Vladimir Putin rants about Ukraine in Tucker Carlson interview: Live

The BBC’s John Simpson offered a withering put down of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin.

The highly regarded correspondent and TV presenter posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the former Fox News host didn’t ask the Russian president “a single hard question”.

He added that he allowed Mr Putin to “drone on” and that was why the Kremlin didn’t allow “someone serious” to do the interview.”

Tucker Carlson met with NSA leaker Edward Snowden while in Moscow, according to Semafor.

The former whistleblower featured heavily in Russian media before seeking more privacy in his family life.

Mr Snowden was initially granted asylum in Russia in 2013 after leaking a trove of classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents, and then was granted permanent resident status in Russia in 2020. That year, he announced his decision to seek duel citizenship, stating in a tweet that “after years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son.”

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled Russian businessman, oligarch, and opposition leader, wrote in a thread on X that “everything Putin does has one goal – to keep him in power for as long as possible. That’s why he assassinates journalists, that’s why he invaded Ukraine – and it’s also why he let Tucker Carlson interview him”.

Putin jailed Khodorkovsky in 2003 on trumped-up charges and confiscated his oil company.

“As much as Putin and his propagandists might paint the West as public enemy number one in Russia, the truth is, he craves western attention and approval. Why? Because it gives him legitimacy at home,” Mr Khodorkovsky wrote on X on Thursday night. “Russians might be taught to despise the West, but at the same time, a lot of them still view Europe and the US as cultural role models. They watch western films, they buy western goods, they follow western sports teams.”

“So, when a prominent westerner says something complimentary about Putin, this holds a lot of weight among the Russian public, and it contributes to Putin’s approval ratings. And Putin knows it,” he added.

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia stands ready to negotiate a potential prisoner exchange that would free Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained last March on espionage charges he denies, and hinted that Moscow wants the release of its agent imprisoned in Germany.

Asked by Tucker Carlson whether Russia would release Gershkovich, Mr Putin said Moscow is open to talks but repeated that the reporter was charged with espionage.

“There is no taboo on settling this issue,” Mr Putin said. “We are ready to solve it but there are certain conditions that are being discussed between special services. I believe an agreement can be reached.”

He pointed to a man imprisoned in a “US-allied country” for “liquidating a bandit” who killed Russian soldiers during the fighting in the Caucasus: “He put our soldiers taken prisoners on a road and then drove a car over their heads. There was a patriot who liquidated him in one of the European capitals.”

Mr Putin didn’t mention names, but he appeared to refer to Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany after being convicted of the 2019 brazen daylight killing of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity.

German judges who convicted Krasikov said he had acted on the orders of Russian federal authorities, who provided him with a false identity, a fake passport and the resources to carry out the hit.

The Wall Street Journal reaffirmed in a statement that Gershkovich “is a journalist, and journalism is not a crime,” adding that “any portrayal to the contrary is total fiction.” “We’re encouraged to see Russia’s desire for a deal that brings Evan home, and we hope this will lead to his rapid release and return to his family and our newsroom,” it said.

Tucker Carlson’s interview is the “best thing that ever happened” to Vladimir Putin, says Belgium’s former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, as he lashed out at the former Fox News presenter.

“America tomorrow will suffer from having him spreading lies unchallenged and unfiltered. This is how democracies die.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin used an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to urge Washington to recognise Moscow’s interests and persuade Ukraine to sit down for talks.

Most of the interview focused on Ukraine, where the war is nearing the two-year mark. Mr Putin repeated his claim that his invasion of Ukraine, which Kyiv and its allies described as an unprovoked act of aggression, was necessary to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine and prevent the country from posing a threat to Russia by joining Nato.

Mr Putin pointed at Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to conduct talks with the Kremlin. He argued that it’s up to Washington to stop supplying Ukraine with weapons and convince Kyiv, which he called a US “satellite,” to sit down for negotiations.

“We have never refused negotiations,” Mr Putin said. “You should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table.”

Putin’s forces have seized large swathes of land from Ukraine since the invasion of February 2022, as well as annexing the entire Crimean peninsula earlier in 2014. Kyiv has said it will not engage in any peace talks that involve giving up parts of its sovereign territory.