Kremlin: Russia not to blame for incomplete Cameron translation

The Russian translation of British Prime Minister David Cameron's speech during his visit to Moscow, posted on the Kremlin's website, was made by the official simultaneous interpreter of the British delegation, the Russian presidential press service said. The BBC's Russian service reported on Tuesday that the Russian translation on the Kremlin website omits Cameron's statement on the necessity to implement a Russia-Georgia ceasefire. The phrase, however, was present in the transcript on the British government's website and in the English version of the Kremlin's website. It reads: "We discussed the need to ensure security and confidence for Georgia and Russia implementing the 2008 ceasefire in full." Russia fought a brief war against Georgia's forces in August 2008 when Georgia tried to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia by force. In the aftermath, it and nearby Abkhazia were recognized by Russia, although only a few other countries followed suit. The Russian presidential press service noted that the transcript of Cameron and Medvedev's press conference, posted on the British government site, omits Cameron's statement of condolences over the recent death of Russian hockey players. The English version of the Kremlin's website has the statement, which reads: "First of all, I want to express my condolences to the families of those killed in the plane crash in Yaroslavl." Almost the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice-hockey team died when the team's Yak-42 plane went down near Yaroslavl north of Moscow shortly after takeoff on September 7. The team was flying to the Belarusian capital Minsk for its first match of the Kontinental Hockey League season. The BBC's Russian service said there were also other discrepancies between the texts posted on the websites of the British prime minister's office and the Kremlin. The differences can be explained by the peculiarity of simultaneous interpretation, which is never verbatim.