Asked if the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet had been struck by a Ukrainian missile, the Almost As Great Dictator was adamant. “No it just caught fire. You know, steel… it’s pretty flammable stuff. I never let Alina have steel cookware in our kitchen. We have to think of the children.”
Western analysts were not taken by the deflection but are puzzled as to whether he thought it was better state propaganda to admit an enemy was capable of damaging a vessel possessing three kinds of missile defence, or to admit that his most important naval asset in the region was just a hazardous pile of self-combustible crap from the beginning.