TYLER DURDEN
Getting to the meat of the Ukraine war, Putin told Carlson that "The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed voluntarily and proactively to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and believed that this would be understood by the so-called civilized West as an invitation for cooperation and association."
"We were promised no NATO to the east, not an inch to the east, as we were told. And then what? They said, well, it's not enshrined on paper, so we'll expand."
"That is what Russia was expecting, both from the United States and this so-called collective West as a whole. There were smart people, including in Germany, Egon Bahr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party, who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that they knew security systems should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unified Germany, but a new system should be also established to include the United States, Canada, Russia and other Central European countries. But NATO needs not to expand. That's what he said. If NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia's borders. That's all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. In fact, he got angry once. If, he said, you don't listen to me, I'm never setting my foot in Moscow once again. Everything happened just as he had said."
The state of negotiations:
Vladimir Putin: I already said that we did not refuse to talk. We're willing to negotiate. It is the western side, and Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the US. It is evident. I do not want you to take it as if I am looking for a strong word or an insult. But we both understand what is happening. The financial support. 72 billion U.S. dollars was provided. Germany ranks second, then other European countries come. Dozens of billions of U.S. dollars are going to Ukraine. There's a huge influx of weapons. In this case, you should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table, rescind this absurd decree. We did not refuse.
Tucker: Sure, but you already said it. I didn't think you meant it is an insult because you already said correctly, it's been reported that Ukraine was prevented from negotiating a peace settlement by the former British Prime Minister acting on behalf of the Biden administration. So, of course they're a satellite. Big countries control small countries. That's not new. And that's why I asked about dealing directly with the Biden administration, which is making these decisions, not President Zelensky of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Well if the Zelensky administration in Ukraine refused to negotiate, I assume they did it under the instruction from Washington. If Washington believes it to be the wrong decision, let it abandon it. Let it find the delicate excuse so that no one is insulted. Let it come up with a way out. It was not us who made this decision. It was them. So let them go back on it. That is it. However, they made the wrong decision. And now we have to look for a way out of this situation to correct their mistakes. They did it, so let them correct it themselves. We support this.
Tucker: So I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding what you're saying. I don't think that I am. I think you're saying you want a negotiated settlement to what's happening in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it. We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that. That is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else's mistakes? I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbas. As I have already said by means of weapons. Lt me get back to furthering history. I already told you this. We were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991, when we were promised that NATO would not expand to 2008, when the doors to NATO opened to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and U.S. military bases started to appear on the territory, Ukraine creating threats to us. Let us go back to coup d'etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn't it? We may go back and forth endlessly, but they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?
Watch Putin explain that he had a signed peace deal (before BoJo arrived) here:
On the negotiation process and its failure: "There have been [talks] they reached a very high stage of coordination of positions in a complex process, but still they were almost finalized. But after we withdrew our troops from Kiev... the other side threw away all these agreements."
On his last conversation with Joe Biden: "Well, yes, he funds, but I talked to him before the special military operation, of course... I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away."
On the possibility of global conflict: "It goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of a global war and a global war will bring all humanity to the brink of destruction."
On the concept of de-nazification: "De-nazification... means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements... We have to get rid of those people who maintain this concept and support this practice and try to preserve it."
On Russia's territorial ambitions: "We simply don't have any interest [in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else]. It's just threat mongering."
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