Don't get discouraged. Anyone can make a mistake and don't forget, language = language + culture. I think it could easily happen that someone could speak fluent Russian and still not understand Russians when they speak. That's because you can't separate the language from the people - It's basically the same thing.
And it's even more interesting than that. I thought I knew the Russian alphabet till I saw some commemorative coins. That's how I learned about the old Church Slavonic alphabet that was developed in Byzantium in the 900's AD. But now that I know the Church Slavonic alphabet, I can read all the new commemorative coins. There's new ones now for the Victory of the Russian Fleet, the Church of St. George in Dzivgis village, the house museum of Ivan Turgenev, and the Epiphany old Golutvin Monestary btw. It's also been helpful to study phraseology. A new one I learned last night was Кузькина мать (Kuzka's mother). It basically means "I'll show you!" and it was used in N. G. Pomyalovsky's novel "Брат и сестра" and also in Chekhov's "Хамелеоне" ("Он увидит у меня, что значит собака и прочий бродячий скот. Я ему покажу кузькину мать..." I'll show him gruel... Learning a new language is like an amazing adventure because you learn about the people too and the history and everything else.
But I really don't get how I missed the development of old Church Slavonic when I was studying Byzantium. But hey, even I make mistakes.
Anyway, I did notice that the interviewer wasn't responding to anything that dude was saying. She just wanted him to keep talking. It was almost like an interrogation.
Thanks for the transcripts! That really helps and I think it's important for news like that to reach other Western people who can't transliterate Russian youtubes.
Btw, I hope it-ogo is okay.