Putin Did Not Say He Will Destroy the World if NATO Attacks Russia

Misbar’s team investigated the circulated claim and found it misleading. The circulated video is older than claimed and is cut from a longer video of a televised interview between Armin Wolf, of Austrian news channel ORF, and Russian President Putin in June 2018 during the latter’s visit to Austria.

In addition, Misbar’s team read the interview transcript and found that the translation was far from accurate. The journalist did not ask President Putin what he would do in case of a NATO nuclear strike targeting Russia. Nor did President Putin say that he would destroy the world if NATO attacked Russia.

The circulated video clip included only part of the first question by the Austrian journalist and part of President Putin’s answer. Having checked the translations, Misbar’s team found that the question and answer relate to the reasons for President Putin’s visit to Austria and the extent to which it was considered a reward for the new government in Vienna. At that time, the government of Austria was considered to be pro-Russian as it defended lifting sanctions against Russia.

The circulating video was dubbed and published by the Russia Insight website; the part of the video where the journalist asks the first question was omitted. Those manipulating the video also covered the English subtitles that appeared within the original video and wrote an Arabic phrase supporting the allegation made in the claim.

The manipulated translation is also different from the actual translation published by the journalist himself on his personal blog. This inaccurate translation was also checked against the original video broadcast on the Austrian channel ORF, with English subtitles.

The claim started to circulate against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine amid reports of increasingly intense Russian airstrikes against several Ukrainian cities.

Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri