President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has labored for many years to win allies within the West, utilizing his spy businesses to intervene in elections and deploying diplomats to construct hyperlinks with Kremlin-friendly politicians.
On Thursday, the world witnessed a brand new, verbose chapter in these efforts: Mr. Putin’s two-hour interview, taped in a gilded corridor on the Kremlin, with one in all America’s most distinguished and most divisive conservative commentators.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson, the previous Fox News host, Mr. Putin known as on the United States to “make an agreement” to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in an effort to finish the struggle. He sought to enchantment on to American conservatives simply as Republican lawmakers are holding up support to Ukraine on Capitol Hill, echoing the speaking factors of politicians like former President Donald J. Trump who say that the United States has extra urgent priorities than a struggle 1000’s of miles away.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Mr. Putin mentioned in response to Mr. Carlson’s query about the potential for American troopers combating in Ukraine. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt. Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia?”
Much of the interview constituted a well-known Kremlin historical past lesson about Russia’s historic declare to Eastern European lands, starting within the ninth century, that Mr. Putin made little effort to distill for American ears. He opined on synthetic intelligence, Genghis Khan and the Roman Empire. He additionally laid out his well-worn and spurious justifications for invading Ukraine, asserting that Russia’s objective was to “stop this war” that he claims the West is waging in opposition to Russia.
But Mr. Putin was extra direct than standard about how he sees his Ukraine invasion ending: not with a navy victory, however by an settlement with the West. At the interview’s finish, Mr. Putin informed Mr. Carlson that the time had come for talks about ending the struggle as a result of “those who are in power in the West have come to realize” that Russia is not going to be defeated on the battlefield.
“If so, if the realization has set in, they have to think what to do next. We are ready for this dialogue,” Mr. Putin mentioned.
Responding to Mr. Carlson’s query about whether or not NATO might settle for Russian management over elements of Ukraine, Mr. Putin mentioned: “Let them think how to do it with dignity. There are options if there is a will.”
The unique, Russian model of Mr. Putin’s feedback was not instantly launched, leaving viewers to depend on the dubbed translation in Mr. Carlson’s broadcast.
The interview, performed on Tuesday, was Mr. Putin’s first with a Western media outlet for the reason that begin of his full-scale struggle in Ukraine and his first with an American one since 2021. While Mr. Putin commonly gave interviews to mainstream American media in his first 20 years in energy, his spokesman mentioned the Kremlin selected Mr. Carlson this time as a result of these conventional shops take “an exclusively one-sided position” with regard to Russia.
Mr. Putin held out an olive department to the West, slightly than resort to a number of the fiery rhetoric he has employed earlier than home audiences. Afforded an opportunity by Mr. Carlson to develop on his efforts to painting Russia as a defender of “traditional values” in opposition to what he usually depicts as a degenerate and declining West, the Russian president was uncharacteristically restrained. “Western society is more pragmatic,” he mentioned. “Russian people think more about the eternal, about moral values.”
He added that “there’s nothing wrong with” the Western path, noting that it had led to “good success in production, even in science.” It was an echo of Mr. Putin’s assertion during the last two years that his battle shouldn’t be with the West as a complete, however with a ruling elite in search of to protect its world hegemony.
The interview’s launch Thursday adopted days of breathless anticipation in Russia’s state-run information media, which documented Mr. Carlson’s each step in Moscow — right down to the double cheeseburgers he was mentioned to have ordered at a former McDonald’s. The hoopla laid naked the Kremlin’s continued aspiration to enchantment to Western audiences, regardless of Mr. Putin’s on-and-off threats to make use of nuclear weapons and Russia’s arrest final yr of an American journalist, Evan Gershkovich.
Mr. Putin addressed each of these issues within the interview, apparently in search of to sign that Moscow and Washington can discover widespread floor. He informed Mr. Carlson that Russia had little interest in attacking international locations on NATO’s jap flank, opposite to the warnings of some Western officers.
“We have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else,” Mr. Putin mentioned. “It’s just threat mongering.”
Mr. Carlson pressed Mr. Putin to launch Mr. Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent that Russia arrested final yr on espionage accusations that The Journal and the U.S. authorities vehemently deny. Mr. Putin mentioned “the dialogue continues” on his destiny, hinting that the Kremlin was holding out for a good supply from the United States to launch him as a part of a prisoner swap.
Taken collectively, Mr. Putin’s look underscored his tactical confidence as his adversaries face a weak second: Ukraine is struggling on the battlefield, additional navy support is stalled within the U.S. Congress and Kremlin-friendly politicians are ascendant on each side of the Atlantic. Chief amongst these politicians is Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner whom Mr. Carlson ceaselessly praises however whom he didn’t ask about within the interview.
That confluence of circumstances implies that the interview with Mr. Carlson comes as Mr. Putin senses his “finest hour,” mentioned Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Mr. Putin’s present objective, Ms. Stanovaya mentioned, seems to be to safe a peace deal in Ukraine that may cement Russia’s management of the territory it has already captured and to put in a pleasant authorities in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. But to attain it, Mr. Putin seems to consider that he wants the United States to place stress on Ukraine to carry negotiations on ending the struggle, slightly than to proceed to withstand Russia’s invasion.
“He believes that he now has a window of opportunity,” she mentioned.
Indeed, Mr. Putin repeatedly predicted within the interview that the struggle would finish by diplomacy, however that the United States first needed to cease sending navy support to Ukraine and to persuade Ukraine’s leaders to barter.
“You should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table,” Mr. Putin mentioned. Minutes later, he added: “This endless mobilization in Ukraine, the hysteria, the domestic problems — sooner or later, it will result in an agreement.”
But it was removed from clear whether or not the message would get by to American audiences. Instead, many viewers marveled on the size of Mr. Putin’s soliloquy on Russian historical past originally of the interview — viewpoints already acquainted from years of the president’s speeches and writings. Mr. Putin expounded on matters just like the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the arrival of Christianity in Eastern Europe to attempt to justify his territorial claims in Ukraine.
“He didn’t say anything new,” mentioned Nina L. Khrushcheva, a professor of worldwide affairs on the New School in New York and the great-granddaughter of the Soviet chief Nikita S. Khrushchev. Russians are used to his historical past classes, she went on, however American viewers “must be going nuts with all this historical verbosity.”
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting.
