61
votes
Was Ukraine planning an attack in Donbas/Crimea prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine?
The falsehoods in Putin's speech are not so much outright factual lies as mischaracterisations.
He starts by referring to "the invasion of our historical lands", by which he appears to mean ...
- 57.6k
59
votes
Accepted
Did Russia's economy boom between 1999 and 2013?
Yep.
Picture is a bit strange in some details, like: "Inflation: $ 36.5%". Picture also leaves open quite a few important details: the exact figures used, based on what, corrected for inflation, and ...
- 44.1k
56
votes
Accepted
Was Ukraine planning an attack in Donbas/Crimea prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine?
It's difficult to prove a negative of this kind. Zelensky said the plan to attack Crimea didn't exist. If the Kremlin has compelling evidence, it's up to them to present it. Actually, it seems they ...
53
votes
Was Alexei Navalny poisoned in 2020 with Novichok nerve agents by Russia's Federal Security Service?
The poisoning incident is famous because the investigative journalism group Bellingcat identified the FSB (Russian spy service) members who followed Navalny and went into his Tomsk hotel room to apply ...
- 1,403
41
votes
Accepted
Was Alexei Navalny poisoned in 2020 with Novichok nerve agents by Russia's Federal Security Service?
TLDR (see conclusion below): Independent pieces of evidence from the Charité and laboratories in Sweden, Germany and France make the hypothesis that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with Novichok in 2020 ...
38
votes
Accepted
Did Putin threaten to have traitors assassinated?
No, on the occasion in question Putin did not say that traitors would be killed. The quote in your question comes from a March 5, 2018 broadcast of BBC Newsnight. It is a concatenation of three ...
- 648
22
votes
Did Putin threaten to have traitors assassinated?
The Independent has video excerpt where Putin is speaking (in Russian). There is an english translation overlaid in the audio that matches (almost) word for word. I do not speak Russian so I cannot ...
- 1,495
12
votes
Accepted
Does exported Ukrainian wheat (only) amount to 2.5% of the world's wheat production?
That claim appears to be misleading as it is talking about overall production and not what gets exported. According to University of California, Davis Russia accounts for 19% of the market and Ukraine ...
- 5,067
9
votes
Accepted
Did Putin give this talk about the cultural preservation of European tradition, religion and race?
Yes, he gave the talk, and the translation is authentic.
A blog post TRANSCRIPT: [Putin at] Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club [partial transcript] has a transcript matching the clip ...
- 39k
9
votes
Accepted
Have Putin and his family stolen $300 billion or more from Russians?
The number quoted by Bill Browder, an American-born British financier, is $200 billion:
I estimate that he has accumulated $200 billion of ill-gotten gains from these types of operations over his ...
- 517
8
votes
Was Ukraine planning an attack in Donbas/Crimea prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine?
For the first claim - that preparations were underway for a Ukrainian offensive in Donbas/Crimea - I perused the Wikipedia article on the Prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and didn't see ...
- 1,011
6
votes
Has one of the claims in the Steele Dossier come true?
Reuters does report that 19.5% of Rosneft was sold to unknown parties. A VTB loan was involved. Whether or not it has any connection to the Steele Dossier is complete conjecture.
However, the deal ...
- 7,400
6
votes
Accepted
Did Trump call Putin a great leader?
During his campaign, Trump has said this:
I've already said he is very much of a leader. The man has very strong control over his country.
At the same time, he criticized the Russian system, while ...
tim♦
- 51.9k
5
votes
Does Africa have to choose between renewable energy and economic growth?
An answer to this question depends how one chooses to interpret that Putin said. I interpret it as him saying solar panels are more expensive than alternatives, perhaps for the next 20-30 years.
That ...
4
votes
Does exported Ukrainian wheat (only) amount to 2.5% of the world's wheat production?
Sarah Taber, who works in industry as a crop consultant, is in agreement with Putin's statement that the shortage itself is "not worth speaking of." She also makes an important point, ...
- 46.2k
4
votes
Did Putin claim that the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas region is pro-Russia?
Whatever Putin's exact words may have been and whether Al-Jazeera may have twisted them a bit (they don't claim it's an exact quote by the way), the DPR leader Pushilin was recently quoted as saying (...
2
votes
Does exported Ukrainian wheat (only) amount to 2.5% of the world's wheat production?
The other answers overlook an important point in Putin claim:
If we proceed from the fact that wheat makes up only 20% of the total food supply in the world, this means that these 20 million tons of ...
- 777
2
votes
Accepted
Is this a video tour of the building claimed to be "Putin's Palace"?
This video is a response to a recent investigation by Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). The investigation itself could be found on youtube and it has a text version at https://palace.navalny.com/.
...
- 136
1
vote
Did Putin threaten to have traitors assassinated?
The BBC has since used a different translation on Panorama broadcast 22nd November 2018 @ 1l5jwrspMDk 8.26 'I can assure you they will fall of the perch themselves'. This suggests that someone had ...
- 11
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible