JRL NEWSWATCH: “What Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Means for the War in Ukraine” – Council on Foreign Relations
“… But it wasn’t getting bogged down in historical minutiae that most hurt Putin’s case. He undermined his claim to be ready for practical diplomacy by endlessly parading his ethno-nationalist obsessions. And not all of these were matters of distant history. Blaming Poland rather than Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin for starting World War II was only the most egregious example. By the time—very, very late in the broadcast—Putin got around to proposing negotiations, he had already made himself sound like somebody not worth negotiating with. …
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Q: Carlson knew he had to raise the case of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter now imprisoned in Russia. What did Putin say on this matter?
As with the interview as a whole, Carlson got a two-part answer … in which Putin combined … calm professionalism with an insulting provocation. He insisted … Russia is ‘ready to talk’ about Gershkovich’s case … [but] noted … such discussions are best handled quietly by the security services of both sides. Even so, he could not resist talking about what he wants … — the release of Vadim Krasikov, a Russia ‘patriot’ serving a long prison term in Germany for murdering someone Putin described as a Chechen ‘bandit.’ Equating Krasikov, a KGB hitman, with a widely respected young American journalist was too much even for Carlson, who objected that the cases were ‘completely different.’ They are, Putin admitted, but he said that he wants U.S. help …getting his own hired-gun out of jail. This final exchange encapsulated Putin’s approach to the entire interview. On issue after issue, he undercut a practical message with an overt reminder of why and how he and Western governments are at odds in the first place.”