What's With Winston and Russia?
In New Zealand we have a senior politician--the Deputy Prime Minister in fact--who seems to have a deep attachment to Russia. No-one is quite sure why the attachment exists, but in his role as Foreign Minister, Winston Peters endeavours to put a positive gloss on anything and everything the Russian state does. It is puzzling.
When Russia was publicly accused of using two professional spies from its secretive GRU to attempt to assassinate two Russians in the UK, Peters played it down. As the evidence mounted he reluctantly "got on board" with the rest of the human race and agreed that it was a bad look for Russia. This was one horse Peters ought never to have backed.
The two GRU agents had since returned to Russia and gone to ground. But when the formal accusations and indictments came forth from the UK, the hapless duo were paraded on Russian state TV for an interview in which they claimed they had merely been tourists in the UK.
The Daily Mail has shot holes in their clumsy story.
