(Reuters) – According to an interview that aired on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia is willing to fight for its interests, but has no intention of expanding its war in Ukraine to other countries such as Poland and Latvia. The interview, conducted by Tucker Carlson, marked Putin’s first conversation with an American journalist since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.
In the interview, Putin was asked if he could conceive of a situation in which he would send Russian troops to Poland, a NATO member, to which he replied, “Only in one case, if Poland attacks Russia. Why? Because we have no interest in Poland, Latvia, or elsewhere. Why would we do that? We simply don’t have any interest.”
The interview took place in Moscow on Tuesday and was later aired on tuckercarlson.com. Putin’s remarks, originally spoken in Russian, were dubbed into English. He began by discussing Russia’s relations with Ukraine, Poland, and other countries.
The reason behind Putin agreeing to the Carlson interview, as stated by the Kremlin, was due to the different approach of Carlson, a former Fox News host, from the “one-sided” reporting of the Ukraine conflict by many Western news outlets.
Carlson is known for his close connections to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is likely to emerge as the Republican Party candidate in the upcoming November U.S. presidential election. Trump has called for de-escalation of the war in Ukraine, a conflict in which the Biden administration has strongly supported the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and has expressed dissatisfaction over the substantial aid sent so far.
In contrast, Carlson has criticized much of the Western media coverage of the war for being biased in favor of Kyiv.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, David Ljunggren, and Ron Popeski; additional reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
