NBC’s Kristen Welker turned the heat up on Sergey Lavrov, Sunday, during a rare U.S. interview with Russia’s foreign minister.

In a tense battle on Meet the Press, Welker went right after Lavrov about the staggering number of civilians killed in the conflict. A UN monitor recently reported that at least 13,580 civilians have been killed since the start of the conflict in February ’22, and at least 34,115 others have been injured.

“Mr. Foreign Minister, here are the facts: close to 50,000 civilians have either been killed or injured in this war,” Welker said. “Russia has hit maternity wards, churches, schools, hospitals, a kindergarten just this past week. So either the Russian military has terrible aim or you are targeting civilians. Which is it?”

Lavrov responded by asking Welker to cite her source.

“Look, look, NBC is a very respectful structure, and I hope you are responsible for the words which you broadcast,” Lavrov said. “I ask you to send us or to publicize the information to which you just referred because we never targeted the civilian targets of the kind you cited. You might be mixing, you know, the information because it is a fact that quite a number of churches were purposefully hit by the Ukrainian regime. Quite a number of just civilian settlements, human settlements.”

Welker jumped back in.

“But what about your actions?” Welker said. “What about your actions, Mr. Foreign Minister?”

“Look, we are going by circles,” Lavrov said. I told you already what we mentioned repeatedly, that we never target civilian – civilian sites, that we only attack the sites which are directly involved in the Ukrainian military machine which the West is trying to beef, beef up. And if you have any proof of what you just said about churches, kindergarten schools, and so on and so forth, I challenge you. Make it public. Make it public with the dates, with the addresses and so on and so forth. As I said, NBC is a very reputed broadcasting agency… Your listeners and watchers deserve – to have specific information when you, when you make such claims.

The Meet the Press moderator made clear she wasn’t coming up with the numbers out of thin air.

“Mr. Foreign Minister, it’s all publicly documented, and we have reporters on the ground who’ve seen it with their own eyes,” Welker said. “All of the information is publicly available. We do have reporters on the ground who’ve seen these strikes with their own eyes.”

Watch above, via NBC.

The post NBC’s Welker Challenges Russia’s Foreign Minister in Testy Battle: Either Your Military Has ‘Terrible Aim’ Or You’re Targeting Civilians first appeared on Mediaite.

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