Context: Oil prices jumped again in the last week of July, reaching $100 per barrel. The market reacted to the mounting tensions between the U.S. and Iran by pricing in the risk of disrupted oil supplies. On July 19, Kazakhstan temporarily suspended oil shipments following drone attacks on tankers carrying its oil in the Black Sea. Ukraine has denied any involvement in the attacks, and Kazakhstan has not officially identified the perpetrator.
In the July 20, 2026 episode of the ONT program Nashi Novosti, the show featured a quote from Donald Trump while discussing the standoff between the U.S. and Iran. According to the TV channel’s translation, it went like this:
“Our great patriots have perished. We are upset, and we will, of course, retaliate. Iran still has a stockpile of missiles and drones, but that will be fixed soon. We are planning a larger-scale war while considering our reduced stockpiles of air defense systems and long-range munitions. We control the strait. They don’t control anything. So let’s see what happens. We are now preventing them from having any chance of acquiring nuclear weapons,” this is how the broadcast rendered the U.S. president’s words.
However, in the original, Trump made a different statement. The interview used by ONT was conducted after Trump arrived at Joint Base Andrews on July 19.
“Well, we feel very badly, but, you know, those great people, those great patriots, were there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything almost militarily. They’ve got very little left. They’ve got some missiles. They’ve got some drones. They’ve got some manufacturing ability, not much. We control the strait. They don’t control anything. So let’s see what happens. But we hit them very hard again tonight. And we did this in honor of — probably three, probably three, as opposed to two — great patriots,” Trump said.
There is no mention of retaliation in this quote, as there is no statement indicating that the U.S. is planning a larger-scale war. There is also no mention that the U.S. has experienced a decline in its stockpiles of air defense systems and long-range munitions. At the same time, the ONT TV channel distorted the meaning of Trump’s remarks about Iran. In his original statement, he said that Iran had “lost almost everything militarily,” that it had “very little left” — only a limited number of missiles and drones, and little manufacturing capacity. ONT’s translation rendered this in a more neutral way: “Iran still has a stockpile of missiles and drones.”
Consequently, the TV channel softened its portrayal of Iran's military situation while portraying the U.S. more negatively by adding a reference to depleting U.S. stockpiles to the translation.
