Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the head of state gave an interview to American journalist Tucker Carlson, who is in Moscow.
“Yes, I can confirm this,” Peskov said, answering the question whether Putin’s interview took place on February 6. In response to a clarifying question about the Russian leader’s impressions of this conversation, the Kremlin representative added that journalists themselves will be able to form an impression of the conversation when it is published.
Peskov also spoke on the topic of requests from Western journalists for an interview with the President of the Russian Federation. According to him, many applications of this kind are being received. At the same time, Peskov continued, in the case of the countries of the collective West we are usually talking about large online media, traditional television channels and large newspapers, which “cannot boast of attempts to at least look impartial” in covering what is happening.
“All these media take an extremely one-sided position. Of course, there is no desire to communicate with such media, and there is hardly any point in doing so. It’s unlikely that there will be any benefit from this,” the presidential press secretary said.
He noted that Tucker Carlson's position differs from many Western journalists.
“He has a position that is different from the rest. She is in no way pro-Russian, not pro-Ukrainian, she is rather pro-American. But at least it differs in contrast from the position of traditional Anglo-Saxon media,” Peskov explained.
The Kremlin representative also clarified that Tucker did not share his impressions of the conversation with the Russian President.
The day before, an American journalist published a video on his page on the social network X (formerly Twitter) in which he announced his intention to interview Vladimir Putin. According to him, there are “certain risks” in conducting such interviews, so the decision was considered for several months.
“That's why we do this. The first is because this is our job. We are in the field of journalism and our job is to inform people. A war that is changing the whole world has been going on for two years now, and many Americans are not informed about it. They have no real idea of what is happening in this region - here in Russia or 600 miles away in Ukraine. But they should know... Americans have a right to know everything they can about the war they are involved in,” he said.
According to Tucker, the Joe Biden administration twice tried to block his attempts to interview Putin. He clarified that the first time this happened three years ago and repeated last month (the White House later denied these accusations).
The journalist added that everyone will be able to see the interview, there will be no need to pay for it, and the recording will be presented without editing. In addition, Carlson said that the owner of social network X, Elon Musk, promised not to block the interview after publication on the platform.
The announcement of an interview with Putin, published on Tucker’s X page, has already received more than 73 million views. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, in comments to one of the entries in X, called for the arrest of those representatives of the American establishment who advocate the arrest of Carlson.
Later, in a comment to Izvestia, the American journalist said that he did not feel guilty for the interview with the Russian leader. “Why should I feel guilty towards the USA? Am I betraying my country? It’s not like that, I love America,” he said.
According to American journalist Alex Jones, Tucker himself told him that the interview with the Russian President lasted two hours and would soon be published. As Jones believes, Putin’s conversation with Carlson “will go down in history.”
“All censors (in the West. -
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) are on alert right now. All because they don’t want the Americans (to find out more. -
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),” the journalist added.