Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he was “not completely satisfied” with the interview after fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson failed to respond.
Putin, 71, appeared on Russian state television on Wednesday and spoke with propagandist Pavel Zarubin.
“To be honest, I thought he would be more aggressive and ask tougher questions,” Dictator said of Carlson, 54.
“And I was not only ready for that, I wanted it, because it would give me the opportunity to respond sharply, and it would add some specificity to our conversation. My opinion was that it would give.” However, he chose a different tactic.
President Putin went on to explain Karlsson’s reluctance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian state television on Wednesday and claimed he was “not completely satisfied” with his interview with Tucker Carlson.
The dictator spoke to the former Fox News personality for more than two hours, giving a monologue about Russia’s history and blaming Ukraine for starting the war.
Putin told Russian propagandist Pavel Zarubin that he expected Karlsson to be “more aggressive” and “ask tough questions.”
“He tried to interrupt me several times, but surprisingly for a Western journalist, he still remained patient and listened to my long responses, especially about history,” he said. Ta.
“And he didn’t give me a reason to do what I had prepared for. So to be honest, I wasn’t completely satisfied with that interview.”
In a more than two-hour conversation with conservative commentators, Putin monologued about Russia’s history and vented his frustrations with past and present U.S. leaders.
“A talk show or a conversation?” The president snorted as soon as the interview began.
The arrangement marked his first interview with an American journalist since before Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.
The Kremlin said Putin agreed to sit with Karlsson because his position on the Russia-Ukraine war differs from the “one-sided” reporting by many Western media outlets.
The Russian leader used the time to speak at length about the conflict and blamed Ukraine for starting it, a claim Carlson did not dispute.
“We were defending our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future,” Putin said, justifying the February 2022 invasion, the largest attack on a European country since World War II.
Carlson had no refutation of Putin’s claims about the Russia-Ukraine war
“He was patient and listened to my long answers, especially about history,” Putin said of the conservative commentator during a television appearance.
He also placed some blame on the United States for the ongoing war.
“If you really want to stop fighting, you should stop supplying weapons. It will be over in a few weeks. That’s it,” he said.
He further argued that Russia had failed to achieve its war objectives because “one of those objectives was denazification.”
The term is widely considered to be code for the ouster of Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s first Jewish president.
When Karlsson asked if he was “satisfied” with the territory Russia currently owns, Putin refused to answer.
After a long history lesson trying to prove that Ukraine has always been part of Russia, the dictator has launched a scathing attack on the United States, claiming that successive presidents have been unable to reach agreement on security issues. developed criticism.
He said he had enjoyed “personal relationships” with Donald Trump and George W. Bush and claimed he could not remember the last time he spoke to President Biden.
“Do I have to remember everything?” Putin said. “I have my own business to do. We have domestic political problems.”
Asked why he did not speak to Biden, Putin replied:Why should I call him? What should I talk to him about? Or what should I ask him to do? ”
He clarified that “a certain amount of contact is maintained” between the two countries.
The Russian president characterized Karlsson as passive, saying he “did not give us a reason to do what we have been preparing for.”
During the interview, President Putin called on the United States to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, a position echoed by President Karlsson and amplified by the Kremlin’s propaganda outlets.
It was his first interview with an American journalist since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.
Carlson has historically been soft on Russia, even speaking out in support of Russia. His attacks on the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine are regularly rebroadcast on Kremlin propaganda stations.
Carlson, who attended this week’s World Government Summit, said he had been trying to secure a meeting with the Russian leader for three years.
“I wanted to interview President Putin because he is the leader of a country that is at war with the US government,” the TV personality explained.
He further claimed that the government “stopped (his) actions by spying on (his) text messages and leaking them to the New York Times.”
This appears to be a reference to the message that started the chain of events that ultimately led to his firing from Fox News.
These were compiled into legal documents and published in full by the press, but there was no obvious link to the interview with President Putin.
“Our intelligence agencies were operating illegally against me,” Carlson claimed.
He made similar baseless claims in 2021, alleging that the National Security Agency was planning to leak his communications in an attempt to get him off the air.