Putin’s Interview with Carlson to be Published Friday Morning on Kremlin’s Website

A few hours after the announcement on the X social network (formerly Twitter) of the upcoming publication of the interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave in an exclusive to former U.S. Fox News anchor Tucker Calrson, it was read by 90 million users. After many days of waiting, Putin and Carlson came to a denouement. The recorded interview, the first given by a Russian leader to a Western journalist since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine (February 24, 2022), will be published on Carlson’s website, followed by a text and video version to be published on Friday morning, February 9, on the Kremlin’s website in Russian and English.

According to Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “both the video and the full transcript in Russian and English will be published. Of course, this will happen after Carlson publishes the interview on his media platforms,” Peskov said.

“It is important for us,” the Kremlin leader’s spokesman emphasized, “to ensure that as many people in the world as possible know the global vision and opinion of the Russian head of state.” For Peskov, “the mere fact of Carlson’s arrival in Moscow to interview Putin became a significant event that had a special resonance both in the United States and in many other countries,” Peskov said, recalling that the Kremlin press office continues to receive requests from Western media, no matter what, to interview Putin, who always answers no. “We don’t understand why we have to talk to Western media, which has taken tendentious and openly one-sided positions with regard to Russia.”

Finally, again on Thursday, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone, during which the two leaders agreed to work together to protect the sovereignty of the two neighboring countries to counter “interference by outside forces in internal affairs.”