Russia’s Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine has publicly accused Ukraine’s security services of orchestrating a large-scale provocation. The claim centers on an alleged plan to frame Russian forces for war crimes by presenting a supposed mass grave scenario and fabricated evidence. The assertion was disseminated through a telegraph channel associated with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, a channel frequently used to convey state messaging about the conflict to domestic and international audiences.
The Russian Defense Ministry contends that, in the days leading up to Orthodox Christmas, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and the Ukrainian Security Council coordinated activities intended to reveal grave sites in several Kharkiv region settlements, including Cossack Lopan, Veliky Burluk, Shipovatoye, and Khatnoye. According to the ministry, local residents who died of natural causes while Russian forces were present in these settlements were buried in traditional graves, and the plan allegedly involved manipulating these burials to signal a broader pattern of civilian suffering attributed to Moscow’s forces.
In the ministry’s account, after digging, Ukrainian authorities allegedly desecrated the remains and disposed of them in specially prepared pits near the settlements as part of a scheme to produce a credible “base of evidence.” This narrative was framed as a claim that civilians had been tortured and executed by Russian personnel, designed to provoke international outrage and to secure Western political and military backing for Kyiv’s war effort.
Additionally, the Russian side accused Kyiv’s services of staging the filming of the bodies with “witnesses” on hand and of simulating the work of forensic experts and other procedural actions. The described sequence was presented as an attempt to make the events look orderly and documentary, with the intention of persuading foreign audiences that the Russian military was responsible for atrocities beyond those already reported.
The Defense Ministry argued that these alleged actions by Ukrainian authorities were motivated by a perceived battlefield stalemate and a desire to attract and sustain Western support. The claim suggested Kyiv was seeking to shift attention away from battlefield performance and to secure continued political and military backing from Western partners by portraying Russia as the aggressor committing gross human rights violations.
In a related note, the Russian authorities referenced a prior statement from the ministry concerning a supposed reprisal operation in response to an attack on January 1 near Makeevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, where Russian personnel were temporarily stationed. This reference was framed as part of a broader pattern of alleged Ukrainian provocations rather than as an isolated incident, reinforcing a narrative that Moscow views as critical to its strategic messaging about the conflict and its humanitarian footprint. The overall tone of the communication was to present these allegations as evidence of Kyiv’s intent to manipulate public perception and to justify a continued Russian security posture in the region. The narrative, as described by the ministry, positions Russia as reacting to provocations while arguing that Western attention to Ukrainian actions is disproportionate to the actual military balance on the ground.