On May 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a joint press conference in Moscow. During the event, the Kremlin’s press office and simultaneous translators significantly altered Merkel’s statement about Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine in order to blunt her meaning.
According to the German Chancellor’s website, her actual statement (translated into English) was: “The criminal and unlawful annexation of Crimea and the military hostilities in eastern Ukraine seriously compromised our cooperation.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin press service omitted the words “criminal” and “eastern” and translated her comment as: “The unlawful annexation of Crimea and the military hostilities in Ukraine seriously compromised this cooperation.”
Here is the simultaneous interpretation that distorted the Chancellor’s statement.
