February 9, 2024 - 11:45am
After days of being called a “traitor”, including by former US Congressmen, for conducting it, Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin premiered late yesterday evening.
Spanning more than two hours, the interview largely addresses Putin’s perspective on the war with Ukraine. Taken together, it reveals not so much a convergence between the American “dissident” Right and the Russian leader: on the contrary, interviewer and interviewee have quite distinct axes to grind. Rather, it offers a window into two contemporary counters to the dominant Western liberal worldview: the Putinist narrative, and that of the post-liberal American Right.
Far from being a Russian shill or “useful idiot”, Carlson has his own angles on the Ukraine war and US involvement, and on several occasions seeks agreement on these themes from Putin — only for such overtures to be largely brushed aside. One of his questions touches on a recurring theme of “dissident” Right-wing commentary in the US, that their country is now run by a “deep state” unaccountable to the people:
While Putin does not disagree, he is uninterested in this theme and moves swiftly on to Russia’s perceived betrayal by “the collective West” on Nato expansion. Nor is he concerned with the location of America’s power centres, dismissing the country as having an opaque political system, before again pivoting to the unfairness of Russia’s treatment by these obscure decision-making bodies.
Ultimately, the axes Carlson wants to grind seemingly concern the replacement of American democracy by something more occluded, and the possibility that the Ukraine war was in fact America’s fault through its encouragement of Nato expansion. Meanwhile, Putin is preoccupied with two quite different issues.
The first of these concerns the duplicity and unreasonableness of the United States and its satellites, whether in (as he sees it) refusing defence cooperation against Iran, funding terrorism in the Caucasus, blocking the proposed Istanbul settlement with Ukraine, or — he claims — blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. His other concern centres around Putin’s perception of the historic relationship between Russia and Ukraine. He is so keen to get this point across that he spends roughly the first 25 minutes of the interview expounding a detailed Putinist history of Russia, all the way back to AD 882.
His overall message is that Ukraine has always been contested territory, with deep ties to Russia. In his view, the current conflict kicked off after 2008, when Ukraine began to explore deeper links with the European Union — a fact that threatened an existing Russian free trade agreement with Ukraine. The resulting contest between Russia and the EU over cooperation with Ukraine came to a head in 2013, he claims, with the “Euromaidan” protests and subsequent toppling of the Viktor Yanukovych government. In Putin’s view, this represented a US-supported “coup d’etat”:
For Putin, then, the current conflict is a continuation of Russia’s historic relation with Ukraine, overlaid with geopolitical wrangling dating from the end of the Cold War and which has been escalating steadily since 2008. None of this, he claims, is Russia’s fault, as his country is simply protecting its own interests. For example, he dismisses out of hand the suggestion of an expansionist Russia, saying that he has “no interest” in attacking Poland.
More, he views Western talk of Russian expansionism as merely propaganda designed to frame him as a boogeyman. There is a great deal more to dissect; overall, though, his perspective offers a counter-history of the modern world whose twin governing themes are Russian nationhood and ressentiment: multiple mentions of “the golden billion”, plus the recurring themes of betrayal, mendaciousness, obstinacy, and persecution by the West.
Beneath this, though, lies a perspective framed by national interests and the balance of power familiar with American realists such as John Mearsheimer. Ressentiment aside, realists might well interpret the Putinist perspective as consistent with Russia’s overall historic geopolitical position.
Yet, while the American dissident Right may find some points of sympathy with the Moscow line, not least on the gaps between idealist US messaging and cynical action, or indeed the greater predictive power of realism over idealism in international affairs, calling this an alignment of interests between Putin and American conservatives would be wildly overstating the case. Putin seems considerably less interested in the question of who really governs the United States than in that country’s perceived ill-treatment of Russia. But as we slide into what promises to be a turbulent American election year, we can expect the grinding of axes to grow louder and more purposeful.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeIn short, Putin’s attitude is that Ukraine belongs to Russia for the same reason that Tibet belongs to China, Ireland belongs to Britain, and Algeria belongs to France. Not a logic that is universally found convincing.
Well, no, that’s not “Putin’s attitude”, nor does it come within miles of anything said during the interview. The history interlocking Russia and Ukraine is far more complex, as is the history leading to the current war. Why not look into it a bit before typing? Or at least watch some of the interview?
Now, the question of whether Putin’s portrayal of the background and conflict is to be trusted, sure, that’s a different question. But just ignoring or glossing over the Russian position is what has got the West into this avoidable catastrophe.
Intriguing viewpoint. How might the West have avoided this situation?
NATO leadership might have desisted from declaring that both Ukraine and Georgia were welcome to join NATO, as they did in 2008. Both were nonstarters from Russia’s perspective, for obvious reasons. No Russian leader could accept such additions to the NATO alliance and remain viable as leader.
It was clear as day that the push to bring Ukraine into NATO would mean war. They pushed anyway. And got war. How has that worked out for them? For everyone?
Yes, it’s worked out well for the companies that produced the tens of billions of dollars of munitions used. Which may suggest a reason for this massive geopolitical failure of realism.
As the article makes clear, this is not about military threat to Russia – which anyway could have been handled by a disarmament agreement, given credible Russian guarantees against invading Ukraine. The conflict started because Ukraine wanted to make deals with the EU and move out from under Russia’s domination. Putin believes that Russia has a right to own Ukraine, and nothing less than continued control of Ukraine would have been enough. That was the choice of the west: Confirm that Ukraine belonged to Russia, or try to help it move away.
First, the article makes no such thing clear.
Second: “Disarmament agreement”? Huh? You suppose Ukraine could join NATO and then Moscow would be able to negotiate for Ukraine’s disarming?
Your arguments are pure misdirection. Suitable for kids maybe, not readers here.
There was a deal for western troops to be kept out of the new NATO members, remember? A deal for confidence-building measures, on the basis that Ukraine would not have to fear a Russian invasion and Russia would not have to fear an attack from Ukraine, does not seem unrealistic, with or without NATO membership. If Russia’s main motivation had been security from attack they might well have sought something like that. Since the main motivation was control over Ukraine, they did not.
Why not? There was already agreement that NATO wouldn’t station troops or hold exercises in nations with which Russia shares a border, so there’s no reason that couldn’t have continued with Ukrainian membership.
The past two years have simply shown why all those countries willingly joined NATO, and why Ukraine was desperate to do so
In the past, joining NATO seemed good idea: free US protection. Now, it means a suicide pact and more spending on weapons. And no, the USA won’t accept destruction to save anyone else.
Well, Finland, that shares with Russia a 1340-km border (for 5,5mln population) formally requested joining NATO. The country which, with regards to its historical background, stayed neutral even during the Cold War, surely knows what it is doing.
“Putin believes that Russia has a right to own Ukraine”
I don’t disagree with this. Putin says just enough in the interview to give at least some renewed affirmation of this stance.
The difficulty is that too many in the West subscribe to something like an opposite position: *That Ukraine has a right to to join the West, formally, institutionally.* But while the EU and NATO, for example certainly allow any state to *apply* for membership, neither organization is legally or morally obligated to *accept* them. The same is true for any constituent member state, including the U.S.! Because there may be good reasons *not* to accept an applicant state.
Why wouldn’t the West accept Ukraine? Ukrainians are a Western people.
Rasmus, did you watch the interview? Putin himself makes it very clear that he traces this war from the 2008 NATO expansion through the 2014 Euromaiden coup (which really was sponsored by the CIA, as he says) through the invasion in 2022. Forget the article, listen to the man himself.
He lies through his teeth, but that doesn’t mean this perspective isn’t instructive, especially if he and his fellow Russians actually believe it.
But he would wouldn’t he. But he had to renege on a treaty agreement not to invade Ukraine when Ukraine sent the nuclear missiles back to Russia.
Putin wants to have a statue built of him as the reuniter of the Tsarist Russian Empire – the be the modern Tsar. Everything else are excuses.
By the same set of excuses, the UK could argue that we invade the USA since they belong to us too.
Thanks for the sober verdict. So much in contrast witht the bulk …
The biggest mistake Ukraine made is not keeping the nukes that were on its soil when the Soviet Union collapsed. If it had, the invasion wouldn’t have happened. Even Putin wouldn’t have wanted to risk a mushroom cloud over the Kremlin.
what allows you to speak for the ‘fellow Russians’ ?
May i remind you that Mr Nadezhdin, a largely innocent contender, was dismissed just as the polls were finding that 30% of Russians were going to cast their vote for the anti-war candidate
Further. If they were actually inviting them, they should have done it right and just added them.
It was the time for it but lilly livers won the day.
And of course, there is the fact that Ukraine had nuclear weapons and only gave them up when they were assured that they wouldn’t need them.
That’s a deceit that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
It is simply not true that Ukraine had ownership and control of nuclear weapons. They had nuclear weapons based on their territory but they did not have the ability to launch them without the passwords and other safeguards that were solely under the control of Moscow.
A bit like the US nukes stationed in Britain.
I’m sure the West could have assisted Ukraine in making sure they worked. They did rely on technology from the 1960s after all.
“Both were nonstarters from Russia’s perspective, for obvious reasons“.
The “obvious reasons” start with “Russia’s leader is a psychopathic warmonger”.
Are you seriously asking that question?
A million casualties could have been avoided if the West had considered the Russian point of view, and negotiated better.
Not better, in good faith.
The Russian point of view is NOT the one expressed by someone who has commuted the presidency into a life-time job, who justifies invasion and killings by the delirious version of the history, who has jailed hundreds of people and is bound to do more harm. To his own people in the first place.
By not ignoring or glossing over the Russian position as you wrote.
Here is how:
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
Perhaps by stopping threatening the security of Russia by expanding NATO right up to Russia’s border.
BTW it doesn’t matter whether you think NATO is solely defensive. What matters is what the Russians think NATO is for! Nuclear missiles aimed at Russian cities doesn’t look very defensive to this writer.
In case you don’t know, the sole founding principle of NATO was for ‘defence’ against the communist USSR. USSR disappeared but NATO didn’t.
Why?
Because NATO is the most vile aggressive expanionist ‘defence’ alliance in human history. It is the organisation most likely to end human civilization sometime during the 21st century.
Your last hyperbolic sentence – which obviously you just couldn’t resist – punctures any claim you might make that you have a remotely reasonable position.
Ah, yes, the vile institution that invaded Russia as soon as Communism fell…..
I am not remotely concerned if you think my last sentence was hyperbolic.
When facts are considered hyperbolic it’s time to end the exchange of views.
The USSR continues to exist in modern day Russia. The only change is that it has abandoned any pretense of being Communist.
Whatever the “history interlocking Russia and Ukraine”, the fact is that Ukraine wants to be unlocked from it, which is its right as a sovereign nation.
Not an Englishman I know thinks we should remain ONE minute longer in Northern Ireland, so I suspect you may inadvertently be thinking rather anachronistically about that particular point of view.
The English have more sense than the Russians. But the argument is pretty much the same. Ukraine is a long-standing Russian imperial possession with a messy history of fighting, militarily it is uncomfortably close to Russia and would be a threat if in enemy hands, there are long-standing cultural ties, and some current economic ones. If this gives Russia a right to Ukraine, England would have an equally valid right to Ireland – if they wanted it.
Right. Because Ireland, as we all know, is on the verge of joining a Chinese-led military alliance that was set up to counter the UK.
Right?
Well, obviously not. But history affords more than one example of a hostile strategic enemy (say, Phillip II, Louis XIV, and Napoleon) of England/Britain attempting to establish itself in Ireland to gain advantage over it. And each time, the English did take notice.
Plus there are an awful lot of actual Russians in Ukraine.
Well, yeah. But if Russia had limited its claims to demanding the mostly Russian-speaking provinces (Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea) that would have been a very different story. One might still have been against a war on general principles, but the division of territory after the collapse of empires is a notoriously messy business with few clean outcomes. A peace deal that gave Ukraine freedom to make its own future independently of Russia in return for letting Russia keep hold of those three provinces might have been accepted by Ukraine (under furious protest, of course), and actual events suggest that the West might well have accepted it de facto. It is Russia’s demand that Ukraine become a Russian vassal state that makes a deal impossible – and that shows Russia’s claim to be only a protector of Russian-speakers to be a mere pretext.
When did Russia demand that?
Russia will not accept that Ukraine makes deals with the EU – it must stick to Russia-dominated trade deals – that is what caused Crimea to be invaded in the first place. As the article says:
Russia’s declared war aims are to ‘demilitarize and denazify’ Ukraine. That means changing the Ukrainian government to one Russia approves of, and making Ukraine incapable of resisting a future invasion.
Putin speaks of Ukrainians as a kind of Russians, and describes the two nations as one indivisible entity through history. His own declarations of some years ago say, essentially that OK, Ukraine is welcome to pretend that it is a separate country, but it remains part of the Russian family and should act accordingly
Russia has formally annexed not just the areas of Ukraine that have lots of Russians, but two additional oblasts. No reason except to ensure a strangle hold on Ukraine.
What more do you want? An invasion? Oh, wait …
By attempting to capture Kiev,,that was pretty “demanding”
So when the US invaded and occupied the entire countries of Afghanistan and Iraq it was to turn those countries into vassal states?
“A peace deal that gave Ukraine freedom to make its own future independently of Russia in return for letting Russia keep hold of those three provinces might have been accepted by Ukraine”
Would that include Ukraine allowing NATO (US) military installations on the Russian border? I suppose JFK should have just abided by Cuba’s choice to install Soviet missiles–that were actually further from DC than Ukraine is to Moscow? The USSR was clearly the aggressor and JFK was correct to push back. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, all logic evaporates.
No, it would include the US giving guarantees for keeping NATO military installations and foreign troops away from the Russian border – in return for some concession like Russia not sponsoring ‘independence’ movements inside Ukraine and maybe limiting military exercise close by. Confidence-building measures, as they are called. Meanwhile Ukraine could have made deals with the EU – exactly like Cuba made deals with the USSR. It may well be that Russia genuinely sees any Ukraine government that they do not fully control as an intolerable security risk. But other countries do not have an obligation to accommodate their paranoia, or their sense of superpower grandeur. If the facts are that Russia demands the right to control neighbouring countries, for whatever reason, at least admit it openly instead of hiding behind fake comparisons with Cuba.
It is like Hitler’s claim to be only a protector of German-speakers.
Remind me, didn’t Catherine the great build the city of Odessa? Was she Russian or Ukrainian?
The facts appear to be in flux:
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/12/29/ukraine-dismantles-statue-of-russian-empress-catherine-the-great
Was she Russian or Ukrainian?
Yes, she was the founder, Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg AKA Catherine the Great.
It seems to me that citizens of English-speaking countries, keeping in mind the latest events, should not talk too much about the justification for the demolition of monuments in other countries
The Christians built the Haga Sophia. The Greeks built temples all over Sicily. The Romans founded Bath, Doncaster, and many others. What about it?
She was of German origin, a princess from a principality in the Holy Roman Empire, she was a foreigner.
who, guess what, do want to be ruled by Putin. Why, I wonder
There are an awful lot of actual Indians in Britain, but that doesn’t justify a territorial claim by India,
And England would have a right to invade the USA
The typical Brit will be extremely happy when Northern Ireland leaves the UK.
Yep, get rid of it. It almost scuttled Brexit.
A more interesting parrallel might be the way that Wales has historically ‘belonged’ to England.
Historically, of course. English Kings traced their lineage back to the British Kings of Wales including King Arthur while the Tudors had y Ddraig Goch added to the Royal Arms for a time during their dynasty.
On the constitutional side, The Statue of Rhuddlan of 1284 legally united the Principality of Wales with the English Crown.
The Wales and Berwick Act of 1746 meant that, legally speaking, “England” would by default include Wales. This was only changed in 1967 by the Welsh Language Act. The Senedd recovered law-making powers in 2011, after 500 years although they do not have an indpendent Criminal Justice System.
The dates for similar events in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine are instructive.
The fall of the Kievan line of Russian rulers conincides with the end of the House of Tudor. The Claim to the rule of ‘All the Russia’s’ coincides with the Stuart ‘Kingdom of Britain’ claims.The Pereiaslav agreement which signalled the formal end of Ukrainian autonomy came about 80 years before the Wales and Berwick Act.
As a thought experiment I try to picture a Britain where Wales had seceded in 1920 and was now attempting to forge a defensive military union with Ireland.
Yes, that is a good parallel. But you are getting it slightly wrong. A better parallel would be that Wales was trying to enter the EU, post-Brexit. It was the EU negotiations, not the NATO handwaving that triggered Russia’s military actions.
But either way: do you really think that either scenario would justify an English invasion and reconquest of Wales?
Fascinating question isn’t it?
I would need to know what standard of justice we are to hold it to. By modern standards (the last 60 years) of international law then no, it would be considered criminal. Although the 1983 US invasion of Grenada suggests that might sometimes makes right in these things.
Thankfully, as it stands, we have had a more or less United Kingdom, hemmed in by the triumphant sea, these last 300 years and so have been spared the question of what we would do, in spite of the law.
In historical terms, however, it has not always been so. You mention Ireland, of course, who we kept in subjection for 800 years as we couldn’t afford an enemy at our backs. There was also a period known as the ‘Rough Wooing’ when Scotland was ravaged by English armies to punish it for seeking closer ties with France.
Well, history is full of dictatorships and massacres, and international law, such as it is, will probably keep changing. The question is simpler: do you think that this kind of behaviour is normal acceptable, and to be followed also by you and your friends in the future? Or not?
Hysterical overreaction by Ferguson so typical of his ilk.
I doubt even the Welsh Wizard would have let Wales go in say 1920!
After all the Great Western Railway needed that magnificent anthracite coal from the ‘valleys’, if nothing else!
,
No matter all of the legal precedents, when push comes to shove, you either try to kill your neighbours or you make the appropriate fences so you don’t have to..
Your thought experiment equates the current territorial status of the UK to the one Putin is striving to obtain with the invasion of Ukraine. Making the latter look legitimate, right ?
By extrapolation, poor Finland should promptly surrender, let alone the Baltic states and Poland. Next come the parallels for the Austro-Hungarian empire, Prussia …. I dont dare even start imagining what the European map would look like today.
Accessorily, may I remind you of the size of Russia (without adjoining the above-mentioned territories), and the fact that its density of population is 23 per sq mile (vs 725 in the UK). Is the author of the comment aware of the fact that it is chronically unmanageable (unlike Wales or Scotland, I daresay)
I keep wondering whether any of the free thinkers writing here have ever realised that they would have been long jailed (and their property seized) in Russia, had they attempted to exercise their freedom of speech.(it is not an issue in Scotland, Wales or N. Ireland, right?)
Because, if they realised it, they would have little doubt as to why those who have tasted the freedom – which the unherd commentators have always taken for granted (whichever part of the UK they are native to) – dont want to live under the dictatorship.
The parallels based on the chronology have little merit.
His point was, no matter who owns the land called “Ukraine” (because Lenin gave their land to the new country “Ukraine”) that the people living in the disputed area are Russian, want to be Russian, were being treated badly by Ukraine because they were Russian and he believes it is Russia’s duty to protect them. Completely different from Tibet, Ireland and Algeria, whose peoples all consider themselves of their own country, not China, Britain or France.
No. If Putin had limited his claims to Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea that argument would have had some currency. You could make good arguments for giving those areas to either side. But Putin demands control over Kiyv’s policymaking (no EU membership, ‘demilitarisation and de-n**ification”) and has formally annexed two further oblasts. The people there are no more Russian than the Algerians are French.
So you’d be okay with Soviet missiles in Cuba? Same difference. SMH.
False analogy. The Cuba situation was resolved so that Cuba remained a Russian ally, but Russia did not put nuclear weapons or significant numbers of troops on Cuba, and the US did not invade. A similar deal could easily have been made for Ukraine. Only Putin wanted *political* control of Ukraine. It was never mainly about keeping NATO troops away.
They also made a trade with the USSR, if they removed the missiles from Cuba, America would remove theirs from turkey.
And the whole world belongs to America!
And the USA belongs to Great Britain. We can all play that absurd game. I am looking forward to moving into the Whitehouse soon!
I am relieved reading it. Thanks
The overwrought cries of “traitor” are laughable. Was Barbara Walters accused of being traitorous when she interviewed Fidel Castro?
Exactly. CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden. It’s called journalism. But journalism isn’t supposed to happen under our new, “safer” order. Because “disinformation” might get out.
Laughable.
Indeed. When BBC Newsnight stopped providing objective information to its viewers – and instead just started inviting on people they disliked in order purely to harangue them (e.g. Maitlis) – then any claim to unbiased or informative journalism died.
The democrat electorate has sold the idea of free speech for a little comfort.
It’s not called the regime media for nothing. I’m totally on board with Carlson interviewing Putin; it’s good journalism. I hope he asked some tough questions though; that’s good journalism too. I would also hope the regime media would ask tough questions of its own leaders, but I don’t see that happening either. I didn’t watch the interview and I don’t intend to.
Tucker Carlson isn’t a journalist, Jimmy.
Yes he is, Plonk Socialist.
From what I’ve read Carlson barely got a word in, it descended into a 2 hour rant by Putin how it isn’t his fault “high precision missiles” regularly slam into civilian tower blocks hundreds of miles behind the front lines
“From what I’ve read”? Try watching the whole interview and you’ll get a different impression.
You’re asking plenty from a lazy mind.
Why? It’s of no interest to me watching Putin trying to justify an unprovoked invasion and rewriting of history. I value my time far too much to watch the ramblings of an evil dictator
Maybe listening to an evil dictator rambling in trying to justify an unprovoked invasion and rewriting history might make you better able to understand how the war might come to an end.
Not really. It will come to an end when either one side is defeated, or if they both decide it’s too much hassle to carry on fighting
You come across more and more as an ill informed idiot. There it is.
Because I don’t admire a dictator in the way you seem to? Or because I don’t wish to spend what little free time I have listening to his nonsensical ramblings? Perhaps after I watch Putins party political broadcast I’ll dive right into a book about the playful side of Herod?
Or when the USA runs out of weapons to sell.
well, if Putin is deemed to be the only one to determine how it will come to an end, good luck.
The bulk of the comments remind me of the 30th-40th of the past century, when the intellectual elites, largely in the continental Europe, but also in the US, were enamoured with the bolsheviks’ regime. Many of them never recovered from facing the evidence of millions being tortured and killed in the Stalin’s camps .
This time, the affinities moved to the other end of political spectrum, but what does it change?
But you have the time to read others’ opinions rather than decide for yourself after watching the interview in question? You could save the precious time you refer to by making up your own mind.
So why comment on something that you haven’t bothered to view/listen to? Your contribution to this discussion cannot be taken seriously if your knowledge of it is so self-admittedly superficial.
Because seemingly unlike most on here I don’t have a spare two hours to sit and listen to an attention seeking journalist and the ramblings of a despotic dictator. The few clips I’ve seen appear to back up the fact it’s no different from the nonsense that’s been coming out of Putins mouth ever since he sent the troops in
U’r absolutely right
Some of the looks on Tucker Carlson’s face were priceless though.
Billy Bob, you waste vast amount of time scribbling narrow minded, uninformed garbage on Unherd – which results in wasting the time of everyone else who reads comments on Unherd.
I dont think she was a traitor but im sure she was called that by some at least
Between this interview and Biden’s horrific press conference yesterday, I can’t quite get the scene from the film “Triangle of Sadness” out of my mind where the ship is finally going down and the American captain (Woody Harrelson) and the Russian tycoon are locked in a verbal brawl, yelling at, and past, one another uselessly as they both head for saltwater oblivion.
In the cinema, I remember thinking: yes, this is how the world will end – with the Yanks and the Russians yelling nonsense at one another.
This week has definitely been an instance of life imitating art.
Agreed. On the same day I watched Joe Biden reading off a teleprompter, mixing up the names of countries halfway around the world from each other, and unable to remember the church he got his son’s rosary from; then watched Vladimir Putin, with no visible notes, give a 30 minute summary of Russian Ukrainian history (from his somewhat skewed perspective).
I can not imagine any American President of my lifetime being capable of a 2 hour discussion of detailed geopolitics with no visible notes. The dichotomy between the fitness of these two leaders on this day could never have been starker.
I don’t want Putin’s policies or governmental structures. But a candidate with that kind of knowledge and control of himself would really be nice. Competence — the exact quality both Biden and Trump lack.
Biden is incompetent and demented. Trump is a vulgar narcissist, but he governed competently – 3 ME peace deals, no wars w Russia/Iran/China, controlled borders, reduced taxes, etc.
The great American media freakout has been comedy gold. Never mind that Putin has been interviewed before. Never mind that our press has sat with the likes of Castro, bin Laden, the first Ayatollah, and assorted others. This is different. Because reasons. That reason mostly being that Tucker is doing the interview and he has failed to be properly pro-war and pro-Ukraine.
Gee, I don’t know, maybe because it just gave Putin an obsequious, uncritical platform to spout Kremlin propaganda unchallenged. You know…because reasons.
Carlson has provided us with two hours of insight into Putin’s mind.
Surely there is value in that… and isn’t that legitimate journalism?
RT will give you that 24 hours a day. Legitimate journalism.
Much like CNN, MSNBC and Fox state sponsored “news”.
Yeah but it’s banned in the UK and EU – shades of book burning during the National Socialist rule of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s under one AH.
Banned in Australia too. It used to be on satellite, but no more.
what ‘insight’ do you have in mind ? Have you not heard it all? What would be a reason to offer to a deranged tyrant 2h+ of public time to present, ever again, his perverted version of history ?
How come that a ‘journalist’ representing a country which, for all its flaws, cherishes personal freedom, failed to ask a question about hundreds of political prisoners festering behind bars? about the killings ? about rejecting Mr Nadezhdin, the only opponent in the pres, election, on the pointedly forged grounds ?
My hometown, St Petersburg is mocking at the mock interview
bravo, well said
Putin is pursuing what he sees as Russia’s national interest. If only Western leaders would do the same, instead of making futile attempts to prop up a “rules-based system” that Putin, Xi, the Ayatollahs, Modi, Ramaphosa etc., etc. demonstrate on a daily business doesn’t exist.
Be that as it may, do you think it is in the West’s interest to let Putin swallow Ukraine and move on to the next conquest?
I agree with Ms Harrington. The Carlson – Putin interview suggests that those who think that Putin has a more “realist” approach to international relations and the war in Ukraine are projecting their own intellectual positions into the rest of the world too. Just like liberals do, only the opposite positions in the debate. In reality, Putin displays in most of the interview a mixture of romantic-nationalistic distortion of history and resentment. And I agree with Carlson that Putin seems completely sincere in what he is saying.
Psychopaths ALWAYS believe sincerely their view of reality – which is what makes them so driven and dangerous. And once they acheive power they will NEVER give it up until they die or are killed -so where does this leave us ?? Never-ending war or assassination – it seems that the counties surrounding Russia understand this…..
Vladimir Putin has been in power for 24 years. The United States has had never-ending war during that period. Russia, not so much. He’s not someone I admire, but he’s no psychopath either.
Completely sincere when he says things like he has no interest in attacking Poland? Like when he kept repeating the buildup at Ukraine’s border was just exercises? Like when he said the war in Donbas was purely grassroots, local resistance fighters? Putin is a proven, notorious liar, and anyone who believes a single word that comes out of his mouth cannot be taken seriously.
Of course he’s a liar. But after Ukraine, he’s also smart enough to know there’s no conceivable way he could take on Poland. It’s noticeable that he didn’t include Estonia in his list of “countries we would never invade”. Estonia is tiny and has a 25% ethnic Russian population. If Putin really wanted to test NATO, that would be his obvious play. But after 2+ years of WWI style attrition warfare, I doubt he’ll try that for a while.
The Ukraine war has demonstrated conclusively that “if we don’t stop Russia at the Dnieper, they’ll sweep across Germany and France” is simply absurd and we should stop making decisions based on it.
But after 2+ years of WWI style attrition warfare, I doubt he’ll try that for a while.
Hopefully Putin will be dead before the Russian army has recovered sufficiently to mount another invasion.
If he wanted to attack Poland, what is he waiting for? Seems he’s lost that chance if he did.
To be called a ‘traitor’ does not mean what it used to mean. Its new meaning is vague, but is commonly used to describe someone holding different opinions regarding foreign policy.
Almost as one, the left-wing journals of opinion from the NYTimes, up or down depending on your degree of contempt, decried Carlson’s decision to give Putin a hearing unmediated by opinion makers who occupy the prime talking head roles in the media. Just as predictably, the howls of ‘Putin Puppet’ slanders rose in its aftermath. Something of a veteran in these matters, I discerned a lot of the responses had been written in advance, with a few touches to suggest the writers had paid keen attention to the back and forth before pounding out their analyses to be the first out of the gate, the traditional goal of tabloid-style journalism. Carlson’s interrogation was a model of good journalism, given the constraints. He asked smart questions after first allowing Putin his march through a thousand years of Russian history, which can be seen as the price of admission. Putin is a paranoid; one saw quick glimpses of that in his responses. He is also self-pitying on behalf of Mother Russia, which has always been the outsider, the wallflower never invited to dance — except by Hitler. I was gratified by Carlson lifting the lid a bit for a global audience to show who really runs the show in the US, which is not the people elected to do the job.
“….the wallflower never invited to dance — except by Hitler“.
Remind me how that turned out.
I’m coming to the comments section late, but after viewing the entire interview. Putin comes across as clear eyed, very verbose but very knowledgeable of world history, and the current state of affairs (with several deliberate misstatements regarding population size, China’s GDP, etc.). He comes across as healthy, forceful and a belief that, in spite of early missteps in 2022, he is in the drivers seat in this conflict. From Putin’s perspective, the West (both U.S. and Europe) are committing self-inflicted wounds. And Putin is OK with that.
Carlson focused on drawing out why Russia invaded in 2022, which took a long time to get an answer. But doggedly, patiently he got an answer. He was ever so polite (his general style and ever more necessary when interviewing a world leader – rudeness wouldn’t be helpful in keeping the interview going). I was pleased to see he asked several questions regarding the WSJ journalist incarcerated in Russia. The takeaway was that there will be a deal, if the Biden administration wants it, but at a price to the West. Carlson’s critics will undoubtedly make ad hominem attacks regarding the interview. They won’t stick. His importance and influence will rise, much to the dismay of his small minded detractors.
The entire 2 hour interview was worth watching. Over 100,000,000 views at the last count, I assume most were snippets. Most of Carlson’s critics are seething with envy. Good!
Very perceptive. I especially like your cogent comment on Tucker Carlson’s style, his patiently drawing out answers from Vladimir Putin (though some were too drawn out). He’s good at it, and he seemed only a tad more hesitant and stilted sitting in the Kremlin across from a Russian strongman ruler than he is in his studios in Maine and Florida talking to people who have never ordered their opponents to be killed.
I did notice some problems with the sound in the broadcast. A couple of times it sounded rather hollow and dissonant. A couple of times that happened when Tucker Carlson let out one of his trademark laughs. Usually frequent and full-throated, his laughs seemed a little choked off this time, perhaps a sign of rare nervousness. It’s hard to describe the timbre of his laughs. It’s not the cackle of a Kamala Harris or the honk of a Jeff Bezos, but it has a character of its own.
I must confess, my mind wandered as Vladimir Putin meandered through more than a millennium of Russian history, but I made it through the two hours and felt rewarded for it. And I thought the pitch to release Evan Gershkovich seemed nicely put, though unsurprisingly, it failed.
Carlos, when are you going to start writing for Unherd?
You are my favorite commenter.
I think he might be a better fit at ConWom.
what about the political prisoners ? What about the numerous journalists behind bars ?
What about interviewing someone else – across the territory that represents 1/6 of the planet’s land surface ?
What about modifying the Constitution, to stay in power extra 6 years (!) on the top of the 20 past years?
Would you want to live in the country where the so-called parliament just ratified the law which, on the top of 7 years in prison, autorises to seize the property of those who are found guilty of ‘critisizing the Russian army’ ? Where people have regained the instinct of fearing that walls may have ears.
His importance and influence will rise, much to the dismay of his small minded detractors.
Really? He got fired from Fox because he was too much of a nut-job even for them.
I’m learning today what most American journalists think modern journalism is. They think that to be a journalist Tucker Carlson needed to challenge Vladimir Putin and fact-check his responses. They claim Tucker Carlson is not a journalist (which is laughable if you look at his resume), and that he violated journalism’s tenets.
But that conception of journalism is exactly why none of the mainstream journalists got to interview Vladimir Putin. He would not sit for that kind of interview. Tucker Carlson did get to talk with him, and we learned from what was said.
In my mind, the purpose of an interview is to hear what the person being interviewed thinks, and wants to say. It’s best thought of not as a debate. Tucker Carlson knows how to ask questions that draw out thoughtful answers. Vladimir Putin’s answers were, unfortunately, drawn out in more ways than one. But hearing his thoughts was helpful.
Many people think that Vladimir Putin is unpopular, and that he holds power only by an iron hand. That’s false. He’s very popular with Russians, a patriotic people who tend to favor strong leaders. His methods can be cruel and he does stamp out dissent, but he acts more with method than madness. Russia today is more democratic than it has ever been in its history.
We need to understand that in order to understand the war between Russia and Ukraine. That war is not a Manichaean struggle between evil and good. It’s nonbinary, more complicated and more complex than that. Russia is not as bad as it is made out to be, nor Ukraine as good.
Vladimir Putin is complex too. As Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
We should support Ukraine, as we are doing. But we should also seek to end the war, not to win it. As Cicero said, “As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars.”
The war between Russia and Ukraine has been smoldering for a decade now. It could go on for many more years. We may be able to end it. We should certainly try. That’s the point Donald Trump makes, and he’s right. Donald Trump said: “I don’t think in terms of winning and losing, I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people.” And later: “I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying.”
Ukraine’s offensive bogged down, and a stalemate has settled in. Vladimir Putin stands ready to talk. Maybe Joe Biden ought to consider it. What’s our alternative? Since we have committed to war until it’s won, what do we do if it is never won?
How effective would Biden be talking to Putin – considering he may well believe he is talking to Brezhnev.
Vladimir Putin stands ready to accept a surrender from Ukraine, with Ukraine as a Russian dependency and a pro-Russian government in Kyiv. If he has offered anything else, please show me where it says so.
You can always stop a war by surrendering to the other side. It would be interesting to hear from Trump why he thinks a Ukrainian surrender to his friend Putin is a good outcome – though I am not holding my breath. As for why it is worth fighting on, the US is keeping Russia in check without risking the life of a single US serviceman, and the Ukrainians seem happy to keep fighting rather than surrendering. Why force them to give up now?
Actually, you can stop a war by surrendering to the other side. It is the most common way that wars end. The 20th century era of “frozen conflicts” is a historical aberration caused by American (and Russian for a while) global hegemony.
Ukraine is entitled to keep fighting. They are not entitled to American tax dollars to do so. And I see no reason why it is in Americas interest to “keep Russia in check without risking the life of a single US serviceman.” Why? If anything, the Ukraine war has demonstrated Russia’s complete inability to threaten Western Europe. They can’t even take out their next door neighbor and we’re making policy as if the Red Army is going to blitzkrieg across Germany and France at any moment?
Negotiating is not surrendering. Negotiating is trying to find a solution that both sides will accept. Your notion of what Vladimir Putin will accept is based on what? How would you know?
Vladimir Putin has a lot of incentive to end this war too. He will win the election next month, but the political pressure will not end. And Vladimir Putin does feel political pressure.
The idea that we are cheaply degrading Russia’s military is a jingoistic talking point that doesn’t make sense. This war is taking a tremendous toll on Ukraine. It cannot outlast Russia. It’s time to face reality and try to figure out a solution.
The West negotiating with Putin makes as much sense as the Allies negotiating with Hitler in about 1943 would have.
“As for why it is worth fighting on, the US is keeping Russia in check without risking the life of a single US serviceman, and the Ukrainians seem happy to keep fighting rather than surrendering.”
Your suggestion is abjectly craven. You think the foot soldier in Ukraine who’s being conscripted to fight in America’s war against Russia–and make no mistake, without US backing there is no war–is happy to do so? If America truly believes in this war it should send it’s own soldiers to the front. We’d quickly learn how strong the sentiment is for war if that was a real possibility.
In fairness to Putin, he won’t just accept Ukraine’s surrender. He’ll throw in a heap of free war crimes too.
“The war between Russia and Ukraine has been smoldering for a decade now.”
That was one of the most revealing takeaways I thought. the West thinks this war started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia believes the war started with NATO declaring Ukrainian membership a fait-accompli in 2008 and took a distinctly kinetic turn with the Euromaiden coup (which really was sponsored by the CIA — hi Victoria Nuland) and removal of the President in 2014.
That difference in perspective explains a great deal of both country’s (Russia & US) behavior.
Excellent, thank you.
“Since we have committed to war until it’s won, what do we do if it is never won?”
That’s a scary thought since we havent really won a significant war–without Russian help that is–since the American Revolution. I think the real point is that–as in Orwell’s 1984–our MIC needs to have a perpetual enemy and Russia is it because China is too powerful and we need it to buy our debt.
We need China to make our stuff. Russia makes nothing we can’t get anywhere else.
Russia today is more democratic than it has ever been in its history.
That is the lowest of low bars. And not true, of course, since during the 90’s there was an inkling of democracy.
Do you know how Russian people, the ones who lived through those 90s, feel about that period? I don’t think you do.
Yeah, they miss Communism, because there was certainty then. Anyway, they need something to fill their days, and queueing up at the State Shop to buy potatoes provided them with that.
What’s our alternative? Same as we did in the Cold War – keep going until Russia loses. I have a very high regard for Ronald Reagan, and my favourite quote of his was “My version of how the Cold War ends is we win, and they lose”.
The main benefit to the Interview was it just further illuminated what a useful idiot Tuck is to the autocrats – ”Chuck us another soft ball please Tuck”.
His defenders will pull yet more contortions to defend this pathetic attempt to properly scrutinise and hold a dictator to account. They do nothing but embarrass themselves.
It is described as “an interview” that’s not the same as an interrogation
And how exactly is a journalist who is invited into an autocratic country supposed to “hold the dictator to account”? And when did that become a journalists job?
The best you can do is let the dictator talk and beclown himself. Tucker did that perfectly. And he still pushed back in several placed including on the WSJ reporter.
Both Tucker and this writer should call it what it is; not a ‘deep state’ but a neoconservative ideological impulse in much of Washington, surviving George W Bush to be maintained in the State Department and driven as much by new markets for shale gas as the traditional military-industrial complex.
Deep state is merely the new term for sedentary, self-serving bureaucracy. It has always been there, but has flexed its muscles more since Trump came to town with the aim of draining the swamp. Swamp creatures fought back.
Good on them. Somebody had to.
Pick up the phone, Joe.
“We’re neighbors with China. You can not choose neighbors just as you can not choose relatives.” — My favorite line from the interview.
This struck me as the perfect distillation of Putin. The man has a near deadpan manner, a hard rationalism, as Tucker says, an “encyclopedic command of history”, and a deep focus on how that history builds relationships among nations. (His history is likely off in some places, but it’s still the history he and his people believe.) I think Putin is foolish to believe the Chinese will never be interested in seizing Siberian resources, but he appears top be basing that assumption on a deep faith in historical national relationships.
In all these ways, he is the opposite of Donald Trump: angry and petulant, emotional, entirely focused on the present (hence his obsession with Twitter), attention span of a gnat, and completely transactional (forget what you’ve done before, what can you do for me now?). The latter may idolize the former, I don’t know, but the idea that these two men are anything alike beggars belief. They are polar opposites. Based on the interview, I fear Putin would wipe the floor with Trump. The only commonality appears to be that both men believe their policies should be driven by their own country’s interests, which hardly seems controversial.
While I’m vaguely familiar with Carlson, I had never watched more than 4-5 minutes of him before. I watched the whole 2 hours, and while Tucker’s laughing demeanor (was he nervous or is that just him?) seemed weird, I thought it was a very revealing and fair interview. He asked harder questions of the world’s leading dictator than the White House Press Corps ever asks Joe Biden.
“Encyclopedic command of history” – Encyclopaedic command of his version of history, more like. The version found in the Encyclopaedia Putinica.
Anyone interested in fully understanding the Ukraine War should not overlook the prescient predictions made a decade ago by Prof. John Mearscheimer of the University of Chicago. Certainly, beyond a doubt, the aggression of Russia against Ukraine is an unjust violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and evidence of stunning disregard for world stability, and of shocking brutality. However, the US, the EU, and NATO engaged in a sustained series of provocative actions between the fall of the USSR and the Crimean Invasion of 2014 over the strident objections of Russia and in contravention to previous assurances to Russia by the West. We cannot know if the ultimate outcome might have played out other than how it has, but it is worth considering.
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
Professor Mearscheimer (Foreign Affairs September/October 2014}:
” Did Cuba have the right to form a military alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? The United States certainly did not think so, and the Russians think the same way about Ukraine joining the West.”
“Even if Russia were a rising power, moreover, it would still make no sense to incorporate Ukraine into NATO. The reason is simple: the United States and its European allies do not consider Ukraine to be a core strategic interest, as their unwillingness to use military force to come to its aid has proved.”
What else is there to say?
The mistake by Biden et al was not indicating clearly that NATO membership for Ukraine was not being seriously contemplated.
In point of fact, they made sure that Russia knew the opposite was true.
Good. Now they should follow up, and make it happen.
Ukraine has never housed NATO nukes. For a brief period in 1962, Cuba housed Soviet nukes.
You are right. Vlad the Mad is not Tucker’s FRIEND, he’s Tuckers BOSS
“So it sounds like you’re describing a system that’s not run by the people who are elected“.
What would Putin know about a system that’s run by people who are elected?