The importance of the Carlson-Putin interview

For the first time, millions of people in the West are being exposed to a counter-narrative that challenges the largely fictional narrative of the war carefully crafted over the past two years

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It’s only been online for just over three days and Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview has already made history.

So far, it’s been viewed by almost 200 million people — and countless more will no doubt watch it in the coming days and weeks. The mainstream media and pro-war establishment have reacted to it in predictably hysterical, and often hysterically funny, fashion, mounting a coordinated attack on Carlson. The attacks began before the interview was even aired — with liberal commentators in the US pondering whether Tucker should be arrested for espionage upon his return to the country, and some European lawmakers proposing to ban Tucker from the EU — and have of course escalated since the interview went online.

The agreed-upon, and rather unoriginal, line of attack seems to be that of labelling Carlson “Putin’s useful idiot”, as the Financial Times put it. According to the Guardian, the two-hour-long interview is a threat to global democracy, no less. But the most farcical takes are the ones that call into question Tucker’s journalistic integrity — for not asking the tough questions, not pushing back against Putin’s arguments hard enough, as “real” journalists would have done (unlike “so-called”, “self-styled” ones like him), and ultimately engaging in little more than “propaganda”.

Now, one may of course take issue with the way Tucker conducted the interview. What’s risible is the fact that such accusations are being made by members of the Western mainstream media establishment, which is essentially one big propaganda outlet in the service of the US-led imperial war machine, and of Western ruling elites more in general.

Western mainstream media journalists and pundits, and their political and economic masters, are not mad at Carlson because the interview didn’t meet certain journalistic standards — which they themselves regularly make a mockery of, particularly when interviewing Western leaders or allies, such as Zelensky — but because it challenges the Western media’s own propaganda: the largely fictional narrative of the war, of Russia and, perhaps most importantly, of Putin himself that they’ve been carefully crafting over the past two years.

The interview, and Putin’s arguments/claims, can, of course, themselves be characterised as propaganda, to a certain extent — in both Putin’s and Tucker’s intentions the interview is clearly aimed at steering the Western public conversation in a certain direction.

But it would be a mistake to characterise the Western narrative and Putin’s narrative as two opposite, but substantively comparable, forms of propaganda: the Western narrative — that Russia’s invasion was an irrational, unprovoked act animated by a paranoid dictator’s Hitlerian thirst for annexing territory — is a freakishly grotesque account of events that expects us to completely disregard historical and geopolitical dynamics in favour of a Disney-esque good versus evil story; on the other hand, Putin’s narrative — his account of events leading up to the war and his explanation for why he invaded, which take up most of the interview — is grounded in historical facts and logically coherent. This doesn’t make Russia’s actions “right”, it simply makes them comprehensible from the perspective of inter-state behaviour. As I wrote some time ago:

One may very well consider [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] morally reprehensible, but in light of the events that led to that decision, it can’t be considered unprovoked. On the contrary, it was a rational reaction to what Russians plausibly saw as an existential threat—and the same course of action Americans would have taken if they had been put in a similar position.

In this sense, much of what Putin said to Tucker was already known to anyone with a knowledge of the region’s history. If you can’t be bothered to watch the whole interview for yourself, here’s a breakdown of the most salient points made by the Russian president (edited for clarity).

The end of the Cold War, Russia’s openings to the West and NATO’s broken promises

The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed, voluntarily and proactively, to the collapse of the Soviet Union and believed that this would be understood by the so-called “civilised West” as an invitation for cooperation and associateship. That is what Russia was expecting both from the United States and the so-called collective West as a whole.

There were smart people, including in Germany. Egon Bahr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party, who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union that a new security system should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unify Germany, but a new system should also be established to include the United States, Canada, Russia, and other Central European countries. But NATO needs not to expand. That’s what he said: if NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia’s borders. That’s all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. He was right, everything happened just as he had said.

After 1991, when Russia expected to be taken into the fraternal family of “civilised peoples,” nothing like that happened. You deceived us — when I say “you,” I don’t mean you personally, of course, but the United States — you promised that there would be no NATO expansion to the east, but this happened five times, five waves of expansion. We endured everything, persuaded everything, said: no need, we are now our own, as they say, bourgeois, we have a market economy, there is no power of the Communist Party, let’s come to an agreement.

Moreover, I have also said this publicly before, let’s look at Yeltsin’s times now, there was a moment when a certain rift started growing between us. Before that, Yeltsin came to the United States, remember, he spoke in Congress and said the good words: “God bless America”. Everything he said were signals — let us in.

The 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the rise of the new US-led world (dis)order

Remember the developments in Yugoslavia, before that Yeltsin was lavished with praise, as soon as the developments in Yugoslavia started, he raised his voice in support of Serbs, and we couldn’t but raise our voices for Serbs in their defense. I understand that there were complex processes underway there, I do. But Russia could not help raising its voice in support of Serbs, because Serbs are also a special and close to us nation, with Orthodox culture and so on. It’s a nation that has suffered so much for generations. Well, regardless, what is important is that Yeltsin expressed his support. What did the United States do? In violation of international law and the UN Charter it started bombing Belgrade.

It was the United States that let the genie out of the bottle. Moreover, when Russia protested and expressed its resentment, what was said? The UN Charter and international law have become obsolete. Now everyone invokes international law, but at that time they started saying that everything was outdated, everything had to be changed.

Russia inquires about joining NATO; is rebuffed by the US

I became President in 2000. I thought: okay, the Yugoslav issue is over, but we should try to restore relations. Let’s reopen the door that Russia had tried to go through. And moreover, I’ve said it publicly, I can reiterate. At a meeting here in the Kremlin with the outgoing President Bill Clinton, right here in the next room, I said to him, I asked him, “Bill, do you think if Russia asked to join NATO, do you think it would happen?”. Suddenly he said: “You know, it’s interesting, I think so”. But in the evening, when we had dinner, he said, “You know, I’ve talked to my team, no-no, it’s not possible now”.

Nevertheless, after that, we tried to build relations in different ways. For example, the events in the Middle East, in Iraq, we were building relations with the United States in a very soft, prudent, cautious manner.

Russian containment/destabilisation as a constant feature of US policy

I repeatedly raised the issue that the United States should not support separatism or terrorism in the North Caucasus. But they continued to do it anyway. And political support, information support, financial support, even military support came from the United States and its satellites for terrorist groups in the Caucasus.

I once raised this issue with my colleague, also the President of the United States. He said, “It’s impossible! Do you have proof?”. I said, “Yes”. I was prepared for this conversation and I gave him that proof. He looked at it and, you know what he said? “I apologise”. But that’s what happened, I’ll quote. He said, “Well, I’m gonna kick their ass”. We waited and waited for some response — there was no reply.

This is a recurring theme in the interview: the idea that in the US the real decisions aren’t taken by the President, let alone by Congress, but by a security-defense apparatus embedded within the American state — what some may call the deep state — which often engages in policies unbeknownst even to the President.

The deployment of the US missile defense system near Russia’s borders

The third moment, a very important one, is the moment when the US missile defense ABM system was created. The beginning. We spent a long time trying to persuade the United States not to do this. Moreover, after I was invited by Bush Jr’s father, Bush Sr, to visit his place on the ocean, I had a very serious conversation with President Bush and his team. I proposed that the United States, Russia and Europe jointly create a missile defense system that, we believe, if created unilaterally, threatens our security, despite the fact that the United States officially said that it was being created against missile threats from Iran. That was the justification for the deployment of the missile defense system. I suggested working together — Russia, the United States, and Europe. They said it was very interesting. They asked me, “Are you serious?”. I said, “Absolutely”.

”We need to think about it”, I’m told. I said, “Go ahead, please”.

Then Secretary of Defense Gates, former director of the CIA, and Secretary of State Rice came here to this office where we are now talking. They said to me, “Yes, we have thought about it, we agree”. I said, “Thank God, great”. “But with some exceptions”.

In the end they just told us to get lost. I am not going to tell you the details, because I think it is incorrect, after all, it was a confidential conversation. But our proposal was declined, that’s a fact.

It was right then when I said: ”Look, but then we will be forced to take countermeasures. We will create such strike systems that will certainly overcome missile defense systems”. The answer was: “We are not doing this against you, and you do what you want, assuming that it is not against us, not against the United States”. I said, “Okay”.

Very well, that’s the way it went. And we created hypersonic systems, with intercontinental range, and we continue to develop them. We are now ahead of everyone — the United States and other countries — in terms of the development of hypersonic strike systems, and we are improving them every day. But it wasn’t us, we proposed to go the other way, and we were pushed back.

NATO’s eastward expansion

Now, about NATO’s expansion to the East. Well, we were promised, no NATO to the East, not an inch to the East, as we were told. And then what? They said, “Well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand”. So there were five waves of expansion, the Baltic States, the whole of Eastern Europe, and so on.

NATO opens the doors to Ukraine

In 2008 at the summit in Bucharest they declared that the doors for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO were open.

Now about how decisions are made there. Germany, France seemed to be against it as well as some other European countries. But then, as it turned out later, President Bush, and he is such a tough guy, a tough politician, as I was told later, “He exerted pressure on us and we had to agree”. It’s ridiculous, it’s like kindergarten. Where are the guarantees? What kindergarten is this, what kind of people are these, who are they? You see, they were pressed, they agreed. And then they say, “Ukraine won’t be in NATO, you know”. I say, “I don’t know, I know you agreed in 2008, why won’t you agree in the future?”. “Well, they pressed us then”. I say, “Why won’t they press you tomorrow? And you’ll agree again”.