Russia’s Justice Ministry insists every fact in its online history exhibit was checked against archival records. The exhibit included a mangled Putin quote and a Nazi film praising Hitler.
Every fact in the Russian Justice Ministry’s online exhibition was checked, and the “foreign agents” who found errors in it were knowingly spreading false information, Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko said in a TASS interview cited by the news outlet Agentstvo.
In late July, the Justice Ministry posted an exhibition on its website titled “Zashchita suvereniteta Rossiyskogo gosudarstva. Istoriya i sovremennost” (“Protecting the Sovereignty of the Russian State: Past and Present”), about attempts to “violate the sovereignty” of Russia. Independent journalists found a propaganda film about Hitler in the section containing photographs and documentaries. Elsewhere in the exhibition, they found numerous errors, including factual ones, and signs that artificial intelligence had been used to write the text.
In the interview, Sviridenko was asked whether he had expected such a strong response from “foreign-agent media outlets.”
Sviridenko called the attention “foreign agents” paid to the project “a predictable reaction.” “Their job is to spread distorted information among Russian citizens, falsify history, and replace facts with interpretations that serve their Western ‘employers,’” he said.
He said all the exhibition materials had been prepared with input from “historians, representatives of Russia’s leading museums, historical institutions, and organizations involved in historical scholarship.” Sviridenko said every fact in the exhibition had been checked against primary sources in archives.
The information foreign agents spread has no scholarly basis; it is purely political and deceitful. They don’t deal in facts because the facts work against them. Instead, as always, they use emotionally charged labels and baseless accusations aimed at an audience that lacks the background to assess them.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.