Map of Putin’s argumentation
argument map can be found below the article
We present an interactive map of Vladimir Putin's argumentation from his address given before the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Argument-checking Vladimir Putin is hard work. It is nonetheless worth pointing out where exactly the Russian president diverges from the truth when trying to justify his aggression against Ukraine. We have prepared for you an interactive map of his arguments and his manipulations; we invite you to help us spot them all. The material to work with is plentiful and ever growing.
A brief analysis of the ways in which Putin misleads in his speech shows he favors three distinct methods of twisting the truth. For one, he sometimes just makes stuff up, like his conspiracy theory about alleged Ukrainian intentions to acquire nuclear weapons and use them against Russia. Fact-checking such fabrications makes for tedious work, as proving beyond doubt that some unspecified event not set in any particular time and place never happened is not so easy – and that is exactly the point. To resist this method of manipulation one must always remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Unless the person making the claim can provide it, it should be dismissed.
Putin’s second method of manipulation consists of offering facts and opinions that, while emotionally charged, do not really support the conclusion he draws. Yes, Ukraine is promoting a view of history intended to emphasize its differences from and with Russia; yes, Ukraine is struggling with corruption on all levels of government, (though still faring better than Russia in this respect); yes, Ukraine benefitted to an extent from Russian foreign aid in the period of 1991 to 2013. Yet none of these facts engenders a supposed Russian right to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty or questioning its government’s legitimacy.
Putin’s final trick is simply to omit inconvenient facts and pretend legal and moral rules that do bind Russia as any other country do not exist. We highlight a few of these on our graph, but not all of them. We had to leave some work for you. In the end, the results of argument mapping demonstrate that none of Putin’s justifications of invading Ukraine holds up. If you want to help us with this kind of fact-checking and argument analysis, and combat disinformation connected to the invasion on Ukraine, drop us a line at contact@swarmcheck.ai
Red tiles contain arguments made by Vladimir Putin. Yellow tiles are marked with arguments that undermine his statements. Green arrows represent supporting arguments. Red arrows represent counter-arguments. Arrows with a green dashed line represent sources. When arrows are pointing towards tiles they refer to the content of the thesis, when they are pointing towards other arrows they refer to the manner of inference. For more information on the form of recording an argument as an interactive map, press the "?" button.
Proofread of argumentation: Agnieszka Proszewska
