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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Will Stewart & Laura Sharman

Russian propagandists claim thousands have been 'tortured and killed' by Ukraine

Russian state TV has whipped up hysteria by highlighting a Donbas fighter claiming that Ukrainian nationalists will “kill and butcher you all, and hang your children on wires”.

It comes as Moscow relentlessly moved military assets towards Ukraine and conducted war games both in Belarus and around Russia.

The scale of the military buildup is said to be the biggest since the Second World War.

New social media videos showed tank drills in Leningrad region, and in the Pacific fleet.

Military equipment was on the move in Kursk, Belgorod, and Voronezh regions, all with Ukrainian borders, as well as in Liptsek and Saratov.

Russian and Belarusian Su-30SMs also staged joint patrols over Belarus.

Weekly TV review shows on nationwide state channels accused the West of “hysteria” in warning about an impending invasion, which the Kremlin strongly denies it is plotting.

A Donbass fighter nicknamed Lambada who said he is to die fighting for this area of Ukraine (Vesti Rossiya/east2west news)

But the same channels alleged Ukraine was poised to attack the Donbas image.

Rossiya 1 show Vesti Nedeli cited a fighter from the separatist region saying Ukrainian nationalists had threatened to “come and kill and butcher you all, and hang your children on wires, like fascists [did]".

They continued: “I won’t let this happen, just as everyone else here will not….

“We’ll lie down here, but the enemy will not pass.”

Tank drills in Leningrad region, Russia (TV Zvezda/east2west news)

Anchorman Dmitry Kiselyov, described as Vladimir Putin’s propagandist-in-chief, warned that "thousands of civilians have been tortured and savagely killed" in the Donbas.

He also accused the West of "stubbornly ignoring the crimes of the Kyiv regime”.

The sequence was ominously captioned: “They are preparing to kill.”

Likening Ukrainian nationalists to fascists, he spoke of "crimes of the little Nazis during their punitive operations in which the numerous victims were civilians, women and children”.

Russian TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov (Vesti Rossiya/east2west news)

Another TV show, Channel One's Voskresnoye Vremya accused the West, and first of "hyping up the myth of Russian aggression with maniacal stubbornness”.

Ukrainian was being pushed towards a "force scenario" in Donbas by the West.

Weekly show Itogi Nedeli on NTV, owned by Gazprom-Media, and Vesti Nedeli claimed the dead in the conflicted highlighted war crimes by Ukraine suggesting the perpetrators should be brought to justice.

The West has repeatedly claimed that Russia is seeking a pretext to go to war.

Pacific Fleet's drills in Russia (TV Zvezda/east2west news)

Kiselyov also accused the US and Britain of seeking to erect a cordon sanitaire around Russia.

The Russian media continued its onslaught on Foreign Secretary Liz Truss after her visit to Moscow last week.

She was "poorly educated and ignorant, unable to hold a conversation” and harps on about the same thing like a parrot”.

Reports in Ukraine say multiple tycoons have fled the country by private jet after heeding Western warnings that an invasion is imminent.

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