Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky reacted strongly to his Russian counterpart’s interview with Tucker Carlson which aired last week, saying bluntly that he doesn’t “have time to hear more than two hours of bullshit about us.”
Earlier this month, the former Fox News host traveled to Moscow and sat down with Vladimir Putin for an hours-long chat. Among the topics, the Russian president offered an alternative narrative of World War II in which Poland “pushed” Nazi Germany to attack it—a mischaracterization of events similar to how Putin tried to justify his invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
On Thursday, Fox anchor Bret Baier, in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, asked Zelensky if he was aware of the interview.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I heard some messages and in media and also my guys who are advisers to me saw it,” Zelensky replied. “So I don’t have time to hear more than two hours of bullshit about us, about the world, about the United States, about our relations and this interview with a killer. So, I’ve got some—briefly—of what was there.”
The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, earlier reacted to The Washington Post with disdain for the interview.
“The only thing that genuinely triggers certain reactions is that Putin, a war criminal with an arrest warrant from The Hague tribunal, is being interviewed instead of being interrogated as he should by an investigator,” Danilov said. “That is the only thing he should be doing in the remaining days of his life, no matter how many he has left.”
Carlson’s interview has since been heralded by the Russian government as a “significant education resource” for teachers—despite Putin’s twisted history.
Carlson later chose to spend his remaining time in Russia to heap praise on Moscow’s subway system and the price of goods at a grocery store—even though for Russians, the cost wasn’t nearly as cheap as he implied.
