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Tucker Carlson has returned to Moscow to interview Putin’s foreign minister, months after being criticized by the Russian president for his lack of ‘sharp’ questions in February.
Carlson posted a video to X from the Red Square in the Russian capital, lambasting the Biden administration, which he said had ‘driven the US ever-closer to a nuclear conflict with Russia’ over the decision to let Ukraine strike deep into Russia with long-range missiles.
He claimed the US was already in a ‘hot war with Russia, unbeknownst to most Americans’ that had brought the nation ‘closer to nuclear war than at any time in history’.
The former FOX News host slammed what he called Washington’s ‘shocking’ lack of communication with Moscow and riled against the perceived failure to share the ‘Russian perspective’ on the war.
Carlson also claimed that the State Department had blocked his proposed sit-down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he announced he would soon share an ‘absolutely fascinating’ chat with Lavrov via Elon Musk’s social platform, X.
Carlson said they had discussed how a ‘nuclear holocaust’ could be averted and the shape of Russia’s informal ties with China.
Russia confirmed a chat of some 90 minutes would be released within days once translated and edited.
Carlson posted a video to X from the Red Square in the Russian capital
The former Fox News host said he had returned to speak with Lavrov, seen here, due to what he described as the Biden administration pushing the US towards a nuclear war with Russia
Carlson claimed to have asked Lavrov ‘where exactly are we’ on the path to an ‘unprecedented conflict between Russia and the United States’.
He said he asked how the election of Donald Trump, thought to be the preferred candidate for Russia, would ‘mean an end to this war’.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said ‘Ukraine and other issues were raised’ in the conversation.
‘The emphasis was placed on the modern, current history of our difficult relations with the United States, the impact of all this on world geopolitics, the possibilities of the future state of affairs,’ she said.
Carlson asserted in the video that the US and Russia were closer to nuclear war than during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
‘We felt there must be someone behind the scenes in Washington working to make sure this conflict doesn’t become a nuclear holocaust.
‘But we found out that no, in fact, there was nobody.
‘[Anthony] Blinken, the current Secretary of State, cut off all contact between the U.S. and Russian governments. There is no back channel,’ he said.
Carlson claimed there had not been talks with Russia for ‘more than two years’.
Russia and the US do, in fact, remain in contact.
Only yesterday, the Pentagon said it had used its military hotline with Russia to communicate about developments in Syria.
Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder said the hotline exists ‘to prevent potential miscalculation’.
Reuters cited a US official in November 2022 in saying that the hotline to Russia had been used once since the start of the war, however.
The Pentagon said this June that the US had spoken with Russian defense chiefs to discuss the importance of open lines of communication.
Russia said that it had warned the US of the dangers of continued support for Ukraine.
In the video posted to X on Tuesday, Carlson also claimed that ‘American military personnel launched missiles into mainland Russia and killed at least a dozen Russian soldiers’.
While President Biden did allow American military contractors to deploy to Ukraine last month, reversing a de facto ban, Russia has not conflicted with the US military.
Putin and Carlson sat down earlier this year for a two-hour interview in which the Russian President took aim at President Biden
Critics say he let the Kremlin leader control the agenda during that interview and failed to press him on important topics such as allegations of war crimes in Ukraine
Biden controversially granted Ukraine permission to use its supplied ATACMS long-range missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russia after reports emerged that Russia had brought in some 10,000 North Korean soldiers to bolster its lines.
Russia appeared to respond with the unprecedented use of an experimental hypersonic missile on Dnipro, dubbed the Oreshnik, on November 21, and vowed to continue testing the weapon.
While Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons if cornered, the United States and its NATO allies have not. Three NATO members – the United States, France and the United Kingdom – hold nuclear weapons.
NATO maintains that it ‘does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia’ and ‘will continue to respond to Russian threats and actions in a united and responsible way’.
NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, did say earlier this year the organization was discussing putting more nuclear weapons on standby.
