Dissecting the Putin-Carlson Interview

This week every Ukrainian and Russian pundit on antisocial media is dissecting the Tucker Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin. To keep the amount of propaganda over the propaganda in check, and to alleviate my sense of FOMO, I offer my most unvarnished observations on the interview.  

My overall impression of Putin from this interview was that although he is a conniving little rodent, he seems like a rational little rat who appears to be approaching the conflict from a realpolitik perspective, exerting force on what he considers his sphere of influence. It was unfortunate that Tucker Carlson, who is clearly under-informed about the war, conducted the interview, and that he allowed Putin to speak at length, ad nauseam, and unchallenged. In between Carlson grasping for something intelligible to say, Putin’s rambling meandered through topics such as brain hemispheres, how great it is to have China as a neighbor and trading partner, and the need for countries to formalize relations with Elon Musk.

Putin did broach some coherent issues, and I discuss these below. As a disclaimer, although I am staunchly against Putin and his war of aggression, I refuse to dilute my analysis with (excessive) Ukraine cheerleading or party line agitprop. WARNING: The following contains inconvenient truths that may not comfortably align with Western rhetoric.

Here is my opinion on some of what Putin said:

1. NATO promised not to expand eastward after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. There are entire books written about this subject (here’s a great one). Regardless of what Gorbachev thinks the West promised him, NATO expansion happened. Russia has to accept that and deal with their insecurity issues in less geopolitically-disruptive ways.

2. Russia leads the United States on hypersonic cruise-missile technology. Yes, I’m afraid so. Although the US Patriot system has been very successful in taking out Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic missile in Ukraine, Russia (and China) lead the world in offensive hypersonic capability. In the 1980s the US decided to put all our aerospace technology eggs in the stealth basket instead of hypersonics.

3. The West attacked the Nord Stream pipeline. Not exactly, but close enough. Although initial theories included the Russians destroying their own pipeline, right now it looks as if the Ukrainians did it. Of course this is very embarrassing for the West, and countries like Poland and others that surround the Baltic Sea who have consequently been dragging their feet on any investigation into the sabotage.

4. The Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Maidan of 2014 was US/CIA sponsored and directed. There is no evidence of this. There is evidence that Tucker Carlson doesn’t know much about the recent history of Ukraine. It sounded like he didn’t know anything about the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko, or Yanukovych.

5. Yanukovych did not use the armed forces or police during the Maidan of 2014. Absolutely false. This is the whole reason the Maidan became what it did.

6. We should thank God the US government did not let Tucker Carlson join the CIA. Fact, obviously.    

7. Russia did not start this war in 2022. Whaaaaa? I think Putin meant he was attempting to end the entire conflict which started in 2014. Regardless, obvious horseshit.

8. Russia voluntarily retreated its troops from around Kyiv in April 2022 to uphold the terms of an initial agreement from the Istanbul conference. More horseshit. Russia was getting mauled in and around Kyiv, and risked losing their entire force in western Ukraine. The Istanbul agreement was dead in the water after the discovery of the war crimes in Bucha and Irpin.

9. Russia had a responsibility to denazify Ukraine. First, nothing Putin does has any altruistic nature to it. This ploy was simply part of his weakly constructed casus belli. Are there Nazis in Ukraine? Yes. Are there Nazis in Germany, Russia, America, Iceland, and Botswana? Yes. It doesn’t mean they are running the government. And regarding the threat of Ukrainian nationalists, everyone is a Ukrainian nationalist now thanks to Putin.

10. Tucker Carlson actually said, “You don’t control Kyiv. You don’t seem like you want to.”  I have no words.

11. If the West stops delivering weapons to Ukraine the war would be over in two weeks. It would take longer than that, but yes, I believe the conventional war would be over and Russia would be victorious. Although, I do not believe Ukraine would stop fighting, ever, and Russia would be mired in an endless insurgency.

12. Russia has no interest in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else. Not true. Putin has intensely expansionist ideals and called the dissolution of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century."  

13. Evan Gershkovich was working for the US government. Even though I am dumber for having listen to two hours of this claptrap, I have to give credit to Carlson for attempting, albeit in a clumsy manner, to secure the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter into his custody. Gershkovich may have been poking around in sensitive Russian military activities, or he might have been setup, but there is no way he was a spy.

14. It is impossible for Ukraine to achieve victory over Russia. It is never going to happen. Victory for Ukraine is absolutely certain if the West will make a concerted and deliberate effort to make it happen--hopefully sooner than later.