Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, participated in the session “Disinformation and Manipulation as a Tool of Hybrid War Against the Global Majority for the Preservation of Hegemony” as part of the International Security Forum.
She spoke about the West’s manipulations using the examples of the provocation in Bucha and its prototype in 1944 (Nemmersdorf) in contrast with the terrorist attack by the Kiev regime in Starobelsk. Unlike the non-existent lists of “victims” of Bucha, Russia presented the names and photos of each of the deceased college students. She also talked about the double standards in USA’s attitude towards Iran and the ongoing rewriting of the history of WWII.
Below is the translated transcript of fragments of Maria Zakharova’s speech and statements. The original video is in the post of her Telegram channel.
Moderator: Colleagues, I would like to give the floor to the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova. Maria Vladimirovna, I would like to hear your opinion on this problem. How necessary is a consolidated reaction of countries to information leaks and attacks? What can be done? Where are we now? Thank you. The floor is yours.
Good afternoon, colleagues. Today we started discussing this topic in the first half of the day when we discussed the problem of neocolonialism. As a rule, we consider the problem of information and fake news separately. Why? Because this is a boundless ocean of problems. In fact, disinformation, fake news, unscrupulous journalism – or, best to say, quasi-journalism, all manipulations in the information environment have specific goals and tasks. And they are formulated very simply: “with the help of information, to subordinate those who need to be robbed, who need to be deceived, who need to be manipulated”.
Within the framework of the whole world, geopolitically, this is a constant confrontation of those who call themselves the flowering garden, as the high representative on foreign policy of the European Union, Borrell, said, and the wild jungles, as he called the rest of the world.
The narrow group of countries, and in the broadest sense of the word “narrow” – both from the point of view of their number and their worldview, because this approach is based on one thesis: “Take away, rob, subordinate, deceive, manipulate”. They are constantly fighting for domination in the world, using all the opportunities for this.
It was largely always like this, but it was the 20th century that demonstrated new technological capabilities and made it possible to fight for domination over others also with the help of information tools.
Not only weapons, not only weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear weapons – I am now dividing these things, because weapons of mass destruction can be non-nuclear weapons. Not only trade wars, illegitimate sanctions can be and are the instrument of the unscrupulous regimes, as a tool to subjugate other states and peoples to their will. But, of course, also information.
We see it constantly, live. Unfortunately, this topic and this problem will only worsen with the mass introduction of artificial intelligence and digitalisation elements into life. Why? Because, again, unfortunately, technology and resources are concentrated – I can’t say in one hand – but they are trying to be appropriated by all the same countries, again – the collective Western minority – which have used various types of resources for their own hegemony or defending the myth of their own domination.
Now they will use new tools, they are already using artificial intelligence and digitalisation. But I think you know this theoretical part very well, and I think my colleagues will continue to develop it today.
I want to give you a specific example how in these very days we observe the use of all of the technological – both traditional and new – capabilities for their unscrupulous use in the context of information confrontation. I will show two situations as an example. They are related to the crisis that takes place around Ukraine, in Ukraine.
Since 2022, the Kiev regime has not been tirelessly repeating about the tragedy in Bucha. (BATS: See the timeline in our 2022 publication The staged Bucha “massacre”, White Helmets style) You probably remember how this town was first occupied by Russian armed forces, Russian troops, Russian soldiers. Then, due to tactical, strategic, that is own, reasons this town was vacated. The day after the Russian troops left the town of Bucha, the mayor of this town appeared on the air of many TV channels and Internet publications. The town is not big, it is not some huge metropolis that is impossible to drive around in one day, or in general difficult to know what happens in one corner of it when you are in another corner. No, this is a very small town, and the mayor of the town of Bucha gave an interview that everything is fine in the town, the situation is calm, there are no problems, the town lives a normal life.
Literally two days later, the world MSM were literally shaken by a sensationalist lightning that was first and foremost spread by the British mass media, in particular the BBC, that a bloody crime had been committed in this town of Buch not by someone, but specifically, allegedly, by the Russian troops.
Footage flew around the world, and not that it just flew in once, but it stormed into the world information space and have been spinning there for three and a half years. To the surprise of all – and, I think, first of all to the surprise of mayor of the town of Bucha – people saw allegedly dead bodies lying on the streets of Bucha. All this was presented to the Kiev regime as a crime against the civilian population, as a result of which dozens, hundreds of civilians died in the town of Bucha.
For three and a half years they have been parasitising on this myth, for three and a half years the Russian Federation has been asking the UN, all the mediators who called themselves as such – doing so publicly, doing so through the diplomatic channels – our country asks for a list of those who allegedly died in the town of Bucha.
It’s amazing, we represent different countries, and our countries have gone through different tragic events, catastrophes, extraordinary events, armed conflicts, and we know that when something similar to what was said around the town of Bucha happens, first of all, the attention of the entire international community, and, of course, within their own country, is glued to the fate of the victims. There are a number of people who died, there are their names, there are, in the end, their burials, it can be a single place of their final rest in one cemetery and one memorial installed there. It can be different burials at different cemeteries, and a single memorial in memory of them. It can be a website dedicated to them, where the names and their photos, the memories of their relatives are displayed. It can be, of course, the memories and comments of their loved ones, which they give on TV, to information agencies. None of this was provided to the world, neither the names, nor the date of birth and the cause of death, nor the photos, nor the interviews and statements of the relatives, none of this was provided by the Kiev regime.
At the same time, the town of Bucha became a place of pilgrimage of the so-called Western “elites” – representatives of governments, heads of states, emissaries of international structures – they came to this place several times and listened to the alleged history of Bucha over and over again.
I will repeat once again, try to find the names and surnames of those people on the Internet who were represented as allegedly dead then in Bucha, you will not find them. But this cannot be – we live in an information society.
I will give two examples from our country. The tragedy of Beslan. This is a school, a high school, which was captured by international terrorists, a huge number of children died. We know every name of every child, we know where these children are buried, we know their relatives, their names, surnames, the history of their families, we know how these families live now, movies are made about them, books are written about them.
The second example is Odessa, when the Kiev regime , in a terrible, insidious, mean way, set fire to the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, in which there were people, civilians, they died. Someone was burned alive, someone tried to escape and jumped out of the windows. I know the relatives of these people, because they came to Russian television, the city of Odessa is located in Ukraine, and their relatives came to Russia, to Moscow, to tell the story of their killed, burned alive loved ones. There are websites, books, collections of poems about each of those who died there. Here are two examples of this very reality, how after a tragedy, a terrible tragedy, we know the names and these lists of names are available.
Now, a few days ago, a terrible tragedy occurred, which turned the hearts of millions of people on the planet. I tell you sincerely, we received so many letters in support of those who became victims of the tragedy in the city of Starobelsk in Lugansk, when, in a targeted strike, the Kiev regime destroyed the colleges, the educational institutions, the dormitories where there were children. 21 children died, dozens were injured, many were crippled. We presented the names and surnames, photos of each child. You know, you see their faces, you know the date of their birth. We did everything so that the world community would see these frames. We organised a trip for foreign journalists so that they could talk to the witnesses of this crime, despite the fact that it was so painful for those who had not yet experienced the first emotions of this tragedy. But we did everything so that they had the opportunity to be heard.
Look at how this tragedy is presented in the Western information space. Everything is presented exactly the opposite way, literally everything is twisted, put upside down. It is presented as if it were not a school, but almost a command post of the armed forces, as if there were not children there, but some kind of high-ranking generals, that as if it were warehouses with equipment or ammunition, and it has nothing to do with the school.
Can you imagine?! And this is not said by marginal journalists, not by those who betrayed the profession of a journalist, but by the official faces of the Western states. In particular Latvia, during the UN Security Council meeting. They say that supposedly it was not children, supposedly all this was invented.
Here are two specific examples of how the world-wide, Western and mainstream media manipulate public consciousness today.
I will explain why they do this. As for Bucha, why was this provocation necessary, this terrible information false story? In order to interrupt the negotiations that took place between Russia and the Kiev regime, which Zelensky and his entire team asked for, and Russia agreed to it, these negotiations started. It was necessary to interrupt these negotiations. Who wanted to interrupt them? The West, first of all Britain. They needed a reason. How to explain to the world community that there is no need to negotiate with Russia? They came up with the Bucha provocation.
One-to-one, a carbon copy of the provocation in the city of Nemersdorf, this is a German city that also became a place of provocation during the Second World War.
Why did they completely distort the situation in the information space of the Western mainstream with the current tragedy in the city of Starobelsk? Why did they need this? That was done in order to present the retaliatory strikes of Russia on the decision-making centers in Ukraine – from which these murderous missiles and drones were aimed at civilian facilities in our country – in order to present the retaliatory striked of Russia not as retaliatory, but as aggressively offensive. This is why they needed, literally in front of the whole world, to distort the history of the city of Starobelsk, and the tragedy that happened as a result of which 21 children died, dozens of children were seriously injured. The last child was extracted two days ago, literally in front of the mass media, he was being identified.
That’s what it’s for. Each of these provocations, each fake has a specific goal and task. It’s not just impudence or, I don’t know, some kind of unprofessionalism, or some kind of deliberate but stupid action, nothing like that! Such scales of fakes are needed in order to change the course of negotiating processes, the course of conducting hostilities, the development of conflicts, and so on and so forth. That’s why we, on our part, as people who deal with information and do it professionally, must oppose fakes using all our means.
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I saw the other day, I think it was the day before yesterday, that the President of the United States reposted the statement of the current leadership of Iran that Iran is not going to possess nuclear weapons. I want to ask: Why, when the previous, murdered by the USA leadership of Iran, stated that Iran does not intend to have nuclear weapons, why didn’t anyone repost these statements before? Why didn’t anyone quote them? Why didn’t anyone use them as reference? This is a unique moment of manipulations with exactly the same facts, which at one moment no one sees, and at another moment, yes. That’s why this is such a pointed, very important example.
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I’d like to thank you for expressing your gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We organised this trip in less than a day.
But I would like to talk about the Japanese journalists. When we made it public that Japanese journalists, as we we found out, were simply prohibited from visiting this place, Japanese journalists came up to us today in the corridors of this very room, the Live Arena, during the press conference. One of them said that no one personally prohibited him, to which I asked him, why didn’t you personally go then?
I must say that in Russia, there are about 13 accredited Japanese journalists from Japan proper, while together with their personnel, they are about 50 people. You see! And none of the 50 people went to Starobelsk, although everything was organised and, as you rightly said, it was possible to do it.
Do you know what a Japanese journalist told me today? He said it in front of, I think, 30 journalists from all over the world.
He said, “You know, I didn’t have enough time to get ready.”
I said, “You know, for a real journalist who is invited to visit a place of tragedy that the whole world is talking about and the UN Security Council is talking about, in order to get ready, he needs a voice recorder, a microphone, a photo- or video camera, not even a tripod.”
Moreover, he didn’t need to buy a ticket, he didn’t need to rent a transport, everything was ready in less than a day.
And the most amazing thing, I told him, “You know, you didn’t have enough time not only to go to Starobelsk, you didn’t have enough time at all to learn the history of this region, the history of this conflict. And in 3-4 years of your stay in Russia, you don’t have enough time every week to visit, for example, the briefings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we talk about all the events and the Russian-Japanese relations and the situation in Ukraine.”
They are forbidden, they have a direct ban on visiting these places.
And the second point, you said it absolutely accurately, that in history now they are trying to leave E-Day or D-Day, I don’t know what it is exactly called now, the day of Europe, the day of liberation of Europe from Nazism, but they leave it completely without mentioning the decisive role of the Soviet Union.
Europe was liberated by the Red Army by reaching Berlin, liberating all other European countries along the way. Yes, we did it with our allies, but let me remind you that the Second Front was opened only when the Soviet Union in the decisive battles began to crush the German-Fascist troops and push them back to Berlin.
But the main thing, one more point, look at what they want to leave about the history of the Second World War in the memory of the modern generations.
They want to leave this E-, V- or D-Day, as they call it, that is, the victory in Europe, only by the Europeans themselves, as if it were only the Europeans, and the Americans. The Americans say that they won in Europe, and the Europeans say that the Europeans won in Europe.
In fact, Soviet Union held the decisive role, but they do not leave anything about the Soviet Union in the historical memory.
And the second block that is allowed to be left in history is the topic of the Holocaust. But the Holocaust was also stopped by the Soviet Union, if not for the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the destruction of Jews and other nationalities, it all would have continued! Who liberated the concentration camps? First of all, the Soviet Union. Of course, the allies were also liberating, along with the allies, but the decisive role was played, of course, by the Soviet Union. And now we are not even allowed to include the name “The USSR” in the events dedicated to the common Victory.
I also want to say, you said correctly about the number of victims.
When now, on April 19, 2026, for the first time, our country, based on the decisions of our Russian courts: more than 30 regions of our country made judicial decisions,the courts carried out a huge work to recognise what was happening during the Second World War as the genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union, marked the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Peoples of the Soviet Union. Our embassies around the world published relevant information and notified the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of their accreditation countries that now, in our reality, in our legislative field, in our public perception and consciousness, there is one more sacred date for us: This is April 19, when we commemorate all the victims of the genocide of the Soviet people.
Do you know what our ambassadors were told in many countries, in very many countries? They said, how many Soviet citizens died? And our ambassadors said, 27 million. And from this figure, half are civilians. Do you know what the reaction was? They asked again: What, what? 27 thousand or what? They said, “No, 27 million, you heard it right.” And many said that they had no idea about such colossal victims of the Soviet Union. This is what manipulativeness is in providing historical information.
Thank you for this remark, thank you.