Tucker Carlson, who has “long been sympathetic to Putin and harshly critical of U.S. funding for Ukraine,” aired his interview with Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
Claiming that “Carlson provided Putin a platform to spread his propaganda to a global audience with little to no scrutiny of his claims,” CNN writes:
Over the course of the more than two-hour sit-down, the former Fox News host turned online commentator largely refrained from challenging the Russian authoritarian, whose brutal war on Ukraine has led to the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Those expecting a hard-hitting face-off will have surely walked away sorely disappointed by the long-winded and rambling interview, in which Tucker himself at times appeared lost.
CNN adds, “Carlson allowed the autocrat a free lane to manipulate the public and tell his version of history, no matter how deceptive it may have been.”
But do not take CNN’s word for it.
The prestigious Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has analyzed the interview in depth.
ISW is an independent, non-partisan, American nonprofit research group and think tank. It was founded in 2007 and provides timely and accurate research and analysis to policy makers, the media and the general public regarding issues of defense and foreign affairs.
Here are some of ISW’s findings, many containing the comment “Putin falsely claimed.” For the full assessment, please click HERE.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to use an interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson…to present to a wider Western audience a long-standing Kremlin information operation that falsely asserts that Russia is interested in a negotiated end to its war in Ukraine.
• Putin also attempted to use the interview to absurdly reframe Russia as the wronged party and not the initiator of Russia’s unprovoked war of conquest against Ukraine. Putin falsely claimed that Ukrainian “neo-Nazis” started the war in Ukraine in 2014 and that Russia’s full-scale invasion is an attempt to bring that war to an end…
• Putin continued attempts to justify Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 as responses to Ukraine’s and the West’s actions in order to defend his long-standing calls for regime change in Kyiv and Ukraine’s “demilitarization,” “denazification,” and “neutrality.” Putin falsely claimed that a US-backed “coup” in Ukraine in 2014 forced Russia to invade Crimea and begin military operations in Donbas in 2014. Putin falsely claimed that Ukraine initiated a military operation in the Donbas starting in 2014 and that Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk Agreements establishing the armistice that Putin broke in February 2022…
• Putin continued to propagate pseudo-history in an effort to deny Ukrainian statehood and nationhood. Putin reiterated long-standing Russian information operations to deny the existence of Ukrainian statehood and identity. Putin claimed that Ukrainians fundamentally do not exist as a nation and that Ukrainians are truly Russians whom various political actors reinvented as Ukrainians to erode Russia’s ability to control Russia’s borderlands with other Eastern and Central European powers. Putin rewrote centuries of history to this effect…None of Putin’s rewriting of history justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Putin also reiterated a quasi-realist world view that defines weakening the West and dismantling NATO as pre-requisites for the Russian-led multipolar world he desires to create. Putin consistently framed NATO’s expansion and existence as threatening to Russia and any future Russian- and Chinese-led global order. Putin claimed that world affairs develop according to “inherent laws” that have not changed throughout history wherein a country grows and becomes large and powerful before leaving the international stage without the prestige it once had.
These are some of the lies Putin told Carlson. Lies which Carlson swallowed sickle, line and sinker.
