On Twitter, the Russian Embassy in France on Wednesday compared the Ukrainian city of Boutcha to a “film set”. The tweet, which has since been deleted, has outraged all the way to the top of the state.
The photo posted by the Russian embassy’s official account showed several journalists walking down a street in Boutcha, some stopping to take a picture of a lost cat amid the rubble. “Filming set, city of Boutcha,” the caption cynically read.
With this message, the Russian embassy thus relayed the version of the Kremlin according to which the exactions discovered on Ukrainian civilians in Boutcha would be the fruit of a Western staging.
The publication immediately provoked outrage in France. “Beyond the shame, stop,” reacted on Twitter the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune.
Russian ambassador summoned
This Thursday morning, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced that he had summoned the Russian ambassador to France, “in the face of the indecency and provocation” that this publication constitutes.
Faced with the indecency and provocation of the communication from the Russian Embassy in France on Bucha’s abuses, I decided to summon the Russian Ambassador to the Quai d’Orsay this morning.
— Jean-Yves Le Drian (@JY_LeDrian) April 7, 2022
“We will continue to fight against all Russian manipulation of information on the war in Ukraine,” added the minister.
Very active on Twitter since the beginning of the war, the Russian embassy is not its first provocation. On March 25, the ambassador was already summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the publication of insulting cartoons. One of them showed Europeans on their knees licking the buttocks of Uncle Sam, a character embodying the United States.
