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Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin is making waves even before it is published.
In Russia they are hoping for a lot from the publicity stunt.
Moscow - Fittingly, it was Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov who exposed the first falsehood about Tucker Carlson's visit to Moscow.
At the same time, there was great excitement on Russia's state TV about the former
Fox News
host's interview with Russia's president.
Tucker Carlson, the conservative anchor with a history of fake "news," claimed - falsely - that prominent US newspapers and television networks have refused to interview Vladimir Putin since his invasion of Ukraine, ignoring the Russian perspective.
Carlson called the Western media "corrupt" and accused it of lying as he confirmed in a video on Tuesday that he was in Moscow to meet with the president.
“Mr. Carlson is wrong,” Peskov said during his daily briefing for reporters.
“We receive a lot of requests for interviews with the president.” Peskov acknowledged that the Kremlin routinely blocks interview requests from major Western media outlets, but he said he gave Carlson the nod because “his position is different” from that of the major “Anglo-Saxon ones.” Media".
(The term “Anglo-Saxon” is a common blanket insult for the West, even though most people refer to Americans.)
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Tucker Carlson speaks with Vladimir Putin, who had US journalists imprisoned
Carlson's claim was astonishing considering that two journalists who are U.S. citizens are now in prison in Russia: Evan Gershkovich of the
Wall Street Journal
, who was accused of espionage and who was shot by Federal Security Service agents during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg last year was arrested.
And Alsu Kurmasheva of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
, who has both American and Russian citizenship and was arrested in October while visiting Russia from Prague, where she had been living.
Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News last April.
Once at Fox News, now active in Russia: US presenter Tucker Carlson.
(Archive image) © Brian Cahn/Imago
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The Kremlin's decision to allow the interview shows that Putin is interested in building bridges: to Donald Trump's MAGA movement and to its elements within the Republicans.
It appears to reflect the Kremlin's hope that Donald Trump would return to the presidency and Republicans would continue to block U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin could impact Ukraine war
Cutting off aid from the United States, Ukraine's biggest Western backer, could pave the way for Russia to victory in the nearly two-year Ukraine war.
Although the war is largely at a stalemate, Ukraine is facing critical shortages of soldiers, ammunition and weapons as it battles the far larger and better-equipped Russian forces.
Putin portrays himself as a guardian of traditional conservative values, joining forces with MAGA conservatives who have opposed gender-neutral restrooms.
Putin has repeatedly mocked the West's promotion of transgender rights.
Putin's government has also suppressed free speech, banned all public expression of LGBTQ+ identity, and jailed hundreds of war opponents, critics, feminists, lawyers, and cultural figures for speaking out.
Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump: Natural allies of Vladimir Putin
Pro-Trump Republicans are a natural ally for Putin on LGBTQ and other issues, but also because the Kremlin has long sought to exploit divisions in American society and interfere in U.S. politics, including through the use of Internet Troll farms.
This co-production could be the most effective and toxic propaganda clip ever created.
Janis Kluge, Russia expert, on Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin
“Carlson is smart and his agenda is clear.
He and Putin will work brilliantly together to reinforce the false narrative about Ukraine, weaken Biden and strengthen Trump," wrote Janis Kluge, a Berlin-based Russia analyst, about the likely rematch of the 2024 U.S. election. "This Co-production could be the most effective and toxic propaganda clip ever created.”
Russian President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
© Alexei Danichev/Imago
Peskov promises further interviews with Vladimir Putin
Peskov said the Kremlin preferred Carlson to major Western media outlets, which Peskov accused of bias.
The Kremlin spokesman added that there was “no advantage” for the Kremlin in giving interviews to established Western news outlets.
Nevertheless, Peskov emphasized that Western media would like to interview his boss.
“When it comes to the countries of the West, we receive requests from major network media, traditional television channels and major newspapers, which by no means can boast of at least the appearance of impartial reporting,” Peskov said.
“These are all media outlets that take a one-sided viewpoint,” he added.
“Of course we have no interest in communicating with such media and there is no point in giving them interviews.
Peskov confirmed that Carlson personally interviewed Putin.
Peskov also called Carlson “pro-American.”
Carlson has often echoed Kremlin propaganda about Russia's war against Ukraine, attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and opposing U.S. military aid to help Ukraine defend itself.
Cheers on Russia's state TV over Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin
Pro-Kremlin commentator Sergei Markov was among the jubilant voices celebrating Carlson's Putin interview and its ability to reach Trump Republicans, as well as echoing Putin's views on the war.
Markov falsely claimed that Western governments had “banned” major Western news media from interviewing Putin because “all Western governments know, in principle, that Russia is right.”
He provided no evidence to support this claim.
“This is the worldwide conspiracy that can partially destroy Tucker Carlson,” Markov said.
Konstantin Sonin, a prominent Russian economist and Putin critic who now teaches at the University of Chicago, said it was "amazing" that Carlson was going to Moscow "to find out what's going on" instead of visiting Ukraine. which is bombarded with Russian missiles every day.
“How is a visit to Moscow, the capital of the aggressor country, 500 miles from the war borders... supposed to help find out what is going on?” Sonin posted on X.
Others expressed similar dismay.
“Incredible,” wrote prominent Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats, who supports jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and currently lives in the United States.
“I am like hundreds of Russian journalists who had to go into exile to continue reporting on the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine,” Albats wrote.
“The alternative was to go to prison.
And now this [jerk] is teaching us about good journalism by shooting from the $1,000 Ritz suite in Moscow.”
Ukraine criticizes Tucker Carlson for interview with Vladimir Putin
Ukrainians were deeply offended by Carlson's interview and posted images on social media of Kiev residents sheltering in the subway with their pets as Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday.
Putin has been saying for months that he is ready for peace talks and has blamed Zelensky for the ongoing war.
However, when he proposes talks, Russia continues to demand Ukraine's full surrender, including the handover of territories that Russia is trying to conquer.
Moscow also calls for Ukraine's "neutrality," meaning it would have to give up its quest to join the European Union and NATO, as well as "demilitarization" and "denazification."
Putin has accused Ukraine of being run by a Nazi regime but has offered no evidence of this.
Moscow officials have prepared the Russian population for a long war of attrition.
At the same time, losses in the Ukraine war remain high on both sides.
Russia's troops also appear increasingly tired.
Many already want a quick peace deal that does not return the occupied land to Ukraine, recent opinion polls have shown.
However, such an agreement would be unacceptable to Ukrainians, including many living in the occupied territories.
Tucker Carlson is mentioned thousands of times on Russia's state TV
A Russian media channel on Telegram, Ostorozhno Novosti, reported that Russian state media has mentioned Carlson more than 2,000 times in recent days.
Some media outlets even tracked his vehicle and reported where he ate, who he met and where he visited.
Local media reported that Carlson visited the fast-food outlet Vkusno i Tochka, which replaced McDonald's when the chain left Russia.
“This attention to the US citizen has led to jokes appearing on social networks about the love of state propaganda for a foreigner who has come to the Russians,” Ostorozhno Novosti reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
© ITAR-TASS/Imago
Pro-war military reporter for Russian state television and blogger Yevgeny Poddubny, who is popular among Russian nationalists and has more than 700,000 Telegram subscribers, said Carlson's interview with Putin was proof that in the West "our truth is needed like never before."
Putin's top propagandist comments on Carlson's interview
State television propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, one of the Kremlin's anti-Western attack dogs, seemed to suggest that Carlson's interview would torpedo any last hope of approving new American military aid to Ukraine.
Solovyov said Carlson's visit came at "the worst possible time for the West" and he asked Carlson to join the Russian Journalists' Association, which Solovyov heads.
Another pro-Kremlin propagandist and prominent TV host, Olga Skabeyeva, simply posted a stark black-and-white image of Carlson's face next to Putin's with the words: "Thank you.
We are waiting."
Yuri Hempel, a pro-Russian lawmaker in Crimea, urged Carlson to fly to Crimea, the Ukrainian territory illegally occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014.
Independent Russian journalist Dmitri Kolezev noted that Putin has given numerous interviews to American television in recent years that no one really cared about.
“But now an interview with a presenter with a special reputation is apparently seen as an unprecedented breakthrough,” Kolezev wrote on X. “It is literally the second coming.”
Kolezev joked that Carlson was “naive” when he claimed in his video on Tuesday that Russia had invaded Ukraine, adding that Putin would correct him with the Kremlin’s official version: “that Putin didn’t invade anywhere;
It was NATO that attacked Russia.”
To the authors
Robyn Dixon
is a foreign correspondent on her third visit to Russia after reporting there for nearly a decade since the early 1990s.
She has been the Washington Post's Moscow bureau chief since November 2019.
Natalia Abbakumova
is a research fellow in the Moscow bureau of The Washington Post.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 7, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.