Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it illegal for media to spread what his regime considers to be false information about Russia’s war in Ukraine ― or what the rest of the world considers the truth. Reporting about how Russian forces invaded with no legitimate cause and are presently bombing civilian infrastructure indiscriminately, for instance, could land you behind bars for up to 15 years.
According to Putin and Russian state media, Russian forces are “denazifying” their Ukrainian neighbors, liberating them from widespread oppression and genocide. Putin repeated these false claims on Friday during a huge flag-waving rally at a Moscow stadium packed with Russian celebrities and a crowd that may have largely contained government employees obliged to be there.
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The claims are absurd. Ukraine is led by a Jewish man, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and there is no evidence of any sort of genocide in the country. A United Nations investigation turned up nothing.
But a lot of what gets presented as truth by Russian officials and fair reporting by its state media sounds absurd.
Take the suggestion, made by Russia’s representative at the United Nations Security Council, that the U.S. and Ukraine have been plotting to use migratory birds and other winged creatures to spread deadly pathogens. A Russian defense ministry spokesman suggested the pathogens could cross into Russia.
It’s part of a wider conspiracy theory, spread by Russian and Chinese...
A person in his 30s who demanded compensation for alleged foreign substances in cup noodles and the absence of meat in stir-fried pork was sentenced to prison in both the first trial and the appel...