Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has admitted a “significant” loss of Russian troops since the invasion of Ukraine began, telling Sky News their deaths are a “tragedy”.
Dmitry Peskov, in his first broadcast interview with Western media, also said Russia hope “this operation” will reach its goals “in the coming days”.
He told Sky News’ Mark Austin that “we’re living in days of fakes and lies” and that verified photos and satellite images of dead civilians in the streets of Ukrainian cities were a “bold fake”.
“We deny the Russian military can have something in common with these atrocities and that dead bodies were shown on the streets of Bucha,” he told Sky News.
He maintained the whole situation in Bucha, where photos show many murdered Ukrainian civilians, was a “well-staged insinuation, nothing else”.
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Dmitry Peskov spoke to Sky News in his first broadcast interview since the war started
‘We’re living during days of fakes and lies’
Asked to reveal how many civilians have died since the war began on 24 February, Mr Peskov said he did not want to answer as the numbers were not “double confirmed”.
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Mr Peskov continued to insist it was not a war but a “special military operation” that was necessary because, he said, Ukraine has been an “anti-Russian centre” since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.
He did admit: “We have significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us.”
But he claimed Russia withdrew from the Ukrainian regions of Kyiv and Chernihiv as an act of “goodwill”.
“It was a goodwill act to lift tension from those regions and show Russia is really ready to create comfortable conditions to continue negotiations,” he said.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday Russian forces fully withdrew from the capital and Chernihiv, a city to its north in the 24 hours before.
But US intelligence authorities warned the Russians may have left mines behind and were still assessing the damage to both people and infrastructure.
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Putin spokesman: Hospital bombing was ‘fake’
Mariupol hospital bombing was a ‘fake’
On Mariupol, which is in the Donetsk region Russia has claimed as its own, Mr Peskov said it was going to be “liberated from nationalistic battalions – we hope it will happen sooner rather than later”.
The southeastern city has been besieged by Russian troops since the start of the war, with thousands left sheltering in basements without food, water or power.
Mr Peskov said Mariupol is part of the “Luhansk people’s republic” which Russia recognises as a separate state and claimed troops were there “to assist those people who were suffering for eight years from heavy shelling form Ukraine”.
On 9 March, the Russian Air Force bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol, killing at least four people and injuring at least 16, while leading to at least one stillbirth.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described it as a war crime but Mr Peskov said it was a “fake”.
“We have very serious reasons to believe it was a fake, and we insist on that,” he said.
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