Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the head of the UK armed forces has been showing his humanitarian side recently, according to Sky News, when discussing estimated Russian casualties in the Ukraine conflict:
"I think these numbers illustrate clearly the senseless and futile waste of human life for such little progress, and against such an illegitimate aim of President Putin,” the chief of the defence staff said in a prepared statement to journalists.
Referring to the half a million Russian personnel who are dead, he said: "So that means that's half a million photographs hanging on the walls in devastated, darkened homes about Russia. That means half a million families will never see their father, their son, their brother, or husband again."
What Sir Rich failed to mention is that some of these photographs will be of military and civilian victims of weapons provided by the UK to Ukraine to kill Russians.
He also seems to be under the illusion that everyone in Russia lives in village hovels untouched by the electric lightbulb. Maybe it seems that way from his armchair in Wiltshire but a quick visit to something called Youtube may correct that impression.
Also note the shifty language switch from a British Intelligence estimate of half a million Russian dead at the start of the story to 'half a million Russian personnel who are dead' further down - a linguistic sleight-of-hand in just a few sentences that turns an estimate into a fact.
Clever chaps those Sky writers huh?