Russian President Vladimir Putin told conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson that it would be “easy” to stop Moscow’s nearly two-year invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin handpicked Carlson, a former Fox News superstar turned internet commentator, for his first interview with a Western reporter since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began two years ago.
The reason is obvious. Carlson characterized the Russia-Ukraine war as a “border war,” called on Americans to end a multibillion aid program to Kiev, and compared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to a “rat” and a “pimp.”
During the two-hour interview, recorded in the Kremlin’s audience hall with its gold-leaf furniture, Carlson did not press Putin as he did last year when he punched a pro-Democrat guest on his Fox News show, which was canceled last year. I didn’t apply.
Putin’s goal seems clear. He wanted Mr. Carlson to urge Republicans to end aid to Ukraine and focus on domestic issues.
“There are problems with borders, problems with immigration, problems with the country’s debt,” Putin told Carlson. “Should we fight in Ukraine if there is nothing else to do?” Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? ”
When Carlson asked if Putin could call US President Joe Biden to “fix the problem,” Putin declined, but said the solution was “very simple.” .
“If we really want to stop fighting, we have to stop supplying weapons. It will be over in a few weeks. That’s it. Then we can agree on some terms,” he said.
Karlsson made no attempt to refute Putin’s outlandish and baseless claims.
One is Putin’s belief that elected leaders do not run the United States.
“So, you’ve explained twice that the president of the United States makes decisions that are then undermined by the heads of government agencies. So, in your story, they’re not run by the people who elected them.” It sounds like you’re describing a system,” Carlson said.
“That’s right,” Putin said without further explanation, and Karlsson quickly agreed.
He then asked Putin who was behind the 2022 Baltic Sea explosion that damaged Nord Stream, a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and crucial to Moscow’s coffers.
Carlson called it “the greatest act of industrial terrorism in history,” but he did not dispute Putin’s claim that the CIA was responsible for blowing up the pipeline and did not provide any concrete evidence.
A history lesson or a boring metaphor?
Putin began the interview with a long lecture on the history of Eastern Europe, in which he outlined the Kremlin’s manipulative view of the medieval superpower Kiev Rus, whose collapse gave rise to today’s Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Repeatedly stated.
Mr. Karlsson seemed to have no knowledge of the matter and simply kept nodding in bewilderment when President Putin told him that a descendant of a Viking prince named Rurik ruled the Kiev Rus. One of them, Prince Vladimir, converted to Orthodoxy a thousand years ago.
According to Putin’s logic, Russia is the only legitimate successor to the Kiev Rus, and the idea of Ukraine itself was “invented” by Austria, Tsarist Russia’s arch-rival.
“Before World War I, the Austrian General Staff relied on the idea of Ukrainization and began to actively promote the idea of Ukrainization and Ukraine,” Putin said.
To Mr. Carlson’s audience, and many in the West, this talk may seem boring and irrelevant.
But for Ukrainians, President Putin’s interpretation of events is a grim and threatening reminder that the Kremlin denies Ukraine’s very right to exist.
Maria Kucherenko of the Kiev-based charity Come Back Alive said: “All these anecdotes about Prince Vladimir and Rurik have to tell all the skeptics one thing: this. It means that the man has obsessive thoughts.”
“And he will stop at nothing to make them a reality,” she told Al Jazeera.
Ukrainian officials and celebrities who have met Putin in person have long maintained that the Russian president is determined to conquer and annihilate Ukraine at all costs.
“He is tough and acts like he has divine power, especially when it comes to Ukraine,” said Yuriy Vitrenko, who at the time headed Ukraine’s state-run energy company Naftogaz, who spoke with President Putin in 2021. He told reporters while reminiscing about their encounter.
President Putin has rejected previous claims that today’s Ukraine is an “artificial state” created by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who annexed regions of Poland, Hungary and Romania to become part of Soviet Ukraine. repeated.
Putin also suggested that Hungary, whose nationalist helmsman Viktor Orban remains the most pro-Russian leader in the European Union, “has the right to take back its territory.”
Some observers compared President Putin’s intentions to those of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, who sparked World War II by annexing German-populated areas of Eastern Europe.
Nikolai Mitrokhin of the University of Bremen in Germany told Al Jazeera: “The reaction of the North American and European elites to his Hitlerism will be decisive and severe, leading to an increase in military aid to Ukraine.” “Here Putin worked for Biden in an attempt to energize Trump’s audience.”
To other Ukrainian observers, the interview was nothing more than a boring Kremlin metaphor.
“The only noteworthy thing about this interview is the size of the table. It’s very small. I’ve seen and heard the rest a billion times,” Svetlana Tunikina, vice president of the Kyiv Association of Political Psychologists, told Al Jazeera. Ta.
“Tucker’s damn Carlson worked very well as a mic stand for a deranged lunatic who rambled on for two hours about how he loved killing Ukrainians.”
To Russian observers, the interview is a Kremlin public relations ploy aimed at convincing average Russians that Putin’s war has not turned their country into an international pariah, excluded from the West. .
“They want to show that Russia is not in conflict with the civilized world, but only separating the elites within the civilized world. In a way they emphasize that there are other elites as well. Interviewed by famous journalists here [Putin]” said Sergei Bizyukin, an exiled opposition activist from the western Russian city of Ryazan.
“And that was once [these elites] “If we win the election, the West will accept that Russia is right,” he told Al Jazeera. He touched on the group’s recent successes.
The timing of the interview was critical for Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Republicans blocked a vital multi-billion aid package for Kiev, while President Zelensky made a highly polarizing move to fire the highly trusted and influential top general, Valery Zarzhiny. announced the decision.
But for Ukrainian military personnel, this interview is nothing short of a demonstration of weakness.
“They are just losers trying to support each other and push conspiracy theories,” said Valentin, a Ukrainian drone pilot stationed in eastern Donetsk, who watched part of the interview on his cell phone.
“They are unable to face the truth about Ukraine that is real and will continue to prevail,” he told Al Jazeera by phone.
