Tuesday 13 February 2024

Kremlin Strikes Back at ‘Emotional’ Reaction of Scholz, Sunak to Putin-Tucker Interview

Kremlin Strikes Back at ‘Emotional’ Reaction of Scholz, Sunak to Putin-Tucker Interview

Kremlin Strikes Back at ‘Emotional’ Reaction of Scholz, Sunak to Putin-Tucker Interview





©Sputnik/Natalia Seliverstova






The Kremlin considers reactions from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson “emotional,” but believes that the most important thing is that they are aware of its content, Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.







Scholz has called the Putin-Tucker interview “absurd” during his recent meeting with US President Joe Biden, while Sunak also condemned the interview when speaking on air to Sky News.


“Apparently, they are familiar with the content of the interview, and this is the main thing for us,” Peskov told reporters. The spokesman mentioned that Western leaders have heard Putin’s stance on the conflict in Ukraine “another time” and this is the main thing.


"And their emotional reactions likely stem from the current state of affairs in their respective countries and their attempts to justify their actions to their taxpayers." Peskov said.


Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, released Thursday, lasted more than two hours and covered a range of topics, including the Ukraine conflict, sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, and Russia-NATO relations.



Putin wants to end Ukraine conflict – Tucker Carlson



Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to engage in diplomacy to end the fighting in Ukraine, but the longer it continues the less likely he will be to compromise, US journalist Tucker Carlson said on Monday.


Carlson spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he flew after interviewing Putin in Moscow last week. The video has been viewed hundreds of millions of times.


“Putin wants to get out of this war. He’s not going to become more open to negotiation the longer this goes on,” Carlson said in response to a moderator's question.


The West needs to keep in mind that “Russia’s industrial capacity is a lot more profound than we thought it was,” and that Moscow is having a far easier time manufacturing weapons and ammunition than NATO countries that have been supplying Ukraine, the journalist continued. 


There are competent people in US President Joe Biden’s administration, Carlson noted, but they lack perspective and see international relations through a very narrow lens in which every foreign leader is Adolf Hitler and every day is Munich 1938. As a result, Western governments have no real sense of what is possible or achievable.


“Leaders of any country on the planet, other than maybe the United States during the unipolar period, are forced by the nature of their jobs to compromise. That’s what diplomacy is,” Carlson told the crowd in Dubai. Putin practices diplomacy just like everyone else, but “his position is hardening,” he added.


Following Carlson’s two-hour interview with Putin, the Kremlin said that Russia has communicated its stance to the US quite clearly, but that Washington did not appear interested in talks.


“The US authorities know our position very well, they are perfectly aware of all of Putin’s main points,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency on Saturday. However, the American leadership apparently lacks the “political will” for negotiations.


“This is not an issue of knowledge, but an issue of desire. The desire to do something to get on to the track of negotiations. We have not yet seen such a desire or the political will for this (in the US),” Peskov noted.



















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