Is Belarus being drawn into the war? ISW has identified the possible aim of the fake news story about an attack on children
This is stated in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Why does Russia need this disinformation campaign?
According to the ISW’s assessment, Russia appears to have used this incident to narratively draw Belarus into its information operations. The aim is to justify large-scale strikes against Ukraine by portraying them as a response to alleged attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against civilians.
Belarusian rhetoric has been entirely in line with that of Russia: Minsk has also accused Ukraine and claimed that it is allegedly attempting to provoke a “harsh” response from Belarus and escalate the war.
This is not a new tactic
As the ISW notes, similar statements have been appearing for several weeks running. Russia regularly claims that its large-scale strikes on Ukraine are a “justified response” to alleged attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against the civilian population.
The ISW emphasises that it cannot independently verify whether the strike took place.
It should be recalled that the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Centre for Countering Disinformation have refuted claims of a strike on a bus carrying children in the Bryansk region, stressing that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were not using drones to target locations in the Bryansk region at the time in question.
Following these allegations, the Verkhovna Rada’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, contacted the Belarusian side and expressed his readiness to participate in an impartial investigation.
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