Dmitry Orlov

Judging from the reaction in Western media, Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson has caused a great deal of confusion. The most terrible thing about it, from the point of view of the editors of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the other usual suspects, is that people in the West — over a hundred million of them — got to actually listen to Putin speak. The interview broke through an information blockade: Western media sources are not allowed to quote Putin directly and must carefully misconstrue his words to make them fit the approved Western narratives. Thus, they were not able to address the content of the interview directly; unable to quote from it, they were forced to resort to circumlocution, mischaracterization and innuendo. Luckily, they are quite good at that.

But what did the over a hundred million people in the West who actually watched the interview get out of it? Do they now fondly remember the year Putin’s predecessor Vladimir the Great baptized the Russians? (That was in AD 988.) Do they now understand the legal intricacies of the USSR’s dissolution and the promises made around the time the Ukraine was granted independence (which have since been violated in every possible way)? What was up with that history lecture anyway?

Putin seems to have done some homework on Tucker. Tucker studied history while attending Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut (but failed to graduate). Seeing as Tucker was fired as a journalist and is currently unemployed (i.e., a blogger), Putin naturally assumed that Tucker is an amateur historian with an incomplete professional education who came as a political emissary to hear some words of wisdom from the leader of a great nation on a certain specific subject — the Ukraine. Therefore, Putin saw it as perfectly reasonable to fill the lacunae in Tucker’s education by presenting a brief outline of the last 1000 years of Russian history with a specific focus on the territory that for just the last 3% of that history has been referred to as “the Ukraine” or “ukraine” or “okraina.” This word translates as “outskirts; fringe; periphery; border districts; outlying districts; marginal land.” This definition begs an obvious question: “The ukraine/okrainа of what?” Of Russia, obviously

Tucker seemed bewildered by Putin’s history lesson. His entire shtik of yapping out provocative questions and giggling at the answers had been derailed and he was at a loss for what else to do. And so he went back to basics, which, for any American, is business. And business hinges on The Art of the Deal, authored by Tucker’s lord and master, Donald Trump. And so poor Tucker was reduced to asking some obvious questions: is Putin willing to deal? The stunning answer was that, yes, Russia has never refused to engage in negotiations and wants peace and prosperity for all.

As far as the Ukraine conflict, Russia almost got what it wanted in İstanbul on 22 July 2022, but then Blundering Boris Johnson blundered in and told the Ukrainians to rip up the deal and to fight-fight-fight. No matter; if the US and NATO wanted to put an end to the hostilities in the Ukraine, all they’d have to do is cut off the flow of weapons and a couple of weeks later the war would be over.

But what about the upcoming war between Russia and NATO that various European leaders have been jibber-jabbering about? If Russia is attacked or invaded, said Putin, then that would mean war; if not, then not. Russia isn’t the least bit interested in attacking countries such as Poland or the Baltics: there is nothing there that Russia could possibly want. All Russia wants from them is for them to stop threatening Russia. Given that, they can either live happily ever after or curl up and die — Russia wouldn’t care.<

So much for war; what about energy? Well, said Putin, the Americans blew up Nord Stream, but there is one pipe of it (out of four) left intact and the Germans could open it up if they wanted to. There is another pipe running through Poland that’s been shut down — talk to the Poles about it. And the Ukraine has shut down one of its two pipes — ask them about it. The EU starving itself of energy is not Russia’s problem: they can open the valves any time.

I suppose that Tucker got what he wanted: now he can go back to Trump and tell him that Putin is ready to deal and that the way forward is clear. The immediate agenda is:

1. Stop support for the Ukraine; that will end the war. Then talk about what to do with the various regions of the former Ukraine. Putin made it clear that some of that territory is rightfully Polish, Hungarian or Romanian. Get everyone on the same page and hold a peace conference. There is no point in inviting the Ukrainians: they are Russian (as Putin patiently explained, handing to Tucker a folder of archival documents proving this fact) and what’s the point of inviting the Russians twice?

2. Tell the NATO-heads to knock it off with their insipid warmongering. Either they stop threatening Russia, or it’s no more money for them. That part is dead easy; again, as Putin patiently explained, the NATO-heads always do exactly what their Washingtonian masters tell them to do.3. Open up the gas pipelines: one through the Ukraine, one through Poland and the remaining Nord Stream pipe. That should be enough to rescue what’s left of German industry.

4. Putin also has some asks for the Americans. Shut down the southern border… do something about the $33 trillion debt… as a minimum. Deal with your own problems, please! Don’t worry about Russia or China, they’ll be fine without any of your help.

That seems like it ought to be enough for Tucker to take back to the home office. He did good; give him the vice presidency. But what about the audience — the hundred million plus people who have watched the interview so far?

I imagine it was a bit of a shock for them to hear the leader of a country speak for two whole hours on a wide range of topics without notes, quoting lots of facts, dates and figures and succinctly stating a number of important theses. They didn’t need to actually understand all of what he said, or even any substantial portion of it, to appreciate what sort of person Putin is, just as one doesn’t need training in classical music to listen to Itzhak Perlman perform Rondo capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra by Camille Saint-Saens to be able to tell that he is one hell of a violin player.

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