Dr.Snufflebug Tue Apr 12, 2022 12:22 pm
BTW, Putin, Lukashenko and Rogozin made a public appearance in this very far east today, and the former said that the "special operation" will fulfill its goals, plus moon base and BLR cosmonauts soon (I mean, it's been 50 odd years since Klimuk became the first Belarusian in space, and several flew after him, but as of the past decades there haven't been any AFAIK, unless some Russian cosmonaut and citizen was BLR-born, not uncommon).
Since it was at Vostochny with Rogozin in attendance the space talk makes perfect sense, but I still found it a bit comically absurd. Like, this is where Putin finally opens his mouth about any of this after weeks of silence, and "anyway, moon".
Russian presidential administration (spox Peskov included) are kinda bad at this, for sure. Other RU officials are far better.
Maybe Putin wants to play it cool and give off the impression that this is just some minor peripheral thing going on, sure seems like it. Problem is, it's not minor or peripheral, regardless of how sure they are, or profess to be about the end goals.