Putin's (right) interview with Carlson is the first in Western media since the start of the Ukraine war (French)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow has no interest in expanding its war in Ukraine to other countries in the region or members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) such as Poland and Latvia or countries on the European continent, adding that the West has begun to realize the impossibility of defeating Russia in Ukraine.

Putin stressed - in an interview conducted with American broadcaster Tucker Carlson in Moscow and broadcast yesterday, Thursday - that his country only seeks its interests and will not attack a country when it has no interest in doing so.

Asked if he could imagine a scenario in which Russian forces would be sent to Poland, Putin replied that this could happen in only one case, namely if Poland attacked Russia.

He said that there had recently been voices calling for a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield, noting that the owners of these voices had now begun to realize that achieving this goal was impossible.

Relations with Washington

The Russian President also confirmed that the election of a new US president, scheduled for November 5th, which is likely to pit Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Joe Biden, will not change relations between the United States and Russia.

In response to a question about whether US-Russian relations could change with the arrival of a new US president, Putin said: It is not a question of who is the leader, and the relations between the two countries are not linked to a specific person.

Putin announced that his country is open to reaching an agreement to release American journalist Ivan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia for about a year on charges of espionage.

End the war

Putin added that if the US administration really wants to end the war in Ukraine, it must stop sending weapons to Kiev.

He pointed out that his country and Ukraine will reach an agreement sooner or later, pointing out that the path to negotiations is open.

He stated that stopping the war was possible if the decisions agreed upon in the peace talks held in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia, mediated by Turkey, were implemented, but Kiev backed away from that based on instructions from the West, especially Washington.

NATO expansion

Putin also expressed Moscow's discomfort with NATO's expansion policies since the 1990s.

He stated that NATO does not need to expand, saying that the expansion of the alliance means that the situation will be as it was during the Cold War, but closer to Russia’s borders, as he put it.

He stressed that the United States did not fulfill its promise that NATO would not expand eastward.

The Kremlin said that Putin agreed to interview Carlson - in his first interview with Western media since the start of the war on Ukraine in February 2022 - because the approach followed by the former Fox News anchor differs from the one-sided coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict followed by many media outlets. Western media.

Carlson has a close relationship with former US President Donald Trump, who calls for stopping the escalation of the war in Ukraine.

Washington comments

The White House commented on Putin's interview, saying that it was not necessary for the American people to realize the "brutality" of the Russian president.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Putin is trying to justify his actions in Ukraine with “fake and ridiculous reasons,” and that the truth of what he is doing in Ukraine must be clear to everyone, as he put it.

Carlson said that he conducted the interview because the American people have no idea about what is going on in Russia and Ukraine, and they should know because they are paying a large part of the costs of the war, in reference to the support that the United States provides to Ukraine, which he has always criticized.

Source: Agencies