Zoom Versus The Hague: Anatomy of a Russian Sleight of Hand

Before 2022, Izium was an ordinary town in Kharkiv region. It had more than 46,000 people, the Siverskyi Donets River, Kremenets Hill, factories, schools, hospitals and markets.

Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnipro River opposite Kherson, was home to around 24,000. Enerhodar depended on its nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. That life ended when Russia came.

Russian troops seized Izium in the spring of 2022 and held it until Sept. 10, 2022. After liberation, about 10,000 people remained in the town, roughly a fifth of its pre-war population. Local officials estimated that around 80 percent of the town had been destroyed. In a forest on the outskirts, investigators found a mass burial site: 447 bodies, most of them civilians, many bearing signs of torture.

Oleshky has been under occupation since the first days of the full-scale invasion. After the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023, around 90 percent of the town was flooded. The occupation authorities did not evacuate residents.

Today, about 1,700 people remain in the town center. According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, no food supplies have reached Oleshky since May 26, 2026. At the end of August, Russian checkpoints blocked all civilian movement and declared the town a “grey zone.”

The approach roads are mined, and humanitarian organizations have no access. For months, Ukrainian forces have been delivering food to residents by drone, in repeated runs; One night alone brought in four tonnes.

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On Oct. 15, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office screened the documentary “Evidence” at Filmhuis Den Haag. Journalist Veronika Marchenko made it together with the prosecutors, with support from the GIDNA project of the Future for Ukraine foundation and from Project Expedite Justice.

GIDNA, led by clinical psychologist Anna Hruba, provides free and anonymous support to women who have survived conflict-related sexual violence. The team’s ongoing work is supported by the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR).

The director had access to official investigation files and closed interrogations. The film covers torture, sexual violence, unlawful detention and executions. It tells the story of a girl who lost her parents and grandmother when a Russian airstrike hit a residential building, and follows the investigation into the killing of a local forensic expert with a disability. It also shows the work of prosecutors and investigators after liberation: exhumations, forensic examinations, identification of specific perpetrators.

After the screening, the coordinator of the Ukraine accountability cluster at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs moderated a discussion. The audience included Ukraine’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Andriy Kostin, diplomats from other countries, international journalists, and representatives of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office and the International Criminal Court.

The hall was full. The film was later shown to the Ukrainian community in Amsterdam.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, noted that Russia is trying to prevent information about its crimes from spreading internationally, but despite provocations and attempts to disrupt them, the screenings went ahead.

A week later, Moscow responded with a group video call.

The so-called international “telebridge,” titled “Zaporizhzhia Region: Escalation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Terrorist War,” was initiated by the Russian delegation to the Vienna negotiations on military security together with Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large of the Russian foreign ministry.

It was moderated by the head of the delegation, Yulia Zhdanova. Rossotrudnichestvo and its network of “Russian Houses” handled the organization.

HUR made the purpose of the operation public before it began. The aim was to divert attention from Russia’s war crimes, above all the catastrophe in Oleshky, to discredit the Ukrainian military and to weaken partners’ support for Kyiv.

Moscow had no answer to the evidence shown in The Hague. So it staged its own show. It responded to Izium by talking about Zaporizhzhia, and said nothing at all about Oleshky.

The main speaker was Miroshnik. He is a former press secretary to Ukraine’s ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych, and a former Party of Regions member of the Luhansk regional council. Since 2014, he has served in the occupation structures in the Luhansk region, and he is under sanctions.

Alongside him spoke the occupation “governor” of Zaporizhzhia region Yevhen Balytskyi, the “head” of Enerhodar Maksym Pukhov, reserve Major General Mykola Plotnikov, and Yuri Chernichuk, appointed by Russia as director of the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Viewers were also shown “witnesses” and “victims” prepared in advance for the broadcast.

The announcements promised diplomats from 80 countries and representatives of the UN, the OSCE, BRICS and the CIS. The actual line-up: staff of Russian embassies, Rossotrudnichestvo branches in Zambia, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Venezuela, Mongolia and Malaysia, and propagandists from Russia Today.

Simultaneous interpretation into three languages was meant to create the impression of an international format. No discussion was planned.

The occupation “governor” and the “head” of Enerhodar explained how Ukrainian forces were supposedly violating the rights of civilians in occupied territory that they themselves control.

The script was predictable. Miroshnik produced casualty figures for the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region: 508 civilians killed since February 2022. He tied a supposed three- to fourfold rise in strikes to the EU’s €90 billion loan. Chernichuk spoke of a “blockade” of the nuclear plant.

All of it came from the occupation authorities themselves. The territory is closed to independent investigators, journalists and international missions. After Izium was liberated, prosecutors, forensic experts and international journalists worked on the ground, and every body from the mass grave underwent forensic examination.

The link to the European loan has a clear addressee. Moscow is speaking to the Western taxpayer: Your money is killing civilians. The goal is to split support for Ukraine at a time when funding for 2026 and 2027 has already been approved and is being disbursed.

Oleshky has gone months without proper food, water or medical care. Moscow has not explained why. It held a Zoom call about “Ukrainian crimes” in a neighboring region instead. It gave no answer to what was shown in The Hague either, only its own staff and witnesses prepared in advance.

Russian channels and Rossotrudnichestvo websites will now circulate recordings of the call. They will be presented as a “broad international discussion.” No one will check how many people actually joined or who they were. For the domestic audience and for Moscow-friendly countries of the Global South, what matters is the picture: diplomats, interpretation, “witnesses,” numbers.

In The Hague, the audience saw material from criminal proceedings, forensic findings and testimony from people who survived occupation and found the courage to speak. The film was shown in the city that hosts the International Criminal Court, to lawyers, diplomats and journalists free to ask any question. Every episode can be tested in court.

The Russian telebridge was built from statements by the people who run the occupation and from “testimony” prepared for broadcast. It was shown in a closed video call to Russia’s own staff. Nothing in it can be verified, and no one intended it to be.

In liberated Izium, investigators found a mass grave. Oleshky is still occupied, and food is not allowed in. Moscow answered with a video call among its own people. Russia could open these territories to independent investigators and let food into Oleshky today. It chose another Zoom.