> unsubstantiated

Agreed for USSR, but I think the person you replied to is misremembering the country, I believe they are thinking of Japan. I heard it recently on Stuff You Should Know, which usually does a good job of researching their stories, and it sounds like it is substantiated but may be a bit more complex than presented, but literally true.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/save-the-whales/id2789... https://theworld.org/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japa... https://theworld.org/stories/2019/04/16/whaling-japan-2 https://japantoday.com/category/national/75-of-meat-from-jap... https://www.traffic.org/site/assets/files/3994/whale_meat_tr...