Fact Checks
Wednesday 19 June 2024
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“As you know, in February and March 2022 our troops approached Kiev. … but there was no political decision to storm the city with three million people ...”
In his “peace plan,” the Russian president repeated all the false excuses he used to start the war in Ukraine -
"The only logical conclusion that we made as a result is that the Zelenskyy regime is incapable of negotiations."
Kyiv was willing to negotiate peace but could not accept the terms giving Moscow a veto over allies defending Ukraine if Russia invaded again. -
“Hezbollah has just hit Israeli city Haifa with Missiles … For the first time ever, Hezbollah has unleashed chaos by striking Haifa's port — the beating heart of Israel's economy Israel is starting to fall …”
The picture shows a Turkish ship with smoke, likely after a fire started in its engine room, not from a Hezbollah rocket. -
‘’…because of the sanctions we are more focused on our domestic resources to grow our economy and modernize our economy and we are doing better in the entire region in our economic growth year by year because of sanctions. Those countries without sanctions in our region are not doing better as we are doing."
The World Bank and other international bodies rank the Zimbabwean economy among the lowest in the region. The country has one of the highest extreme poverty rates and fails to pay on its more than $14 billion in external debts. -
"We have to say that the European elections took place under conditions of severe restrictions, lack of fair competition, cleansing of the information field from alternative sources of information and rampant anti-Russian campaign.”
With a robust field of candidates representing a spectrum of political ideologies and a highly diverse media environment across 27 states, European Parliament elections were genuinely competitive and fair. -
"President Raisi treated people who had harmed him with dignity. His response to people who had even insulted him was never harsh, ugly, or bad-tempered."
Throughout decades of his serving among Iran's ruling clique, late President Ebrahim Raisi engaged in mass human rights violations, earning the nickname the "butcher of Tehran." -
“The sanctions are unjust. They are punitive. They are bullish because they know that we cannot do anything against it. And it’s just deliberate to punish the speaker for her role and leadership to fight LBGTQ and homosexuality in Uganda.”
The U.S. imposed another round of sanctions on top Ugandan officials, including Speaker of Parliament Anita Among for their alleged involvement in corruption. The U.S. and U.K. also sanctioned a serving minister and two former ministers for misuse of resources in the poorest Karamoja region. -
“What Western Media Isn’t Telling You About North Korea’s Trash Balloon Campaign.”
Sputnik rehashes North Korean talking points reported in Western media, while missing the regime insecurity that’s driving Pyongyang’s trash balloon campaign. -
“[T]he parliament and the Rada Speaker remain the only legitimate power [in Ukraine].”
Ukrainian law does not give the parliament, Verkhovna Rada, the authority to lift martial law, only the president can issue a decree to revoke it. But the law legally bars the president from lifting martial law while Ukraine is under attack that threatens its independence and territorial integrity. -
“Since a vaccine is already developed and stockpiled for a bird flu strain that hasn’t even evolved yet, the economic and societal pressure to unleash a new pandemic is imminent.”
There is no vaccine for the latest identified strain of bird flu, and the routine practice of stockpiling vaccines is no indication of “planning a manmade pandemic.” -
"Nothing extraordinary – foreign (US) agents are leading the demonstrations abroad against the law on foreign agents."
In Georgia, leaders of political opposition and the president are leading protests against the foreign agent bill, which critics say threatens the nation’s EU membership and could become a tool of political oppression in the hands of the governing party. -
"Russian Ambassador to Mozambique Surikov suddenly died in Maputo. Preliminary assumption - stroke. "
At the time of the Russian foreign ministry’s statement, the ambassador’s body was still in the hospital morgue in Mozambique’s capital Maputo with Russian embassy officials prohibiting medics from examining the body and refusing the police investigation.