At the end of January 2023, a quote from an interview with one of the richest people in the world, in which he unflatterly responded about power in Ukraine, dispersed through the news. We checked whether Bill Gates said such.

According to the media, Bill Gates gave his assessment to the leadership of the Eastern European country during a speech at the Australian Institute of Lawy. It is alleged that he, in particular, said: “The Ukrainian government is one of the worst in the world. It is corrupt and controlled by several rich people. I mean that it is very sad for the people. ”

This quote was distributed RIA "News", Pravda.ru, "Komsomolskaya Truth","Says Moscow","360" Eurasia Daily, "Russian spring"And many other news sites. She also dispersed by Telegram (in particular, Gates's statement published channels "Sanya in Florida"(377,000 views),"Russia now"(367 000),"Solovyov"(334,000),"#Montyan!"(327 000),"Truthfulness"(287 000) and"Observer"(239 000)), Facebook and other social networks.

January 23, 2023 on the YouTube channel of the independent Australian Analytical Center "Institute of Lawy" interview Executive Director of this organization Michael Fullilava with the founder of Microsoft, entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates. The main topics of the conversation were healthcare, food problems, climatic changes and other global challenges. In one of the episodes, Fullilave touched the personality of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky:

- Let me ask you a question about Ukraine. Before this conversation, I told you about interview With the president of Zelensky, which I took remotely on this site. Regarding his leadership qualities, what did you have the impression of how he leads his country, how he told the world about the urgency of his problem? Is it possible to extract from this lessons regarding the methods of reporting such problems to the whole world?

To this, Bill Gates answered:

- It is very impressive how he was able to unite the country in response [to the attack]. People did not expect that Ukraine would be able to prevent Russia from capturing the whole country. That is, the fact that Russia turned out to be much weaker and not as smart as expected, and Ukraine - much stronger than expected. You know pre -war The Ukrainian government is one of the worst in the world: corrupt, controlled by several rich people, really unlucky for residents of the country. In Ukraine, agricultural land is better than in the United States. I mean that this is a prisoner in Europe, an incredible place. So, I hope, after the war, when everything is restored, it will first reach the level of Eastern European countries, and then ultimately the European level. So, this is a country that has great prospects, but at the same time it is destroyed and no one knows how long this war will continue.

Thus, in his response, Bill Gates emphasized that he was talking about the pre -war Ukrainian government. At the same time, the entrepreneur did not specify whether he meant War in the east of Ukraine, which has come since 2014 (and, accordingly, the government of the time of President Yanukovych), or Full -scale invasion of Russia in 2022. It should be noted that in the index of perception of corruption Ukraine is still in quite modest positions (the penultimate place in Europe, along with some countries of Africa), although after 2013 it made a serious jump from 144th Places on 116th. In addition, from February 2022 to January 2023, a total of total some From more than Two dozen ministers, and since 2020, the government has been the head of Denis Shmygal. Nevertheless, many Russian -speaking media obviously pulled out the words of Bill Gates from the context, taking advantage of the fact that in relation to the government he used the verb of the present tense IS. In particular, 11-second fragment The interview, widespread by numerous Telegram channels, begins in the middle of the phrase, from the word “Ukrainian”, and the word “pre-war” remained behind the scenes. Among the media that correctly transmitted the answer to the billionaire, for example, “RBC","Gazeta.ru" News.ru and television channel "Tsargrad".