BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen has used his Twitter handle to coach Ukrainian people on how to use a petrol bomb in the middle of a war zone. On 4th March 2022, while replying to a tweet in which Ukrainian youths were shown heading towards the war after completion of their three-day training, Jeremy Bowen tweeted an image showing the weak spots in the Russian armoured vehicles and tanks. Specific sections of the vehicles were marked in that image in order to detonate the viewing hatches and the air inlets of the vehicles using Molotov cocktails.
In his tweet, Jeremy Bowen said, “Where to throw a Molotov cocktail. Guide for Ukrainian volunteers of Kyiv shows weak spots in Russian armor, viewing hatches, and air inlets.”
The image shared by him on Twitter clearly shows where exactly should a petrol bomb impact a tank and other armoured vehicles in order to cause maximum damage. There are six different military vehicles and tanks of Russian design in that picture and specific spots on the armour are shown by arrows. The spots mainly consist of the viewing hatches and air inlets as told by Jeremy Bowen.
What Jeremy Bowen suggested is very dangerous, as it encourages citizens to attack heavily armed war vehicles with homemade bombs. Molotov cocktails are mainly used by violent protesters and rioters, to attack police and oppositions. But they are unlikely to be effective against tanks and armoured vehicles operated by heavily armed soldiers. Moreover, if attacked with such petrol bombs, the army will definitely fight back using sophisticated weapons, which will cause fatalities to the civilian attackers.
War is to be fought by trained professional army, but Ukraine has broken that rule by encouraging civilians to fight the might of Russian army. Volodymyr Zelenskyy govt has given deadly weapons to ordinary Ukrainians without any training to fight the Russian soldiers, and now western journalists are encouraging civilians to attack tanks and armoured vehicles with petrol bombs, which will cause more civilian casualty as a consequence.
The tweet is not a reaction to Vladimir Putin’s decision to ban media outlets from spreading fake news as per his new strict law, after which many media houses including BBC had stopped reporting activities in Russia. In fact, this Tweet by Jeremy Bowen has appeared hours before the decision. The tweet might have caused a few people to raise their eyebrows but with left-liberal media of the west that indirectly or sometimes directly supports antisocial activities through its reporting under the garb of preaching the importance of the so-called free and fair journalism that has the courage to speak the truth to the power.
Underlining this trait, Kanchan Gupta tweeted, “Western media. Free, fair, fearless. MiddleEast Editor of BBC using his Twitter handle to spread the word on how to use Molotov cocktails in a conflict zone. [We saw shades of this when our media-fuelled violent anarchy in the guise of anti-CAA protest and farm law protest.]”
It is notable that many so-called journalists and media outlets had misreported the anti-CAA protests in order to guide the protesting Muslims in a particular direction that culminated in the subsequent Delhi riots.