Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin for over two hours

I listened to the The Vladimir Putin Interview by Tucker Carlson (127 minutes), which is also available as Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview (Twitter). The article Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin by Tucker Carlson (Scheer Post) includes a transcript found on the Kremlin’s website. You have to subscribe to Tucker Carlson to get the transcript from him. Those dirty commies in the Kremlin just gave it away for free.

Vladimir Putin

The interview was over two hours. What follows are just some longer quotes I took from the transcript, with a few notes of my own. I’ve cherry-picked the stuff that Putin said that I broadly—or even sometimes very specifically—agree that he expressed in a realistic and historically accurate way. Where I disagreed with something that he said, I’ve noted it. I may have missed something; it’s a long interview.

He spoke completely extemporaneously, without notes or a teleprompter. It was clear that he was expressing how he personally sees these topics of international import. He didn’t seem to be playing to his western audience in any way. Much of what he said, he’s already formulated in similar ways—if not occasionally identical ways—in essays and in other speeches he’s given.

This is not to say that he’s a hero, or even honorable, but only to say that, as the leader of a foreign power with no small amount of influence—even if, as he acknowledges, it’s not even close to that of the U.S. or China—there seems to be a lot of opening for reasonably working with Russia under Putin.

Russia asks that it not be treated as a vassal. If that cannot be guaranteed, then there is no need for negotiation and the chips will fall where they may. Putin clearly indicates that he doesn’t think that Russia is holding such bad cards. Their economy seems to be impervious to U.S. machinations. Putin speaks of an economy that is working for himself and other elites, but doesn’t speak at all of the troubles on the ground that affect the large majority of Russia’s population. This is not unlike how the U.S.—or probably any other nation—reports on its economy.

What is clear is that many of the roadblocks to, say, Germany having its natural gas or Ukraine having peace, have been thrown up by the west. Russia has some conditions, but they seem eminently reasonable, at least for initial discussions to begin.

Still, Putin starts off with a bald-faced lie.

“if you don’t mind I will take only 30 seconds or one minute of your time for giving you a little historical background.”

Why was that a lie? Because it wasn’t just “30 seconds or one minute”. He proceeded to recite a Russian history lesson with a focus on “Where does Ukraine come from?” that starts with “[t]he Russian state started to exist as a centralized state in 862.” It went on for about the first thirty minutes.

After a few minutes, Tucker interrupts with “I am losing track of where in history we are?”

“It was in the 13th century.”

Putin then positively leaps forward in time to 1654. After several more minutes, Putin says “[t]his briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things.”

The modern-day discussion begins in earnest after that, with Tucker asking Putin why, if he believes that Ukraine is such a hodge-podge of cobbled-together lands that are really mostly Russian and Hungarian, didn’t he just take it back at the beginning of his presidency, 22 years ago?

The answer is obvious: because it wasn’t causing trouble then. Ukraine means “border”; even its name derives from being Russia’s border to Europe. The Soviet Union had let go of so many other territories—Russia’s aim wasn’t to regain territory, it was to guarantee a modicum of regional stability and security for Russia itself.

With NATO pushing right up to Russia’s borders—through the hand-puppet of Ukraine—that was no longer possible. That, and the nearly decade-long civil war that had been fomented in eastern Ukraine, right on Russia’s border, made it long-term impossible for Russia to just stand by and watch NATO—the U.S.—militarize its border.

The U.S. was positively braying about how it not only had the right to take up Ukraine as its ally, but also to move some of its own nuclear weapons there. It was utter madness to anyone who wasn’t 100% in the tank for NATO’s—and primarily the U.S.‘s—view of how the world works.

“I understand that my long speeches probably fall outside of the genre of an interview. That is why I asked you at the beginning: ”Are we going to have a serious talk or a show?“ You said — a serious talk. So bear with me please.”

Deep breath. We’re up to 1991 now. He finishes up the history lesson. Tucker asks,

“But we have a strong China that the West doesn’t seem to be very afraid of. What about Russia, what do you think convinced the policymakers to take it down?”

This is ludicrous on its face. How can anyone think that the U.S. is not afraid of China? They’re sanctioning them to death and encircling them with bases. Putin answers,

“The West is afraid of a strong China more than it fears a strong Russia because Russia has 150 million people, and China has a 1.5 billion population, and its economy is growing by leaps and bounds — over five percent a year, it used to be even more. But that’s enough for China. As Bismark once put it, potentials are most important. China’s potential is enormous — it is the biggest economy in the world today in terms of purchasing power parity and the size of the economy. It has already overtaken the United States, quite a long time ago, and it is growing at a rapid clip.

“Let’s not talk about who is afraid of whom, let’s not reason in such terms. And let’s get into the fact that after 1991, when Russia expected that it would be welcomed into the brotherly family of ”civilized nations,“ nothing like this happened. You tricked us.”

We move on from there to the underpinnings of the current conflict in Ukraine. Putin reiterates the history of the Minsk agreement up until the end of 2021 and mentions, not for the last time, how the west just lies about everything, that they “simply led us by the nose,” which, well, he’s not wrong. The U.S.—and Europe in its wake—sees itself always as on the right side of history and in the moral role in anything that it does, so it sees no problem with simply lying to get what it wants. The ends justify the means, if Russia is to be vanquished.

“[…] the current Ukrainian leadership declared that it would not implement the Minsk Agreements, which had been signed, as you know, after the events of 2014, in Minsk, where the plan of peaceful settlement in Donbass was set forth. But no, the current Ukrainian leadership, Foreign Minister, all other officials and then President himself said that they don’t like anything about the Minsk Agreements. In other words, they were not going to implement it. A year or a year and a half ago, former leaders of Germany and France said openly to the whole world that they indeed signed the Minsk Agreements but they never intended to implement them. They simply led us by the nose.”

With the next treaty on the table in March/April of 2022—nearly immediately after the initial Russian invasion—he describes why the Russian troops left Kiev. It was not, as detailed in the western press, because they had turned tail and run.

“My counterparts in France and Germany said, ”How can you imagine them signing a treaty with a gun to their heads? The troops should be pulled back from Kiev. ‘I said, ‘All right.’ We withdrew the troops from Kiev.

“As soon as we pulled back our troops from Kiev, our Ukrainian negotiators immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and got prepared for a longstanding armed confrontation with the help of the United States and its satellites in Europe. That is how the situation has developed. And that is how it looks now.”

When Tucker asks him what he thinks of possible U.S. participation in the war, with actual boots on the ground, Putin responds,

“This is a provocation, and a cheap provocation at that.

“I do not understand why American soldiers should fight in Ukraine. There are mercenaries from the United States there. The biggest number of mercenaries comes from Poland, with mercenaries from the United States in second place, and mercenaries from Georgia in third place. Well, if somebody has the desire to send regular troops, that would certainly bring humanity on the brink of a very serious, global conflict. This is obvious.

“Do the United States need this? What for? Thousands of miles away from your national territory! Don’t you have anything better to do?

“You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt – more than 33 trillion dollars. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight in Ukraine? Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement, already understanding the situation that is developing today, realizing that Russia will fight for its interests to the end. And, realizing this, actually return to common sense, start respecting our country and its interests and look for certain solutions. It seems to me that this is much smarter and more rational.”

Tucker asks Putin why he doesn’t just tell the world what the U.S. did to the Nordstream pipeline if he has, as he says, proof that the U.S. secret services blew it up. Putin chuckles and responds,

“In the war of propaganda it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media. The ultimate beneficiary of the biggest European media are American financial institutions. Don’t you know that?”

Tucker acknowledges that Russia would probably not make much headway in the western press with their allegations, but wonders then why Germany doesn’t defends itself and its interests. The destruction of the pipeline put it directly in thrall to the U.S., paying four times the price that any other nation pays for its natural gas.

“Tucker Carlson: Yes. But here is a question you may be able to answer. You worked in Germany, famously. The Germans clearly know that their NATO partner did this, that they damaged their economy greatly – it may never recover. Why are they being silent about it? That is very confusing to me. Why wouldn’t the Germans say something about it?

“Vladimir Putin: This also confuses me. But today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its national interests, otherwise it is difficult to explain the logic of their action or inaction. After all, it is not only about Nord Stream-1, which was blown up, and Nord Stream-2 was damaged, but one pipe is safe and sound, and gas can be supplied to Europe through it, but Germany does not open it. We are ready, please.”

Putin mentions the “golden billion”, a phrase I understood immediately, but that I’d never heard before. I’m not sure if he understands the unstated irony that he and his cronies are very much in the golden billion, but that probably most of the populace over which he rules is not. Perhaps he is appealing to them? Or to the other nations of the BRICS, like Indonesia and India? It’s unclear, but he’s trying to lead us to think that he truly believes that the world would be better if wealth was divided in a more egalitarian manner.

Perhaps he does, as long as he personally doesn’t have to give anything up. At any rate, it is safe to say that he thinks that wealth and power should accrue to the nations to which it naturally falls, either by resources or by sheer hard work, rather than to the nations that manage to take what they want. Russia and China have that in common: they are not seeking empire in the way that the U.S. very aggressively does. This much is clear.

“The world should be a single whole, security should be shared, rather than meant for the ”golden billion“. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable and predictable. Until then, while the head is split into two parts, it is an illness, a serious adverse condition. It is a period of a severe disease that the world is now going through.”

Putin probably has no idea how ironic it is for him to be lauding journalism, a field that he has decimated during his rule. Politskaya would like a word.

“I think that, thanks to honest journalism — this work is akin to work of the doctors, this could somehow be remedied.”

They quickly move on—though the subject of journalism would reappear at the end again—to the insanity of the U.S. wielding its most important asset as a weapon that damages the U.S. more than it does its intended targets. Putin talks about the US. Dollar and economic sanctions. I’ve quoted liberally from this section because it’s quite important to see how the stewards of the western economy either don’t know or don’t care that they’re destroying value for no reason. This, at a time when we need every reason we can get to fight climate change, rather than to fight stupid wars—either economic or military.

“As soon as the political leadership decided to use the US dollar as a tool of political struggle, a blow was dealt to this American power. I would not like to use any strong language, but it is a stupid thing to do, and a grave mistake.

“Look at what is going on in the world. Even the United States’ allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves. Seeing this, everyone starts looking for ways to protect themselves. But the fact that the United States applies restrictive measures to certain countries, such as placing restrictions on transactions, freezing assets, etc., causes grave concern and sends a signal to the whole world.

“What did we have here? Until 2022, about 80 per cent of Russia’s foreign trade transactions were made in US dollars and euros. US dollars accounted for approximately 50 per cent of our transactions with third countries, while currently it is down to 13 per cent. It was not us who banned the use of the US dollar, we had no such intention. It was the decision of the United States to restrict our transactions in US dollars. I think it is a complete foolishness from the point of view of the interests of the United States itself and its tax payers, as it damages the US economy, undermines the power of the United States across the world.

“By the way, our transactions in Yuan accounted for about 3 per cent. Today, 34 per cent of our transactions are made in Rubles, and about as much, a little over 34 per cent, in Yuan.

“Why did the United States do this? My only guess is self-conceit. They probably thought it would lead to a full collapse, but nothing collapsed. Moreover, other countries, including oil producers, are thinking of and already accepting payments for oil in yuan. Do you even realize what is going on or not? Does anyone in the United States realize this? What are you doing? You are cutting yourself off… all experts say this. Ask any intelligent and thinking person in the United States what the dollar means for the US? You are killing it with your own hands.

“Tucker Carlson: I think that is a fair assessment. The question is what comes next? And maybe you trade one colonial power for another, much less sentimental and forgiving colonial power? Is the BRICS, for example, in danger of being completely dominated by the Chinese economy? In a way that is not good for their sovereignty. Do you worry about that?

“Vladimir Putin: We have heard those boogeyman stories before. It is a boogeyman story. We are neighbours with China. You cannot choose neighbours, just as you cannot choose close relatives. We share a border of 1000 kilometers with them. This is number one.

“Second, we have a centuries-long history of coexistence, we are used to it.

“Third, China’s foreign policy philosophy is not aggressive, its idea is to always look for compromise, and we can see that.”

Putin expands on the topic of the shifting global economic picture, citing figures about the relative share of the G7 countries—it was the G8 until Russia was expelled only ten years ago in 2014!—versus the BRICS nations. The BRICS nations now account for more of the global economy, and certainly a large majority of manufacturing. The G7 have a much larger proportion of their share coming from banking and other financialized services.

And isn’t it wild that the ostracizing of Russia began in earnest (again) only a decade ago? Before that, there were sanctions, but they were milder. And before that, there was the crippling of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet. But still, Russia was still in the club a little bit, anyway. No alliances, no NATO, but they were in the G8. Then came the coup in Ukraine, provoking the annexation, and the nearly immediate banning of Russia from the G8. Their seat in the Security Council remains.

“Look, if memory serves me right, back in 1992, the share of the G7 countries in the world economy amounted to 47 per cent, whereas in 2022 it was down to, I think, a little over 30 per cent. The BRICS countries accounted for only 16 per cent in 1992, but now their share is greater than that of the G7. It has nothing to do with the events in Ukraine. This is due to the trends of global development and world economy that I mentioned just now, and this is inevitable. This will keep happening, it is like the rise of the sun — you cannot prevent the sun from rising, you have to adapt to it. How do the United States adapt? With the help of force: sanctions, pressure, bombings, and use of armed forces.”

Tucker asks about whether a change in U.S. leadership would help? Does Putin think that the Biden administration is particularly intractable?

“It is not about the personality of the leader, it is about the elites’ mindset. If the idea of domination at any cost, based also on forceful actions, dominates the American society, nothing will change, it will only get worse. But if, in the end, one comes to the awareness that the world has been changing due to objective circumstances, and that one should be able to adapt to them in time, using the advantages that the U.S. still has today, then, perhaps, something may change.”

Putin returns to the topic of the global economy, specifically with China’s and Russia’s role in it.

“Look, China’s economy has become the first economy in the world in purchasing power parity; in terms of volume it overtook the US a long time ago. The USA comes second, then India (one and a half billion people), and then Japan, with Russia in the fifth place. Russia was the first economy in Europe last year, despite all the sanctions and restrictions. Is this normal, from your point of view: sanctions, restrictions, impossibility of payments in dollars, being cut off from SWIFT services, sanctions against our ships carrying oil, sanctions against airplanes, sanctions in everything, everywhere? The largest number of sanctions in the world which are applied – are applied against Russia. And we have become Europe’s first economy during this time.”

Tucker asked Putin about the potential for change in the U.S. through electoral action, for fresh ideas of the sort Putin thinks that the U.S. needs in order to better fit into the global order that is emerging, whether it likes it or not.

“America is a complex country, conservative on the one hand, rapidly changing on the other. It’s not easy for us to sort it all out.

“Who makes decisions in the elections – is it possible to understand this, when each state has its own legislation, each state regulates itself, someone can be excluded from the elections at the state level. It is a two-stage electoral system, it is very difficult for us to understand it.

“Certainly there are two parties that are dominant, the Republicans and the Democrats, and within this party system, the centers that make decisions, that prepare decisions.”

Putin questions not only the wisdom, but also the morality, of trying to beat down any possible competitors on the global level. These competitors will exist by sheer force of numbers, no matter what. He cites Indonesia as a rising player, that just by the sheer size of its population and the accompanying manufacturing power, will take its rightful place among powerful nations soon enough.

“[…] it is necessary to continue ”chiseling“ Russia, to try to break it up, to create on this territory several quasi-state entities and to subdue them in a divided form, to use their combined potential for the future struggle with China. This is a mistake, including the excessive potential of those who worked for the confrontation with the Soviet Union. It is necessary to get rid of this, there should be new, fresh forces, people who look into the future and understand what is happening in the world.

“Look at how Indonesia is developing? 600 million people. Where can we get away from that? Nowhere, we just have to assume that Indonesia will enter (it is already in) the club of the world’s leading economies, no matter who likes or dislikes it.”

Back to Ukraine, with specifics about why Zelensky was elected and how he’s betrayed the people who voted for him, who’d elected him to make peace, to end the civil war. Instead, Zelensky expanded the civil war and provoked Russia into invasion. There were many, many ways to avoid the invasion. They would have required relinquishing some power to federalist territories in the east—as outlined in the Minsk agreements—but that seems eminently preferable to where Zelensky is steering the ship of state of Ukraine now.

“[Zelensky] came to power on the expectations of Ukrainian people that he would lead Ukraine to peace. He talked about this, it was thanks to this that he won the election overwhelmingly. But then, when he came to power, in my opinion, he realized two things: firstly, it is better not to clash with neo-Nazis and nationalists, because they are aggressive and very active, you can expect anything from them, and secondly, the US-led West supports them and will always support those who antagonize with Russia – it is beneficial and safe. So he took the relevant position, despite promising his people to end the war in Ukraine. He deceived his voters.”

Tucker asks why Putin doesn’t try harder to get negotiations going again? If he wants peace, then why doesn’t he go to the table with Ukraine. Putin responds that it is because Ukraine refuses to talk, that Russia has always been ready to negotiate—before the invasion and war, soon after the invasion, and ever since.

“President of Ukraine issued a decree prohibiting negotiations with us. Let him cancel that decree and that’s it. We have never refused negotiations indeed. We hear all the time: is Russia ready? Yes, we have not refused! It was them who publicly refused. Well, let him cancel his decree and enter into negotiations. We have never refused.”

At 01:50:00, he draws a comparison between the threat imposed on the world by a failure to control the production of nuclear weapons with that posed by AI. It’s impossible to stop it like we couldn’t stop gunpowder. There will come a time when we would need to regulate this internationally.

“Humanity has to consider what is going to happen due to the newest developments in genetics or in AI. One can make an approximate prediction of what will happen. Once mankind felt an existential threat coming from nuclear weapons, all nuclear nations began to come to terms with one another since they realized that negligent use of nuclear weaponry could drive humanity to extinction.

“It is impossible to stop research in genetics or AI today, just as it was impossible to stop the use of gunpowder back in the day. But as soon as we realize that the threat comes from unbridled and uncontrolled development of AI, or genetics, or any other fields, the time will come to reach an international agreement on how to regulate these things.”

Tucker asks about the NYT journalist who’s serving time in a Russian prison for espionage. Putin basically says: you have many cards to trade for him. Do so, and he’s yours. The only reason that Gershkovich is still in prison in Russia is because the U.S. refuses to negotiate and just wants him returned “for free”, when the U.S. has many prisoners that Russia would like back, people that they’ve similarly accused of spying for Russia while in the U.S. They traded for the basketball player (Griner?); they can trade for the journalist.

“I do not rule out that the person you referred to, Mister Gershkovich, may return to his motherland. By the end of the day, it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia. We want the U.S. special services to think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals our special services are pursuing. We are ready to talk. Moreover, the talks are underway, and there have been many successful examples of these talks crowned with success. Probably this is going to be crowned with success as well, but we have to come to an agreement.”

Back to Ukraine and a potential settlement/peace agreement.

“Tucker Carlson: So, I just want to make sure I am not misunderstanding what you are saying — and I don’t think that I am — I think you are saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.

“Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it, we prepared a huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He affixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said: “We were ready to sign it and the war would have been over long ago, eighteen months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talked us out of it and we missed that chance.” Well, you missed it, you made a mistake, let them get back to that, that is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes?

“I know one can say it is our mistake, it was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014 in Donbas, as I have already said, by means of weapons. Let me get back to further in history, I already told you this, we were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991 when we were promised that NATO would not be expanded, to 2008 when the doors to NATO opened, to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and US military bases started to appear on the territory of Ukraine creating threats for us. Let us go back to coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly. But they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?”

Just as an aside, a commentator on Twitter reflected my reaction to the juxtaposition of this interview coming out and the “diagnosis” that Joe Biden is mentally unfit to stand trial,

“Vladimir Putin just spent 30 minutes going over the last 1,000 years history of Russia and Ukraine in detail without notes.

“Joe Biden can’t remember when his son died.

“God help us all”