President Putin gives his first major interview to Western journalist since start of war in Ukraine

In February 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his first major interview since the start of the war in Ukraine to American journalist Tucker Carlson, Report informs.

During a conversation with a journalist, the president answered 60 questions in more than two hours.

In more than five hours since the journalist posted the interview on the social network X, the publication has received more than 60 million views, and more than 1.5 million views on the YouTube channel.

“Much of the interview constituted a familiar Kremlin history lesson about Russia’s historical claim to Eastern European lands, beginning in the ninth century, that Mr. Putin made little effort to distill for American ears. He opined on artificial intelligence, Genghis Khan and the Roman Empire," the newspaper says.

“You should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table,” Mr. Putin said. Minutes later, he added: “This endless mobilization in Ukraine, the hysteria, the domestic problems — sooner or later, it will result in an agreement.”

“We have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else,” Mr. Putin said. “It’s just threat mongering.”

The German magazine Compact rated Putin’s conversation with Carlson as one of the interviews of the year.

“This is already one of the interviews of the year: the famous American journalist Tucker Carlson was in Moscow and interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the German magazine emphasizes.

Representatives of the European Parliament also managed to comment on the interview, for example, Member of the European Parliament from the Freedom Party of Austria (APS) Harald Vilimsky called the president’s conversation with the journalist even more sensational against the backdrop of the information blockade from the West.

In turn, Carlson called Putin a very smart interlocutor. He noted that he spent about five hours on the interview, two of which he spent waiting for the president.