2. We did not invade Ukraine.
3. We are not at war with Ukraine.
It takes a special kind of stupid to take Putin’s words seriously at this point.
You know what, I’m actually disappointed you only asked for three. There’s a mountain of knee-slappers even just from this year.
“We’ve lost nothing” after 50,000 of his soldiers died.
It’s like the guy is a fucking five year old.
Do you have any examples that don't require clear technical misinterpretations?
Alright, you dismiss my first three examples. Care to explain the fourth example I provided?
What I'm really after is if you have any evidence of Putin (or Lavrov, now that you mention him) lying on the scale of "Saddam is gonna nuke the West" or "NATO will not expand one inch eastward". Or has Putin ever openly boasted about his lying prowess, as fmr Secretary Pompeo and fmr Ambassador McFaul did recently? These would be convincing examples.
Good day sir.
Come on, propagandist. We can do this all day.
However, taking just from his recent speech announcing the mobilization (I don't speak Russian and am relying on a translation from the Kremlin's transcript, but at least two independent translations are similar enough):
- Repeated claims that the purpose of the "special military operation" is to liberate Donbas from the "neo-Nazi regime" holding power in Ukraine
The Ukrainian government is not neo-Nazi. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. (It might be common rhetoric in Russia since the Soviet Union and WWII days to claim opponents as "Nazis", but that's not what the word means to anybody else.) Repeatedly claiming that a country is being ruled by neo-Nazis with no reason or evidence, especially when there's reason not to believe that, is a lie. The claim of Ukraine being ruled by neo-Nazis is repeated enough in just that single speech that this claim alone would more than suffice.
- Claims of genocide in eastern Ukraine, and of a government in Ukraine being the result of a coup
There has been no evidence of a genocide (which is a rather strong term and claim to make in the first place), and there has been no coup. There have, of course, been governments unfavourable to and disliked by the current Russian regime. But that doesn't make their election a coup.
- Reference to the "Kyiv occupation regime"
An occupation regime is one that's occupying a country other than their own, or acting as a puppet of an occupying country, or possibly (at a stretch) a military regime holding power over their own country with force against the will of the people's majority. An elected government in their own country is none of these. Even if some parts of a population in a part of a country would prefer a differently aligned government, that doesn't make the government an occupation regime.
- The claim that the "Kyiv regime" announced a desire for obtaining nuclear weapons
An individual member of the parliament in Ukraine apparently expressed regret that Ukraine had given up Soviet-era nuclear armaments, or that (in his view) Ukraine might need to pursue them again. An individual member of a parliament (who AFAIK was not part of the government) expressing a view does not by any stretch mean the same as a government announcing that view. The difference is obvious to anybody who understands how democracy works.
I don't know how common it is in Ukraine nowadays to wish the country had nuclear weapons, although I wouldn't be surprised if that had increased as a result of Russian aggression and war. Either way, claiming a government has announced something when they haven't said anything to that effect is a lie.
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There also lots of other claims in the speech, intended to gain the support of its audience, that amount to dishonesty or lying regardless of technical nitpicking. I'm not going to list them all here, as there are too many and there's no point, but an example would be the claim that western governments have resorted to "nuclear blackmail". Putin refers to "statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using [nuclear weapons] against Russia". While it's hard to track down every statement made by every representative of a NATO country and prove that none of them ever said anything in that direction, the essence of claiming that western governments or countries are making nuclear threats against Russia is blatantly and obviously false.
Watching things from Europe, the only references to nuclear threat I have seen are concerns that Putin's regime is making them, even if vaguely, and concerns of the safety of nuclear power plants amidst the war. Absolutely zero governments are making any suggestions towards threatening Russia with anything nuclear. Nobody's also crazy or stupid enough to do so, and if an individual representative or politician actually did that, it would obviously get condemned immediately, because none of those governments would be crazy or stupid enough not to condemn it.
There are lots of statements and claims like that in the mobilization speech alone. And all of this is just from a single speech. Every speech Putin has given this year that I've seen or read about has been filled with untruths of varying degrees.
Many of his claims are either somewhat vague or otherwise difficult to absolutely verify as lies with mathematical precision. Some of them might not be lies from Putin's perspective. For example, he might well feel that his conservative regime is being threatened by a liberal opposition encouraged by western influence or western countries. The claims that Russia (as he understands it) is being threatened by the west may be true from his perspective.
However, many of the claims he makes in support of that view or to justify the war are simply dishonest, such as the allusions to nuclear threat from the west. There's no way those could be considered anything but either delusions or lies.
Generally, so many of Putin's claims are some kind of a combination of simply not true, baseless, and obviously motivated, that the whole definitely amounts to him lying or twisting the truth whenever it suits his purposes.
What is it that makes him seem more truthful to you?
I have also lived in Russia. It can be awkward when the Ukrainians see my old Russian visa in my passport when I cross the border.
Where do you live? Ukraine? Russia? How close are you to this issue personally? Got any skin in the game? How many blatant lies are you going to ignore so your Nazi-apologist worldview isn’t compromised?
How would you like to see this notification near enough every day, sometimes several times a day?
В ОДЕССЕ И ОБЛАСТИ ОБЪЯВЛЕНА ВОЗДУШНАЯ ТРЕВОГА, ВСЕ В УКРЫТИЕ
ЧИТАТЕЛИ СООБЩАЮТ, О ВЗРЫВАХ В ОДЕССЕ И ПРИГОРОДЕ. Уточняем информацию
ПРЕДВАРИТЕЛЬНО ЕСТЬ СБИТИЕ 2-х РАКЕТ
He's a compulsive liar.