Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet and one of Russia's most senior navy officers, was shown on Tuesday attending a video conference, a day after Ukrainian special forces said they had killed him.

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.

  • zabadoh
    28·
    1 year ago

    Here’s a link to the actual clip: https://twitter.com/kucukmoskovali/status/1706622934234607737

    The part showing Sokolov is very brief, a couple of seconds at the end of the twitter video.

    He doesn’t move, his eyes are closed behind his glasses, and he’s propped up against a pillow.

    It could be a video of a photo.

    Not very convincing that he’s healthy, if not dead.

    • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
      7·
      1 year ago

      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?

      • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
        15·
        1 year ago

        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.

          • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyzOPsuomi
            2·
            1 year ago

            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.