Kremlin Spokesman Admits Russia Has Suffered “Significant Losses” but Insists They Invaded to Stop World War III – Opinion

Sky News anchor Mark Austin interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mouthpiece, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov. In the interview, Peskov engages in the same pattern of lies and dissimulation that we’ve learned to expect from Moscow since about 1917.

Peskov argued that the well-documented atrocities uncovered in the Kiev suburb of Bucha are “bold fakes.” Peskov said, “We deny the Russian military can have something in common with these atrocities and that dead bodies were shown on the streets of Bucha.” Actually, anyone with even a passing acquaintance of how the Russian Army, or its antecedent, the Red Army, operates knows that calculated atrocities are how they work (see The Ukrainian Army Liberates Territory From Russian Invaders and Discovers Murdered Civilians; Shocking Evidence of Mass-Scale Russian War Crimes Raises the Stakes in Ukraine, and Russian Torture Chamber Discovered in Liberated Ukraine Town as the Russian Army Continues to Do What It Is Good at Doing).

Bucha By’s details are included in the following story @maxbearakAnd @leloveluckThese are quite grotesque, but they must be understood. https://t.co/wrd9AAYkPw

— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) April 7, 2022

AFP- The situation in Borodianka, near Kiev, is “much worse” than it was in Bucha. Zelensky

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 7, 2022

(Yes, I’m aware of the video of Russian prisoners being shot, Questionable Videos of Abuse of Russian Prisoners of War Surface but Ukraine Has an Obligation to Investigate, and the video of the execution of a wounded Russian by the Georgian volunteer battalion; sorry, none of that exists in the same universe as Bucha.)

He said that NATO’s purpose is to confront Russia (I would argue that Russia has set about to give NATO a purpose starting with its invasion of Georgia in 2008 and its hijinks in Ukraine before the invasion). Peskov feels very sad now that Russia has achieved something that the USSR was unable to achieve.

He added that if Finland and Sweden joined NATO Russia would have 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 for the whole architecture of security and it will take us to take additional measures,” he said.

Again, Putin goes to his default setting of wagging his nukes about (Putin Orders Russian Nuclear Forces on Alert Status as His Ukrainian Adventure Stalls, Analysis: As Russia’s Ukraine Campaign Struggles, the West Must Neuter Putin’s Nuclear Threat, NATO Warns China About ‘Blatant Lies,’ Tells Russia to Knock off the ‘Nuclear Saber-Rattling,’ Russian Attack Aircraft With Nuclear Weapons On Board Violate Swedish Air Space as Sweden Mulls NATO Membership).

The Russian withdrawal from northern Ukraine was an “act of goodwill” to facilitate negotiations.

Mariupol’s maternity hospital was not attacked and nobody was hurt while it was being defended by the Russian Air Force. “We have very serious reasons to believe it was a fake, and we insist on that.”

We have two pieces of news. The first was that Austin hit Peskov with Russian losses. “You’ve lost thousands of troops; you’ve lost six generals, hundreds of tanks, and other equipment,” says Austin, “it’s a humiliation, really, isn’t it?”

PESKOV: No, no, it’s a wrong understanding of what is going on.

AUSTIN – What’s wrong with the things I said just now?

PESKOV – Nearly all, almost everything.

AUSTIN: You’ve lost thousands of troops, how many troops have you lost?

PESKOV: We’ve had significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us.

I don’t know what “significant” means in numbers, but my suspicion is it is a lot more than the 1,351 dead, and 3,825 wounded Russia admits to–which is about the same as the number of deaths and hospitalizations from alcohol poisoning in Moscow over a holiday weekend. NATO’s estimate last week was 7,000 to 15,000 dead, which is sort of like “from some to a lot” in terms of specificity. Using Russia’s own killed-to-wounded ratio means another 20,000 to 48,000 Russian troops are out of action due to wounds.

Peskov’s most outrageous offering, to my mind, was that Russia would save the world by entering a country where they could not do any harm.

Let’s say Ukraine joins NATO and decides to attack Russia for the return of Crimea. Article 5 of NATO Charter states that all nuclear-weapon Allies are required to protect Ukraine. If they fail to do so, it could cause a third world War. Our current work protects us against the threat of such war.

This is Martian logic. Aside from Crimea not being part of Russia, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty doesn’t apply if you attack someone. If you are being attacked, it only applies. There are very few chances that Ukraine will ever declare war on Russia in the Crimea. What Peskov is really concerned about is Russia’s ability to invade neighbors like Georgia and Ukraine.

The complete interview is available here.