borrell's statement was reported on by CNN, The New York Times, Guardian, AFP , Le Monde, Il Fatto Quotidiano and many others. The European version of the Politico edition tells about the statement of Emmanuel Macron, who promised Vladimir Zelensky that France would support the investigation of the events in Yelenovka and would seek Russia to answer for the massacre of prisoners of war. However, this last publication appeared after the publication of Kornilov's article. But the day before, on Sunday evening, Reuters, The New York Times, Deutsche Welle and others wrote that representatives of the Red Cross, despite the fact that Russia had invited them to take part in the investigation that morning, had still not received permission to visit the scene.
Many publications, however, maintain an impartial tone and write that Ukraine blames Russia for the deaths of prisoners of war, and Russia blames Ukraine. Thus, an article in The Guardian is titled “Families of prisoners of war awaiting news after a strike on a Donetsk prison that killed 50 people”, CNN material – “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack on the prison a “deliberate war crime of the Russians”, while Russia accuses Ukraine". The position is quite understandable in a situation where an independent international investigation is expected.
And what kind of quote did Kornilov put in the title of his article? There she is:
“… A certain high-ranking representative of the Pentagon generally answered in the style of the well-known comedy interlude “Rafik is not to blame for anything”: “If this was a blow from the Ukrainian side, I assure you: they did not want to do this.”
This comment by an anonymous American military man was reported by the same RIA Novosti, without specifying where, to whom and under what circumstances he said this. No other traces of this statement can be found online.