“Lyudmila Denisova, ombudsman for human rights in Ukraine, admits to having lied about the rapes of children by the Russians”, claim several people on social networks. This statement, which has been circulating since the end of the year, was already shared in June 2022. In particular by Jean-Michel Cadenas, Departmental Delegate of the Mayenne RN Federation.
To support their words, most Internet users cite an article from the blog The media in 4-4-2, known for adhering to numerous conspiracy theories and relaying false information. What is it really ? 20 minutes make the point.
FAKE OFF
The blog post quoted by netizens quotes a sentence spoken by Lyudmila Denisova: “When I spoke in the Italian parliament, in the Committee on International Affairs, I heard and saw such weariness of Ukraine, you understand ? I spoke about terrible things in order to push them one way or another, to make decisions that Ukraine and the Ukrainian people need. Maybe I went too hard. But I was trying to achieve the goal of convincing the world to supply arms and put pressure on Russia. »
What in this speech looks like an admission to a lie about the rapes committed by the Russians? Nothing at all. The author of the blog article only had to make a very big shortcut by considering that by “I went too hard”, the human rights ombudsman in Ukraine confessed to having lied.
But in reality, the shared discourse has been truncated. Here is what Lyudmyla Denisova really said: “I told the media verbatim what the psychologists who worked on the UNICEF psychological support line told me, which had already finished its work – on the 15 May was the last day. I conveyed everything the plaintiffs wanted to say to society and the world; namely that the enemies, the Russian Federation, had to be punished. Yes, at that time this vocabulary was very cruel, we discussed it [avec les médias], I said that indeed, I may have exaggerated. But I was trying to achieve the goal of persuading the world to supply arms and apply pressure. I met Pramila Patten, who is the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. We work under UN protocols and clearly under PACE resolutions – the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the UN Human Rights Council, which clearly state what sexual violence. »
Lioudmyla Denissova therefore only admitted that the terms she may have used to describe the crimes committed by the Russians were “raw” and “harsh”, which could have been reproached to her when the facts were revealed.
As a reminder, after the discovery on Saturday April 2 of the Boutcha massacre, numerous testimonies of rapes committed by Russian soldiers were relayed in the media. At the time, Lioudmyla Denissova had documented on her social networks the cases of 25 women, aged 14 to 24, kept in a cellar and raped in Boutcha. In mid-April, President Volodymyr Zelensky also denounced “hundreds of cases of rape” in the areas just liberated.