By Air Cmde TK Chatterjee(retd)
Tucker Carlson has never been the flavour of America, but right now he is certainly the flavour of the Kremlin. His interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb 6 was everything that is not taught in the schools of journalism. Journalistic ethics were unabashedly compromised. Even to a viewer as far removed from journalism as I am, the interviewer’s attitude was perplexing. It was not the directness shown by Stephen Sackur of BBC’s Hard Talk or the comprehensiveness of the Christian Amanpour show. It was more of an opportunity given to Putin to put forward his views on topics convenient to him involving the Russian state. Mr Carlson did a good job of it. As per TASS, the interview published on X had five million views within five hours of it being put online. So, by all standards, it did invoke the interest of the public in general. The classic Western media was quick to pull down the interview as a farce and ‘softball’, blaming Carlson for not asking uncomfortable questions and Carlson’s ex-employer Fox News was conspicuous by disregarding the interview in toto.
Predictable and soft as it was, nevertheless, there were certainly some takeaways from the interview. For one, this was the first time since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February of 2022, that any Western journalist has interviewed the Russian president. It is also equally obvious that the Kremlin chose the interviewer well.
If one disregards Putin’s personalised, and highly questionable, version of European history including his claim of Joseph Stalin’s whimsical role in the creation of the territory of Ukraine by allotting land from Poland, Hungary, and Romania and therefore justifying Russia’s claim of ownership of eastern Ukraine; it still stood out that what started the war in Ukraine was not such flights of historical fantasies but a real existential threat due to eastward expansion of NATO when Ukraine was invited to join it. It was equally fascinating to note that once upon a time Putin had asked President Bill Clinton if Russia could join NATO and thus create a new global security system. This was turned down. Putin claimed Clinton can confirm this fact. A counterstatement from any quarter is yet to appear in the world press. If true, it is quite understandable why the proposal was turned down – without the bogey of Russia as an eternal enemy, despite being a part of a free world economy post the breakdown of the Soviet Union, how could the huge arms industry of the USA and Europe keep its cash machines churning?
A similar disclosure from Putin was about Russia asking President Bush Sr to join in the development of the anti-missile shield which was being developed for North America. That was turned down too. He names Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates as US government representatives who conveyed the refusal to the Kremlin. These claims were not questioned by the interviewer and in the absence of any disclaimers from the authorities concerned from the Western world, they will be assumed to be true. This refusal led to the development of the hypersonic missile regime, which could beat the anti-missile defenses. This cat-and-mouse game will keep the arms merchants of the world busy for some time to come.
What makes Vladimir Putin time for such an interview now?
Through this interview, he addresses not his domestic audience, but the world. It has been well established that Russia has not been defeated on the battlefield in Ukraine, and neither have the economic sanctions worked to the desired effects. Russia remains the largest economy in Europe with a positive growth rate. Russia is well equipped to sustain the war well into the foreseeable future. But on the flip side, the power of the US Dollar has shrunk in the face of the Rouble and the Yuan combined effect. Large portions of the world energy trade are being done in currencies other than the US Dollar. BRICS is growing and will overtake the G7 in the global trade share soon. The global South is coming together to form a counter to the bias that they have suffered for so long. This war in Ukraine has changed the world a lot and Putin has grabbed the timely opportunity to project his views to a global audience.
In Putin’s vision, the end of the Ukraine war is inevitable, and it will happen on the negotiating table. He seems ready for it, and why wouldn’t he be? He holds Ukrainian territory that he can barter. Except that he claimed not to know who to negotiate with. Zelensky, though the president of an independent country does not have the freedom to negotiate the future of his own country. The Istanbul talks were a failure and the blame for that was placed at the door of Boris Johnson of the UK. It was immensely obvious that the Russian president was in no hurry. He waits for the war fatigue to set in the West and the aid pipeline to Ukraine’s war effort to dry up. That will force the belligerents to the negotiating table and then Mr Putin will claim his pound of flesh.
In the end, it was a Mr Putin show all the way. He was never asked why the Russian missiles invariably hit residential buildings in Ukraine. Why did the massacre of Bucha take place or about the infamous mutiny in the ranks of the Russian army and the subsequent convenient accident of the plane carrying the masterminds of the mutiny? Neither was he asked to comment on his being declared a war criminal and his arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. These were questions inconvenient for the Russian President to answer and were hence not asked by the friendly interviewer.
What leaves a glimmer of hope is the thought expressed by Mr. Putin that the people of Ukraine and Russia being of the same origin, the wounds will heal someday, and relations will normalise – whenever that happens. The world will wait.
The author is an Indian Air Force Veteran.
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