Apparently Sokolov was only a face on the screen (haven’t seen the video), so prerecorded footage, deepfake or even simple video editing are all possibilities. The rest of Shoiqus quotes are pretty much what you’d expect from him.
Regardless of Sokolov the situation in Crimea seems to be in Ukrainian control, I hope they can close the bridge soon.
On the other hand, if he’s dead Russia can’t keep pretending he’s not forever. What are they going to say? He survived a bombing and then died by falling down the stairs 48 hours later?
That’s really not any kind of problem for Russia. They can just announce that due to his failure on preventing missile strikes against Black Sea fleet Sokolov resigned in shame and retired to become a sheep herder in southern siberia or something.
Oh, yes, the “the admiral went to a farm upstate” is always a classical.
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Your guess is as good as mine. On our local news today was an article how Lavrov was upset that Finland is moving towards the front of the opposition against Russia without any reason (a bit caricature, but not that much). That circus is running for the average russian citicens, not for us, and in those stories facts don’t matter much.
News media doesn’t last that long.