Why Indians must see Vladimir Putin's interview by Tucker Carlson

Carlson: “Well, he's funding the war that you're fighting (in Ukraine), so I would think that would be memorable.”

Putin: “Well, yes, he funds, but I talked to him before the special military operation, of course… I will not go into details, I never do. But I said to him, then, I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away. I told him, told him repeatedly.”

Carlson: “What did he say?”

Putin: “Ask him, please. It is easier for you. You are a citizen of the United States. Go and ask him. It is not appropriate for me to comment on our conversation.”

The first interview of Russian president Putin by a Western journalist since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago (on February 24, 2022) was posted on X.com (formerly Twitter) and tuckercarlson.com at around 5 AM , Indian standard time, on Friday, February 9.  At a few minutes over two hours, it is perhaps the longest interview that I have ever had the patience to watch. But it was worth my while.

A bit of background is necessary here. Carlson was the most watched TV news show host in the US for years. He was also the only prominent voice in mainstream media who repeatedly criticized his country’s funding of Ukraine’s war effort. His fans believe that he lost his job at Fox News for this. Since then, he runs his own channel and is again the most watched news show host in America.  Within 32 hours of being posted, the Putin interview garnered nearly 170 million views.

In the days leading up to the interview, Carlson had said that Western journalists had interviewed Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky many times, but they were just “fawning pep sessions” aimed at amplifying Zelensky's demand to get the US more and more involved in the war. “That is not journalism—it is government propaganda,” he said. “Americans have a right to know all they can about a war they are implicated in”. So it is not surprising that Putin decided to speak to him rather than media outlets like the BBC, CNN and The New York Times which claim to have requested the Kremlin several times for an interview in the last 18 months.

The Carlson interview is important because one gets Putin’s version of the war in Ukraine, which he still refers to as a “special military operation”. The timing is also perfect since in the last few months governments across Europe, from Britain to Sweden to Poland, have asked their people to be prepared for a direct war with Russia.

Putin spends the first 20 minutes of the interview recounting the intertwined history of Russia and Ukraine stretching back to the 9th century, quoting dates of various wars and other events. His interpretation of the events is of course open to argument.

He says that Ukraine and Russia have always been one. In The Story of Russia, Orlando Figes, professor at Cambridge University and the greatest living expert on Russian history in Western academia, says that the origins of Russia are shrouded in mythology, but the roots can be traced to Viking warriors settling in Kiev (now spelt Kyiv) in Ukraine in the 9th century. Their descendants, called the Kievan Rus, intermingled with the native Slavs to produce the Russian race. The principality of Moscow rose to prominence only in the late 13th century, 400 years after Kiev. Thus, for Russians, Kiev lies at the core of their ancestry and heritage.

Putin says, correctly, that the name “Ukraine” is derived from a Slavic word meaning “edge” or “border”. “For some inexplicable reason,” he says, “Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, insisted that (Ukraine) be entitled to withdraw from (Russia). And again, for some unknown reasons, he transferred to that newly established Soviet Republic of Ukraine some of the lands, together with people living there, even though those lands had never been called Ukraine… Those lands included the Black Sea region… which had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever.”

Throughout the interview, Putin appears at ease and confident, sometimes waving his arms around to emphasise the points he is making. This is a man who was supposed to be dying of some mysterious brain disease a year ago according to Western mainstream media. He insists that he has always been and remains open to peace negotiations, but reminds Carlson that it is Zelensky who has refused to negotiate.

He lists out a series of betrayals by the West. It is quite a list. Western leaders had publicly assured Russia that they would not extend NATO “an inch” eastward of Germany, but did not keep that promise. Russia had always asserted that it could never allow Ukraine to become part of NATO and Western leaders had agreed to this. But in 2008, US president George W. Bush announced that NATO would consider Ukraine for membership. This was followed by the US-sponsored “Maidan revolution” of 2014 when a democratically elected Ukrainian president who leaned towards Moscow was thrown out and a US-friendly regime was installed.

This triggered a civil war where the Kyiv government used aircraft, heavy artillery and neo-Nazi militia to subdue the Russian-speaking Donbas region. According to Putin, it was then that the war began and not in February 2022 when Russian forces entered Ukraine. In fact, he says that what he is trying to do is to end that 10-year-old war.

When asked about who sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the largest conveyor of natural gas to western Europe, he immediately names the CIA. Carlson wonders if Putin has evidence that the US committed “the biggest act of industrial terrorism ever”, why “wouldn't (he) present it and win a propaganda victory?”

Putin’s reply: “In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world's media and many European media… Don't you know that? So it is possible to get involved in this work, but it is cost-prohibitive, so to speak. We can simply shine the spotlight on our sources of information and we will not achieve results. It is clear to the whole world what happened then. Even American analysts talk about it directly. It's true.”

What Putin says should give us Indians food for thought, given the consistently negative coverage that India has received from the Western mainstream media and think tanks over the last decade.

In any debate, it is essential to understand what the two sides believe. In this case, it is a war with no end in sight, and there is even a chance, however small, that it could grow into a greater conflagration involving several countries with nuclear arsenals. That is why it is important to listen to what Putin is saying and then form our own opinions.