The crisis in Ukraine is the latest grim data point in a years-long global trend toward greater authoritarianism. The information landscape is one of the fronts of the current conflict, with significant attention paid to Russia’s propaganda apparatus. Just days before the invasion and a day after ordering troops to eastern Ukraine, President Putin stated that
We predicted speculation that Russia plans to restore [its] empire within imperial border[s] [...] This absolutely does not correspond with reality.
Disinformation campaigns, false claims, and outlandish forecasts have long been used by autocratic regimes, from Hitler’s proclamation of a Thousand Year Reich, to Mao’s 1957 declaration that rapid industrialization would allow China to economically overtake Great Britain within 15 years.
To create an accountable public record of statements made by anti-democratic regimes around the world, we've assembled Public Figure prediction pages for various autocratic leaders:
- Jair Bolsonaro
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
- Xi Jinping
- Kim Jong-un
- Alexander Lukashenko
- Vladimir Putin
- Nicolás Maduro
Included here are claims and predictions made not just by the figures themselves, but also by their larger state apparatuses. (Goals set in North Korea's five-year economic plan are included, for example.)
How to contribute to this series
The launch of this experimental series is also an invitation for feedback and collaboration. Share your ideas on how to best create accountable records for statements made by world leaders who have little accountability to an opposition party or to public opinion.
Upvote and comment on the individual Public Figure prediction tiles that you would most like to see linked to new Metaculus questions: