‘Carlson is wrong’: Kremlin denies Tucker’s claim that only he sought Putin interview amid Ukraine war

The Kremlin, on Tuesday (Feb 6) confirmed that Tucker Carlson has been granted permission to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, Moscow rejected the former Fox News anchor’s claims that he was the only one among Western media figures trying to interview the Russian president amid the ongoing war.

‘One-sided’

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had agreed to the Carlson interview because the former Fox News host’s approach differs from the “one-sided” reporting of the Ukraine war by many Western news outlets.

After weeks of speculation and media reports, Carlson on Tuesday (Feb 6) confirmed he will be interviewing Putin saying that everything got finalised after months of planning. “There are risks to doing an interview like this, obviously, so we’ve thought about it over many months,” he said.

This interview would mark the first time that the Russian president would talk to a Western journalist one-on-one since launching its invasion of Ukraine or what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.

‘Not correct’

Kremlin said that in a four-minute promoting the expected interview, Carlson falsely asserted that he was the only one among the Western media trying to interview Putin. The former Fox News host claimed that “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview” the Russian president during the Ukraine war.

This claim was not only rejected by several American journalists and prominent networks in the US but also by the Kremlin spokesperson.

“Mr. Carlson is not correct, but he couldn’t have known that. We receive a lot of requests for interviews with the president,” said Peskov, during his daily briefing on Wednesday.

“When it comes to the countries of the collective West, the large network media, TV channels, (and) large newspapers can in no way boast of even trying to at least look impartial in terms of coverage,” he added.

The Russian president has “no desire to communicate with such media” because it’s “unlikely that there can be any benefit from this,” said the Kremlin spokesperson.

Why Tucker Carlson?

Peskov, on Tuesday, was also directly asked why Carlson was chosen to interview Putin to which he said the former Fox News host’s approach was “in no way pro-Russian, it is not pro-Ukrainian - it is pro-American”.

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The interview is likely to be aired on Thursday (Feb 8), Russian news agency TASS said, citing reports by the Wall Street Journal.

(With inputs from agencies)