Did Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a meeting during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict to announce that part of Pakistan should belong to India? No, that's not true: The clip used to make the claim shows Putin talking about economic sanctions against Russia, not matters related to Pakistan or India.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on March 2, 2022. It included a video with English subtitles of Putin speaking in Russian to other officials. The caption of the video read:
BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!
President Putin announced to veto the issue of Gilgit provisional province in the Security Council
His cabinet condemned BAP for senate resolution on Gilgit province
Asked Pakistan to withdraw and hand Gilgit to India
#OMG
#Putin #Russia #Pakistan #GilgitBaltistan #India
This is what the post looked like on Facebook on March 3, 2022:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Mar 3 15:03:07 2022 UTC)
The English subtitles of the Facebook video are unreliable and do not reflect what Putin was discussing in the clip. Euronews uploaded the same clip to YouTube on February 28, 2022. The video, titled "Putin calls West an 'empire of lies' following sanctions" included subtitles in English that translated Putin's Russian. Those subtitles read:
I invited you to talk about issues related to economics and finance. Mikhail Vladimirovich [Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin] and I discussed this topic, naturally bearing in mind the sanctions that the so-called Western community, as I called it in my speech, the 'Empire of Lies', is now trying to implement against our country. Let's start. Please, Mikhail Vladimirovich
Lead Stories also found the clip included in a news report posted on the YouTube channel of Russia-24, a news channel owned by the Russian government. Russia-24 uploaded the video on February 28, 2022. Translated from Russian to English, the title of the Russia-24 news report of the clip was "Putin called a meeting on economic issues - Russia 24." Putin spoke from the 0:08 to the 0:36 marks of the video. Translated from Russian to English, the YouTube video's transcript of Putin's comments read:
I invited you to talk about issues related to the economy with finances, the hype vladimi that discussed this topic, I mean, of course, those sanctions that are now the so-called Western community, as I called it in my speech, this empire of lies is trying to implement in relation to our country we work for
Although the Google translation is not completely cohesive, the Euronews video of the clip and the Russia-24 video of the clip are comparable. Neither give any indication that Putin was discussing Pakistan or India. Rather, he was discussing the economic sanctions placed on Russia by Western countries, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
On February 24, 2022, just days before Putin held the meeting shown in the clip, he did meet with Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan. However, the two primarily seemed to discuss the proposed Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline, which the Pakistani government wants to build in collaboration with Russian companies. The meeting and the pipeline were alluded to in the fake captions used in the Facebook video.
More Lead Stories fact checks about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine can be found here.
