I do not doubt your translation, but somehow I doubt that Ukrainian women and children would spontaneously and voluntarily choose to stand in front of Russian troops. Maybe some women would, but a society which would allow children to act as shields has gone off the deep end into total depravity (and yes, I know that Palestinians routinely do so, and that shows my point).
That Putin would be confident that there would be women and children in front of his troops is an indication that he has given orders to that effect.
Please see my note above about the translation quality of the original story. That should be a good enough reply, but I’ll try to make it clearer for you and anyone else looking at this thread.
No one said anything about Ukrainian women and children spontaneously or voluntarily choosing to stand in front of Russian troops or being used as human shields except BizPac Review and Russia Today.
I noted that Putin was pretty angry when he was speaking. We do not know what the reporter said to him before this out-of-context clip was taken, but whatever it was (I believe probably something about the Ukes firing on the invading Russian Army...), it got him pretty mad. So, he was speaking under emotional stress and lost some of his control. He said they, the Russians, would “take a decision for the defense of Ukrainian citizens and if someone tries, if one of these servicemen...”
At that point, he loses some coherence and states “they (implied Ukrainian military) would be shooting at their own people, for which we (the Russians) are there for”.
He then makes an emotional, slightly illogical leap to, “Let them try to shoot women and children.” It’s easy to see why he said that. I’ve served in places where we, the US military, were there to protect civilians and any shooting at us was perceived as a de facto threat against those we were trying to protect.
Nothing about women and children putting themselves into harm’s way to defend any Russians and nothing about Putin threatening to use women and children as human shields was in what Putin said in the clip provided by Ken H.
Putin was projecting equivalence between his Russian troops and (Ukrainian/Crimean) women and children. What is understood by many is that the population of the Crimea is about 60 percent Russian. That’s who is really more equivalent to the Russian troops and is what, I believe honestly, got Putin’s dander up.
The fact that you and anyone else are thinking along the lines of the first very bad translations, and in my view intentionally bad translations, shows that the translators’ goal of influencing you to their way of thinking was successful. Influence Ops 101.
Please don’t take any of this as a defense of Putin on my part. See my other note above for a good video link about him. I just don’t like it that those who would manipulate us into war, would abuse their knowledge of a foreign language to do so. There are other, more important reasons to dislike Putin than what this mis-translation is about.
Cheers from Virginia!
Ivan