New York Times doing what it does.

Exculpatory passive voice. It’s a lot like you sometimes see in reports on police shootings, which get into comically bizarre language like “the man died in close proximity to an officer’s firearm when it discharged,” rather than “the officer shot the man.”

Or “mistakes were made (but not by me),” the actual title of a book about cognitive dissonance and how we try to avoid it by refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of our beliefs and behaviors. Using this kind of language helps you avoid the cognitive dissonance that arises upon the realization that you sympathize with an entity committing ethnic cleansing.