Partially false
Monday 29 May 2023
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"On the whole, the main goals of the first stage of the operation are completed. ... The Ukrainian air force and air defense systems are practically destroyed. … The country's naval forces have ceased to exist."
Shoigu failed to mention the losses his military sustained in Ukraine. He also exaggerated its successes. Independent sources contradict Shoigu's claim that Russia has destroyed Ukraine's air force. -
"[T]he countries belonging to the Western culture do not sign the convention for moral reasons and those who signed it keep on withdrawing from it."
45 countries and the EU signed the EU Convention on protecting women against violence, and 34 of them ratified it. None have withdrawn from it, but Turkey and Poland are considering doing so. -
“Sputnik Belarus in January had 10 million unique visitors, with the country’s population of 9.5 million. That is more than Radio Svoboda, the Polish BelSat and other foreign media in the country have, combined. I am proud!”
Market intelligence data show that unique visitors to Sputnik Belarus were only about half what Simonyan claimed. In addition, most of Sputnik.by’s audience using desktop computers is in Russia, not Belarus. -
“As for the question that you asked US Secretary of State on the allegations regarding Russia meddling in the US election, I would like to say that today I transmitted to Mike Pompeo a copy of an article published in the United States in 1987 claiming that the Soviet Union would try to meddle in the 1988 US presidential election.”
The article is from a fringe publication and states that the Soviets were very interested in the 1988 U.S. presidential election. That's not comparable to the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and it doesn't support Moscow’s denials. -
“Despite Aslund's (and many of his colleagues') rock-solid belief that there must be the mythical ‘Putin’s billions’ in the West, American (and not only American) intelligence agencies, which have full access to all financial transactions in the U.S., UK, the European Union and offshore jurisdictions in the Western world, could not find anything."
A Russian state media columnist attacked efforts to determine President Vladimir Putin’s “mythical” wealth, claiming that Western intelligence agencies have been unable to dig up the dirt despite their access to offshore flows. We find an abundance of evidence that is already available publicly. -
"I understand that some countries would like to forget as soon as possible about the role that they played in the years of prior to World War II. However, I deem those attempts to accuse us of militarizing public opinion as offensive."
Many countries distort or omit inconvenient facts from their pre-World War II history, but Russia has all but eliminated the most difficult discussions from its state education system. One man was even fined for posting factual information. -
"We have been the single NATO member country that fought with Daesh in the Syrian field, man-to-man. And we were the only NATO country that devastated this terrorist organization."
The United States and several other NATO member countries have fought Islamic State on the ground or supported anti-IS operations. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have contributed the most to the defeat of IS. -
“We need to remember that our Chinese partners did not join the sanctions themselves, the so-called sanctions, but it’s more correct to speak of restrictions -- which, moreover, are illegal from the point of view of international law.”
Beijing did not formally join international sanctions against Russia and so did not impose its own measures. China criticized Western sanctions, yet even Peskov says Russia's "Chinese partners often display caution" -- defacto compliance. -
“The U.S. claims that its armed forces are fighting terrorism and drug trafficking in that country (Afghanistan). But UN data says otherwise. Since the beginning of this year alone, around 400 civilians have died through the fault of the U.S. troops and the forces of official Kabul enlisted by them. That is significantly more than the deaths at the hands of the Taliban, to whom were attributed 227 victims.”
The latest UN report on Afghanistan shows an overall increase in civilian casualties by pro-government forces. However, attributing all the civilian deaths at the hands of pro-government forces to the U.S. military is wrong. U.S. forces are part of an international coalition of 39 nations. -
“During the last few months the situation around the Korean peninsula has somewhat stabilized, and it became possible mainly thanks to the North Korea’s initiative to renounce nuclear missile testing and the closure of a nuclear test site.”
While Yury Ushakov’s claim that North Korea declared it would renounce nuclear weapons tests and close the test site is correct, Pyongyang’s later actions cast doubt on its commitment to denuclearization as well as its role in stabilizing the situation on Korean peninsula. -
“The reason for the Libyan crisis lies in NATO’s actions in 2011. Precisely since that time, Libya has turned into a failed state and a ’black hole,’ through which terrorists, the smuggling of weapons, go south, and to the north - flows of illegal migrants.”
While there are varying opinions on the legality and effect of NATO’s intervention in Libya, NATO was not the cause of the crisis in Libya. NATO’s Operation Unified Protector was launched in response to a UN resolution regarding the ongoing civil war there. -
“The demonization of Russia is the engine that drives, if nothing else, our weapons industry. Using a complicit media, the arms industry makes billions and billions of dollars simply convincing us, and other countries all over the world, that they need protection from Russia… Whether Russia really poses a threat or not doesn’t really matter. That’s the real story here, that’s the real takeaway from the Mueller report.”
Independent analyses show that the global arms trade increased steadily over 2008-2018. During the period of the Mueller investigation, the U.S. share in the global weapons transfer increased by less than one percent.