Putin tells Tucker Carlson Ukraine war can be ‘over in a few weeks’

Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t remember the last time he spoke with his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden, had a “personal relationship” with his predecessor Donald Trump, and reckons his country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine could end in a few weeks — if the West would just stop helping Kyiv defend itself.

These nuggets of Putin-think emerged from a two-hour, hotly anticipated interview the Russian president granted to ex-Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, which was published on the far-right commentator’s website on Thursday.

When asked by Carlson about the possibility of peace in Ukraine, Putin said: “If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons,” referring to Western aid to Kyiv. “It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it,” he added.

Speaking of the goals of what he called the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Putin said they had yet to be achieved, because one of the aims “is de-Nazification.” For the first time, Putin expanded on what he means by that. “This means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements. We have to get rid of those people who maintain this concept and support this practice and try to preserve it,” he said.

Asked about when he last spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden, Putin said “I cannot remember when I talked to him,” adding that the two last spoke before the Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Carlson never mentioned former President Donald Trump by name, but Putin did. “I had such personal relationship with Trump,” he said, adding he also personally liked George W. Bush.

When asked for his thoughts on X owner Elon Musk, who Carlson said was rumored to have had a chip implanted in his brain, Putin said: “I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk. He will do as he sees fit.”

Carlson, a provocative pundit who was ousted from Fox News last year, is the first Western media figure to interview Putin since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war has killed tens of thousands of people and prompted an international arrest warrant against the Russian president for war crimes.

Carlson has repeatedly questioned the United States’ aid to Ukraine and mirrored the Kremlin’s propaganda on numerous occasions.

He has argued that the West’s push to welcome Ukraine into NATO was to blame for Russia’s invasion, and said the war was “designed to cause regime change in Moscow.”

It is no coincidence that Carlson is the only foreign media personality to receive the Kremlin’s blessing for an interview with the Russian leader.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov earlier this week did not hide that Carlson had been handpicked because of his Moscow-friendly position on the conflict.

“It’s not pro-Russian, not pro-Ukrainian, it’s pro-American. It starkly contrasts with the stance of traditional Anglo-Saxon media,” Peskov said of Carlson’s position.

News of the interview has prompted furious reactions from established journalists, some of whom have sought a sit-down with Putin for years.

Anne Applebaum, an American journalist and historian, has accused Carlson of being “a propagandist, with a history of helping autocrats conceal corruption.”

This is a developing story.