“Maria Zakharova's claim that Ukraine started this war is false. The Russian Federation illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sparking broad international condemnation. On February 21, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, northeast, and from the Crimean Peninsula in the south, initiating a full-scale interstate war between Russia and Ukraine”.
News reports, testimonies of citizens-turned-fighters, and a swift global response all fly in the face of baseless claims that Russia's war on Ukraine is "staged."
"There is little to refute directly, other than to note that thousands or millions of people would have to be in on any conspiracy to fake a war, and like the 9/11 attacks (which some people also deny) there is substantial video footage of attacks on Ukrainian cities, Russian invading forces, and throngs of refugees," Radnitz said.
Nevertheless, he added, "a true believer will persist in denying all that evidence, something that is easier to do when the conflict is geographically distant and they do not personally know anyone directly affected by it."
With a war raging, the world responding and both sides of the conflict experiencing its effects, the claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is "scripted and staged" holds no merit. We rate it Pants on Fire!
Russian state media says the missile can destroy an area the size of Texas or France, not the world. We could not find more objective reports detailing the same destructive power.
"Individual warheads would strike distinct targets within a very limited ballistic 'footprint,' or many warheads from the same missile would strike the same target, increasing the likelihood of destroying that target completely," according to a 2021 report from EurAsian Times.
The weapon is believed to be able to evade missile defense systems and its deployment is expected around 2022, said a March 1 Congressional Research Service report.
We rate the claim that a Russian nuclear weapon dubbed Satan 2 is "capable of destroying everything breathing in the world" False.
No legal agreement prohibits NATO from expanding eastward.
Russians have argued that comments made by U.S. and other Western leaders during the negotiations over the reunification of Germany constituted a promise that NATO would not extend beyond then-East Germany. Those allegations have sparked decades of debate amongst those involved in the events, and scholars studying them.
Even scholars who say they believe western powers did offer the Soviet Union assurances about NATO expansion say Owens' claim is misleading.
Our ruling
Owens said, "NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward."
There is an ongoing historical debate over comments that Western leaders, including Baker, made during post-Cold War negotiations, and whether what they said amounted to assurances that NATO would refrain from welcoming in countries closer to modern-day Russia.
But NATO as an organization made no such pledge, and the formal agreement signed at the end of those negotiations said nothing about the alliance not expanding eastward.
We rate this claim Mostly False.
Putin claims:
“Does Ukraine need to be denazified” - false,
“Is Russia’s attack a defense case under the UN Charter?” - false,
“Was there a ‘genocide” in Ukraine?” - false.
Russia has so far failed to provide any evidence in their claims.
There are no U.S.-run biological weapons labs operating in Ukraine.
The U.S. Defense Department and the Ukraine Ministry of Health have had a partnership since 2005 to improve public health laboratories and prevent the threat of outbreaks of infectious diseases.
That effort is part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which began in 1991 to reduce the threat of existing weapons of mass destruction programs in former Soviet Republics.
Our ruling
A social media user tweeted that Russia was targeting U.S.-run biolabs in its invasion of Ukraine. That account was soon suspended by Twitter.
There are no U.S.-run biolabs in Ukraine. The country is one of many former Soviet Union republics, and other countries, partnering with the Defense Department as part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. It's the latest claim in a series of disinformation efforts by the Russians, an expert told PolitiFact.
While the U.S. may provide funding to upgrade or build labs in other countries, the labs are run by the partnering nations and the program's goal is to prevent biological threats, not create them. We rate this claim False.
Despite multiple claims of a Ukrainian genocide against ethnic Russians, there is no evidence to support it.
International bodies that include Russian representatives report that civilian deaths have plummeted since 2014.
Russia's ambassador to the U.S. relied on misleading and outdated evidence to back the claim.
Our ruling
Putin said ethnic Russians in Ukraine face genocide.
His ambassador provided misleading evidence, and international observers found no activities to support the claim. Civilian deaths have plummeted to less than 1% of what they were in 2014.
We rate this False.
A media specialised in putting the spotlight on Russian disinformation has highlighted a false flag attack in eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian media outlets were pinning on Kyiv. Corpses likely retrieved from a morgue were used to set the scene.
How then can the well-oiled Russian machine produce such "low-cost" disinformation? "Simply because, for the moment, the Russian authorities do not need to do better." [...]
What’s more, it’s not so much the quality as the quantity of disinformation that matters. "The goal is to create so many different – and sometimes even contradictory – versions of what is happening at the border that no one can really distinguish the true from the false anymore."
