As an experienced professional interpreter and translator, I'd like to remind pedes that any simultaneous interpreting is going to omit at least 30%+ content and meaning from the interaction.
This is an unavoidable result of the interpreter having to both listen and speak at the same time, and to operate in real time at the same speed of the person who is speaking. Interpreting from one language to another is a highly complex activity requiring massive amounts of mental energy, and it is simply impossible for an interpreter to effectively both listen and speak at the same rate that the original speaker is thinking and talking.
Moreover, when an interpreter does not have native-level fluency in the target language, also, a variety of nuances can be lost.
Listening to the interpreter ("interpreting" = audio or spoken translation, "translation" = translation of a text), it is clear when certain nuances were omitted, and sometimes not well expressed in English.
For example, at one point, the interpreter for Putin says "That's a subtle question". It seems clear from context that what he means here is "that's a crafty question" "that's a clever/sneaky question", edgy. That is, a question designed to prod, trick, maneuver or even manipulate the respondent, even though the emphasis isn't that strong.
Edit: Another example is when Putin appears to be speaking in the first person, obviously conveying what 'Ukraine' is saying, but the interpreter says "we, you" etc, and that can be a bit confusing at times. Is he saying "We, the Russians", or is he saying "We, the Ukrainians", or "We, the Germans", etc?
Recommended: to really understand and grasp the content of Putin's replies, seek out a translation into English of a transcript of his answers.
(What I mean is, at some point, someone - probably an official Russian agency - will publish a transcript of Putin's actual words. Hopefully, someone or some party will then undertake a professional translation of that transcript. Such a translation will show much more clearly what Putin was actually saying.)
When a transcript is created, all the words spoken are recorded and then a translator can spend much more time and effort refining the translation and conveying the nuances, subtle meanings, and exact expressions in the target language - in this case, English.
Simultaneous interpreting delivers only a very broad foundation for interaction and dialog, but necessarily omits a lot of the meaning. The core elements are there, but many of the nuances get lost.
Addendum: Here is a transcript of the interview, but NOTE, this is a transcript of Tucker and the Interpreter, and technically, these are not Putin's own words.
Sadly, many outside the interpreting profession have little awareness of the natural and necessary limitations of simultaneous interpreting, and tend to deal with an interpreter's words as if they are the original speakers own words. They are not. So it is critical to allow for at least a 20%+ margin of error.
It is easier to translate from English to Spanish or from Spanish to English in an interview, as both are more common languages spoken and learned, than it is to translate from Russian to English or from English to Russian, from Russian to Spanish or from Spanish to Russian, or other not so common languages.
OK. Hang on. This statement requires qualification.
Firstly, it all depends on WHO is doing the interpreting (or translating). If we're talking about native speakers of either of those language pairs, then we might say yes, x language pair is easier (or simpler) than y language pair.
Secondly, Russian is far more common in Russia than Spanish. But if you mean it is more common for an English speaker to learn Spanish than it is for an English speaker to learn Russian, ok.
The difficulty of interpreting between certain languages is not related directly to how common they are learned, but due to the similarities in grammar, lexicon, syntax and so forth. English and Spanish are much more similar than English and Russian, for example.
Both Spanish and English share a many common roots, which is not the case between English and Russian.