Motyl: Deconstructing Putin on Ukraine
President Vladimir Putin’s September 4th interview with Russian state broadcaster Channel One and the Associated Press cast a bright light on the incompetence of his public relations office and on his own antediluvian notions about Ukraine.
Whoever translated the official Kremlin transcript showed a striking ignorance of the English language—the translation is wooden—and of elementary political-historical terminology. Several sentences stand out, both because the translation is shockingly bad and because, when dissected, they reveal a great deal about Putin’s mind-set.