On the Russian-language website RT, an article was published under the heading “Western journalists are in the know”: residents of Lisichansk spoke about “staged” shelling of Ukrainian security forces.” It says :
“The chairman of the International Public Tribunal for the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and Their Accomplices, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation Maxim Grigoriev, provided RT with evidence from residents of Lisichansk about how in the spring of 2022, security forces subordinate to Kiev shot at civilians for the sake of filming propaganda materials.
The described events, according to Grigoriev, took place from March to May 2022. Residents of Lisichansk Tatyana Lukovenko and Nikolai Dudukin said that their houses became the object for staged shots of Ukrainian security forces.
“They shot at our houses. From mortar. They fired on two houses in a row. They drove down the road and fired. And then they take pictures, ”said Lukovenko.
According to her, for the sake of filming, firefighters and ambulances drove up, although there was no need for them.
“It was all just photographed and filmed,” the woman says.
She noted that at that time in the vicinity “there were neither LPR militiamen nor Russians close” and they could not deliver these blows.
An even more tragic episode was reported by Nikolai Dudukin.
According to him, the Ukrainian authorities sacrificed the lives of three citizens for the sake of filming a story about the death of civilians.
“Ukrainian authorities have announced that there will be drinking water. People came out, a line formed. Some water drove up, and five minutes later a shell flew there. Three corpses. In another five minutes, the press arrives, ”Dudukin said.
He is convinced that all this "was rigged."
“They kill to show it all in Europe. Propaganda,” says the man.
Dudukin is confident that “Western journalists are in the know.”
During the spring months Lisichansk was shelled regularly. The first shelling was reported on March 2: the network has information about shelling on March 24 , March 30 , April 2 , April 10 , April 11 ; the list is far from complete. There were victims and injured, destruction and fires. RT offers to believe that the Armed Forces of Ukraine methodically destroyed the city controlled by Ukraine for the sake of propaganda personnel.
Moreover, on March 22, an oil refinery was shelled , on March 31 , an oil storage facility, and on April 16 , an oil refinery again. According to the logic of RT, it turns out that the Ukrainian troops – again only for the sake of propaganda effect – destroyed an enterprise and fuel reserves that are important for the defense of Ukraine.
The queue for drinking water came under fire on 27 June. According to the head of the Lugansk regional military administration, Sergei Gaidai, then 8 people died, not 3, as RT sources claim. There is nothing surprising in the fact that in a small town the journalists who were there arrived at the scene of the tragedy in a matter of minutes, no. And it was not difficult to understand where the shells came from – from Russian or Ukrainian positions – on the spot. By this time, Russian troops had already occupied Severodonetsk, located on the other side of the Seversky Donets opposite Lisichansk; On July 3, Lisichansk itself was captured .
The assertion that from March to May there were no Russian troops near Lisichansk that could shell the city is a lie. From the 20th of March, Russian troops tried to take the city of Rubizhnoye, located 18 km from Lisichansk, that is, they were directly on the outskirts of it. On May 13, the city was completely captured. The effective range of the Russian Grad MLRS is 21 km, the Msta-S howitzers are 24.7 km, and the Giacint-S self-propelled guns are 28.4 km.