Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed conservative US journalist Tucker Carlson that ending Moscow’s nearly two-year-old invasion of Ukraine is “easy”.
In his first interview with a Western reporter for the reason that full-scale invasion of Ukraine started two years in the past, the Kremlin handpicked Carlson, a former Fox Information superstar-turned-online commentator.
The reason being apparent – Carlson has characterised the Russia-Ukraine battle as a “border dispute”, referred to as on People to chop off multibillion assist packages to Kyiv, and in contrast Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a “rat” and a “pimp”.
Throughout the two-hour interview recorded in a Kremlin viewers corridor with gilded furnishings, Carlson didn’t strain Putin the way in which he used to sandbag the pro-Democrat company on the Fox Information present he was fired from last year.
Putin’s aim seems apparent – he wished Carlson to induce Republicans to cease supporting Ukraine and focus on home issues.
“You’ve got points on the border, points with migration, points with the nationwide debt,” Putin instructed Carlson, who appeared gullible and sheepish for many of their sit-down. “You don’t have anything higher to do, so it is best to battle in Ukraine? Wouldn’t it’s higher to barter with Russia?”
When Carlson requested whether or not Putin might simply name US President Joe Biden to “work it out”, Putin refused – however mentioned the answer was “quite simple”.
“For those who actually wish to cease combating, you’ll want to cease supplying weapons. It is going to be over inside a number of weeks. That’s it. Then we will agree on some phrases,” he mentioned.
Carlson didn’t even attempt to refute Putin’s outlandish and ungrounded claims.
One was Putin’s perception that elected leaders don’t run the US.
“So, twice you’ve described US presidents making selections after which being undercut by their company heads. So, it sounds such as you’re describing a system that’s not run by the people who find themselves elected in your telling,” Carlson mentioned.
“That’s proper,” Putin mentioned with out providing additional rationalization – and Carlson readily agreed.
Then he requested Putin who was behind the 2022 explosion within the Baltic Sea that broken Nord Stream, a pure fuel pipeline from Russia to Germany that was essential for Moscow’s coffers.
Carlson referred to as it “the largest act of commercial terrorism ever”, however didn’t dispute Putin’s declare that it was the CIA that had allegedly blown up the pipeline – and introduced no concrete proof in any respect.
A historical past lesson or drained tropes?
Putin started the interview with a prolonged lecture on Japanese Europe’s historical past, through which he reiterated the Kremlin’s manipulative view on Kyivan Rus, a medieval superpower whose disintegration spawned in the present day’s Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Carlson appeared fully ignorant concerning the challenge – and simply saved nodding in bewilderment when Putin instructed him a couple of Viking prince named Ruric whose descendants dominated Kyivan Rus. One among them, Prince Vladimir, transformed to Orthodox Christianity a millennium in the past.
In response to Putin’s logic, Russia was the one professional successor to Kyivan Rus, and the very thought of Ukraine was “invented” by czarist Russia’s archrival – Austria.
“Earlier than World Warfare I, Austrian normal workers relied on the concepts of Ukrainianisation and began actively selling the concepts of Ukraine and the Ukrainianisation,” Putin mentioned.
To Carlson’s viewers and plenty of within the West, the lecture could seem boring and irrelevant.
However to Ukrainians, Putin’s interpretation of occasions is a sobering and threatening reminder that the Kremlin denies Ukraine’s very proper to exist.
“As a result of all of those anecdotes about Prince Vladimir and Rurik have to inform all sceptics only one factor – this man has obsessive concepts,” mentioned Maria Kucherenko, an analyst with the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, a suppose tank in Kyiv.
“And he gained’t cease at something to make them actual,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Ukrainian officers and public figures who’ve met with Putin nose to nose have lengthy maintained that the Russian president is set to subjugate and annihilate Ukraine it doesn’t matter what.
“He’s powerful and he behaves like he has this nearly divine energy, over Ukraine specifically,” Yuriy Vitrenko, who headed Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state vitality firm, on the time, instructed this reporter in 2021 recalling his encounters with Putin.
To different Ukrainian observers, the interview provided nothing however drained Kremlin tropes.
“The one outstanding factor on this interview is the dimensions of the desk – it’s tiny! The remaining now we have seen and heard a gazillion instances,” Svetlana Chunikhina, vp of the Affiliation of Political Psychologists, a gaggle in Kyiv, instructed Al Jazeera.
“Tucker goddamned Carlson served very nicely as a microphone stand for the loopy maniac who for 2 hours rambled about how he likes to kill Ukrainians.”
To a Russian observer, the interview is a Kremlin public relations stunt designed to persuade common Russians that Putin’s battle didn’t flip their nation into a world pariah spurned by the West.
“They wish to present that Russia doesn’t confront the civilised world however solely separate elites inside it. To type of emphasise that there are different elites, and right here’s a well known journalist interviewing [Putin],” mentioned Sergey Biziyukin, an exiled opposition activist from the western Russian metropolis of Ryazan.
“And that after [these elites] win elections, the West will admit that Russia is true,” he instructed Al Jazeera referring to Donald Trump’s attainable victory within the November presidential vote and to the current success of a number of nationalist and far-right teams in Europe.
The interview’s timing was important for Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Republicans blocked a multibillion assist package deal that was important for Kyiv – whereas Zelenskyy introduced his extremely divisive determination to fireside Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the extremely trusted and influential high normal.
Nevertheless, to Ukrainian servicemen, the interview is nothing however an illustration of weak spot.
“They’re two losers attempting to help one another, attempting to voice their conspiracy theories,” mentioned Valentin, a Ukrainian drone operator stationed within the japanese area of Donetsk who watched elements of the interview on his cellphone.
“They will’t face the reality about Ukraine that’s actual and can prevail,” he instructed Al Jazeera by cellphone.