This would be the first interview given by the Russian president to a Western journalist since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The rumor has been growing since this weekend on social networks since the American journalist Tucker Carlson, former presenter of the conservative channel
Fox News
and star of the Trumpists, was seen in Moscow.
According to the Russian daily
Izvestia,
the journalist was notably spotted during a ballet performed at the Bolshoi Theater.
And in a video filmed without his knowledge, Tucker Carlson suggests that the reason for his presence would be an interview with Vladimir Putin.
“We’ll see
,” he replies with a smile, when asked about this possibility.
“I just wanted to see because I have read so much about Russia, without ever seeing it
,” he also explains as to the reasons for his visit.
“I wanted to talk to people and see how it was going...and it’s going very well
. ”
The Kremlin, for its part, refused to comment on the holding of a possible interview, telling Russian journalists that it had
“nothing to announce at the moment”
.
With 9 million subscribers on his X account, Carlson is an essential figure in American metapolitics, and enjoys an aura - and an influence - within the Republican Party.
His services were requested on several occasions to moderate the party's primary debates for the presidential election.
Read alsoUnited States: Tucker Carlson, referee of the Republican campaign
Fired from Fox News last spring, the journalist has since tried to exist on his own, notably by creating his own media.
The former presenter seduces with his very divisive positions, particularly on American aid to Ukraine at war, which he disapproves of.
“The number of Russian casualties in the United States is zero.
I don’t know anyone who has been killed by Russia,”
he retorted during a televised debate last August against Republican Senator Tim Scott, who justified support for Ukraine against Russia.
Tucker Carlson is regularly accused of relaying Russian propaganda by his detractors from the Democratic camp.
“Democrats [...] are appalled at the idea of Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin
,” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene, a thunderous Republican parliamentarian in Congress and a fervent supporter of Donald Trump.
“We have a free press in this country, and we rely on people like Tucker Carlson to tell the truth!”
, she also wrote in support of the journalist.
The person concerned made a name for himself in particular through major interviews given to personalities considered pro-Russian, such as Colonel Douglas Macgregor, former senior advisor to the Minister of Defense under the Trump administration, whose interview was been viewed more than 13 million times on
“
Tucker Carlson has every right to question Putin.
[...] In the past, it was understood that journalists interviewed world leaders, even those with whom we were at war
,” he reacted.