Here are some excerpts from Putin’s meeting with Carlson.
- Putin’s war is not over
The main message Putin wanted to convey to the Americans: There is no point in helping Ukraine with more money and weapons. And Carlson, who himself has previously questioned US support for Ukraine as it seeks to defend its people and its land in the face of Russian attack, was more than happy to help deliver the message.
“If you really want to stop fighting, you have to stop the supply of weapons. It will be over in a few weeks. That’s all,” Putin said, claiming that it was up to the US to ask Ukraine to come to the negotiating table.
But that’s actually not the whole story, as Putin himself made clear in two pointed answers to Carlson’s follow-up questions.
First, when asked whether Russia had achieved its war goals, Putin said: “No. “We have not yet achieved our goals because one of them is freedom from Nazism.” Claims that Russia is trying to “Nazify” Ukraine are widely seen as code for the ouster of the country’s democratically elected (Jewish) President Volodymyr Zelensky. Giving a strong indication of what he meant by his remarks, Putin said, “We have to get rid of people” whom he claimed without any basis to “support” Nazism.
Second, when Carlson asked whether Putin would be “satisfied with the territory you have now,” the Russian autocrat refused to answer, returning to his point about Nazism and insisting that he had yet to answer the previous question. Haven’t finished answering. We will take this as another number.
