Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his well-known messages to the West in the interview broadcast last night with the ultra-conservative former host of the American channel FOX, Tucker Carlson: This The United States holds the key to negotiating a deal in Ukraine and that it was this country that started the war in 2014.
The interview with this ultra-conservative journalist was the first he gave to a Western journalist since the start of the war in Ukraine, in a two-hour conversation in which the Kremlin chief spoke in a relaxed manner and repeated his well-known messages to the West:
- “The United States controls the Kiev government, which refuses to negotiate, so the start of settlement negotiations depends on Washington”;
- “It was Ukraine that started the war in 2014 when President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown. “Russia’s goal is to end this war, and the military campaign that began on February 24, 2022 is an attempt to end it”;
- “Russia has not yet achieved its goals in Ukraine, one of which is denazification. Russians and Ukrainians are one people, so the conflict shows signs of civil war.”
- “If anyone came up with the idea of sending regular troops to support Ukraine, it would bring humanity to the brink of global conflict.”;
- “Those who have called for inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and defeating it on the battlefield are beginning to realize that it is impossible by definition, that this will never happen.”
- “The best thing would be to reach agreements, but on the basis of the understanding that Russia will fight for its interests to the end”;
- “The question lies not in who is in charge in the United States, but in the spirit of its elites. If the idea of domination prevails in American society, it will have the opposite effect”;
- “The world will change regardless of how events in Ukraine end.”
Release of prisoners
In addition to the classic messages to the West, Putin hinted at a possible release of prisoners in the interview: American journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage in Russia, was handed over to the USA in exchange for the Russian Vadím Krásikov, who was convicted in Germany of the murder of a Chechen dissident.