“Sooner or later this will end in agreement,” was Putin’s message, arguing that Nato was coming to realise that defeating Russia on the battlefield would be impossible.
Does Putin realize that NATO is effectively fighting Russia with both arms tied behind it’s back right now? We’re funding Ukraine (who are doing a phenomenal job, fwiw), but we’re not even giving them the top of the line hardware. If the US actually got involved, Russia would pretty much instantly lose any glimmer of air superiority they have, and Ukraine could advance all the way to Moscow under NATO air cover. Like, the only reason Russia still exists is because NATO hasn’t even tried to fight Russia on the battlefield yet.
And we’re learning that a teenager with a drone can be hilariously effective against modern weapons.
So is Russia. Except Russia is learning how to combat the kids with drones too. They’re gaining invaluable battlefield experience that NATO troops simply aren’t.
Reports vary from side to side, from showing that Russians are curb stomping Ukraine to Ukraine is holding it’s own. So, sure, NATO tossing the kid gloves to Ukraine and putting up a fight is comforting, but it isn’t the whole picture. Russia wins a war of attrition. NATO is made up of democracies and war fatigue sets in fast when it’s someone else’s war. Russia is a de facto fascist dictatorship with deep oil pockets. The only thing that turns their troops around is the head of state dying, or a massive coup. Reports of ether being imminent seem to be rather premature.
How do you feel about Russia’s deep oil pockets now that Ukraine is going after their refineries and porta? Do you think Russia can continue to advance or hold ground while also defending large swaths of the western part of Russia? Genuinely curious
They’re gaining invaluable battlefield experience that NATO troops simply aren’t.
Oh, yes they are. Ukraine is in close contact with NATO countries and sharing intel. NATO countries are also buying drones in bulk right now. And developing ones that Russia will not see until they try to pick a fight with NATO.
If the US actually got involved air superiority would be the least of our worries. The minute any major NATO nation gets properly involved, the war goes nuclear very soon after
They should have thought of that before co-signing the Budapest accords. At least two NATO countries are already involved.
The last time Russian units engaged Americans in combat they were so outmatched that the Russian chain of command disavowed their own guys and pretended not to know them. Nuclear conflagration would be a much better death by comparison.
There are people over Putin too. No ruler can rule alone and without consent, his rich oligarch buddies don’t want to cruise their yachts during nuclear winter.
Mutually assured destruction is pretty much why no one will ever actually go through with that if their target also has nukes or is protected by a country that has them. It’s one of the major reasons no country that has nukes wants to disarm.
No worries. Libya did give up its nuclear program as well, but it was because all the countries that invaded Afghanistan in 2001 said, “do it or you’re next.”
You realize Muammar Gaddafi only died 12 years ago and Russia only invaded Ukraine two years ago? Nuclear weapon programs take at least that long to develop. Ukraine and Libya had programs (Ukraine actually had weapons) and abandoned them, much to their demise. If they kept their programs, they wouldn’t have had these problems.
The key word in my comment is “will.” That’s a prediction. You can ping me in 25 years to see if this works out. In the mean time, people are taking this prediction seriously (it isn’t only my prediction) when discussing global politics.
If the nuke comes out, it won’t make an ounce of a difference who has more of them: if only each side can manage to land a small handful, everyone is equally and utterly fucked.
This principle alone is why NATO has not engaged Russia more directly.
I wonder if people forgot, or maybe gen Z and millenials never really know how bad nuclear weapons are. Even a regional nuclear exchange would probably lead to a nuclear winter and then a nuclear summer, completely fucking the climate. As long as we have them, it’s inevitable that we’ll eventually use them. Just the law of large numbers / Murphey’s law. The wars climate change will cause will make that even more likely. But hey, lets keep playing stupid games.
This line of critique is wrongheaded and empowers Tucker. Putin already commands a platform far above Tucker’s, a media figure cannot provide a bigger platform for Putin than the one he already has. Many liberal journalists have interviewed Putin without facing this critique, it’s applied here because Tucker is a reactionary shithead.
The better critique is that you have for-profit entertainment companies capitalizing on this, and how that affects the content.
What liberal media journalists have managed to interview Putin since he began his invasion of Ukraine in 2022? I thought Carlson was the first Western person to manage that.
Adding the qualifier of “since 2022” seems to presume there’s an unspoken taboo between western liberal media that Putin shan’t be interviewed, rather than Putin being more restrictive than he already was and seeing an opportunity in Tucker. Lionel Barber is probably the closest a “real” US journalist could have been to Putin and writes about the increasing difficulty of this in 2020. This includes psychological tricks like being made to wait excessively long to weaken his cognition before the meeting. He has a good piece on Tucker’s interview about how Putin ran the show and used him.
The reason why Putin chose this interview is because Tucker is a locus of division in US politics. Tucker isn’t raising Putin’s platform, Putin is raising Tucker’s platform. This imbues Tucker’s reactionary politics with more legitimacy, which benefits Putin.
He did his best to show what an idiot Tucker was though, which is fun:
At another juncture, Carlson asked Putin if he saw God’s design in world political affairs. With a bored look that seemed to imply he was talking to someone with a below average IQ, Putin merely said “no” before explaining that international laws governed world events, not a deity.
Cucker Tarlson bringing us the “real” story. Putin is worried about slanted journalists not agreeing with his narrative, gets the biggest softball pitcher ever and can’t even talk around his ego. Mad cringe.
The part where he claims to have asked Bill Clinton if Russia could join NATO was hilarious, whether he ever asked Clinton or not. Other than that most of the interview was “We’re just reclaiming Russian land from over a century ago” and “China is the real enemy”.
It takes days or weeks for the polonium to kick in. He might look to be in the clear for now, but don’t count all your chickens before they get defenestrated.
You know when you’re at a park, see a dog, feel something squish under your foot, and then pick up your fooh to look at it? Yeah, exactly like that but in human form
Putin pushed the CIA sniper incitement conspiracy theory, but didn’t present evidence.
On the Nazi thing, he seems to be pivoting to he invaded because Ukraine doesn’t have strong enough laws to prevent Nazi speech. Again not very compelling.
He again brings up the conflict pre-invasion in east UA, but fails to mention that Russia was backing the insurgents.
He brings up that the change of power in 2014 wasn’t done to the letter of the UA constitution, but fails to mention that the current government clearly has a popular mandate.
He rehashes all the arguments that the West has been the aggressor since the fall of the USSR with NATO expansion.
Other than that it was pretty off topic. Tucker doesn’t press him much at all, and when he does Putin deflects and Tucker gives up.
Overall nothing you wouldn’t expect.
ETA: just remembered, this was kind of strange. The Nord Stream pipeline blasts were brought up and it was one of the few things that Tucker pushed him on for evidence that UA/US were behind it, but Putin doesn’t want to talk evidence. It’s kinda weird since this might be the one point where Russia has some ground to stand on, but Putin just defects. Maybe he doesn’t want to set a precedent that evidence is required.
The Nord Stream pipeline blasts were brought up and it was one of the few things that Tucker pushed him on for evidence that UA/US were behind it, but Putin doesn’t want to talk evidence. It’s kinda weird since this might be the one point where Russia has some ground to stand on, but Putin just defects. Maybe he doesn’t want to set a precedent that evidence is required.
I don't believe it was UA or US. IIRC (a) the mass media suspected it was Russia and (b) Russian navy was spotted.
That commonwealth is called the EU today and, along with NATO, is the reason why these countries are in a comparitively safer position. It would be much riskier for Russia to invade there.
Poland is a NATO member so I don’t think Russia is going to try anything there, at least officially. They might trigger some proxy war or internal political strife and claim to step in on a peace keeping mission though.
This is an interview that almost anyone that is a journalist or a "journalist" would like in america, the only reason people are "outraged" is because it is something they think they can use as a weapon.
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