Sky News anchor Mark Austin interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Throughout the conversation, Peskov engaged in the same pattern of deceit and dissimulation we've come to anticipate from Moscow since around 1917.
Yes, it’s true that videos have emerged of Russian prisoners being abused and shot; however, Ukraine is required to investigate, and the footage that shows the murder of injured Russians from a Georgian volunteer battalion… Sorry, that's not in the same world as the Bucha massacre.
The reason NATO exists is to combat Russia, and Russia has been working to provide NATO with its purpose through its aggression against Georgia in 2008 and its adventures in Ukraine, even prior to its recent invasion.
Russia has achieved something that the USSR was never able to accomplish, and that is convincing most Finns and Swedes to join NATO. When asked about it, Peskov was deeply discontented with this trend. He said that in the event that Finland and Sweden became members of NATO, Russia would need to “make our Western flank more sophisticated in terms of ensuring our security”.
“Everything is about mutual deterring and should one side–and we consider NATO to be one side–be more powerful than the other, especially in terms of nuclear arms, then it will be considered a threat to the whole architecture of security, and it will [lead] us to take additional measures,” said the official. Once more, this is Putin going through his usual routine of waving his nuclear arms about.
It was said that Russia’s withdrawal from the northern part of Ukraine could be described as an “act of goodwill” to help in discussions. The medical center for pregnant women located in Mariupol was not targeted by bombs, and nobody was killed at the time that it was allegedly being bombed by the Russian Air Force, which was not bombing it. “We have very serious reasons to believe it was a fake, and we insist on that.”
There are a couple of pieces of news.
The first is when U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin strikes out at Peskov for Russian losses. “You've lost thousands of troops; you've lost six generals, hundreds of tanks, and other equipment,” Austin said. “It's a humiliation, really, isn't it?”
Peskov: “No, not at all. It's just a misinterpretation of the situation.”
Austin: “Am I confused [about] what I've just said?”
Peskov: “Nearly everything, almost everything.”
Austin: “The loss of thousands of troops. How many soldiers did you lose?”
Peskov: “We've suffered significant losses of troops, and this is a major loss for us.”
It’s not clear what “significant” means in numbers; however, it's probably more than the 1,351 dead and the 3,825 injured Russia admits to–which is around the same number as the hospitalizations and deaths resulting from alcohol poisoning in Moscow on a weekend falling on a holiday. The NATO estimate for last week was between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian-soldier deaths, which is similar to “from some to a lot” in terms of precision. Based on Russia's own kill-to-wounded ratio, this could mean that another 20,000 to 48,000 Russian troops are not fighting due to injuries.
The most bizarre offering from Peskov was his claim that Russia was able to save humanity from World War III by invading an “enemy” that was not doing it any harm. Assume that Ukraine was a NATO member, and it attacks Russia to retake Crimea. In accordance with Article 5 of the NATO Charter, allies with nuclear weapons would be required to defend Ukraine, which could result in a third world war. The work that is being undertaken currently helps us avoid the possibility of such an event.
This is also known as Martian logic. Apart from Crimea having no connection to Russia, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty doesn't apply when a NATO country assaults another nation. It only applies when it is targeted. The chances of Ukraine ever starting a conflict with Russia in the Crimean region are almost zero. What Peskov is most concerned about is Russia's ability to invade its neighbors, such as Georgia and Ukraine.
