First of all, in the first half hour or so of his interview with Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed my historical breakdown of the background of this war (see Part 1 of my series on this war), and the relation between Ukraine and Russia! No surprise, history is what it is, and it’s only a matter of proper and careful study to uncover it, while trying to keep any bias away. Which doesn’t mean that I can endorse Putin’s story for 100%, either, but I thought it interesting to see the main history brought up, which is key for understanding the rationale of Putin and many Russians.
Of course, many people started criticizing both Tucker Carlson for giving the ‘evil Putin’ a platform, legitimatizing Putin. Hillary Clinton did not mince any words: “[Tucker] is a useful idiot”...
Paul Joseph Watson summarized the way both politicians in the US and the EU as well as the media lashed out against Tucker, in his own imitable way:
The interview itself had close to 200 million views on X itself, but lagged dramatically behind on other social media platforms. This prompted the following exchange:
More interesting is a series of tweets by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, headed as “Putin's Interview With Tucker Carlson Was Filled With Lies, Here Are Some Egregious Examples”. His X handle states he is “A leader of the Russian opposition, reformer. Ex-political prisoner (2003–2013). Follow for insights on current events in Russia and beyond.”
That is how he is presented in the West, but what is often neglected to be told as well, is that he is an oligarch who got very rich in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, taking full advantage of the privatization wave. In 2003 he was arrested on charges of tax fraud and embezzlement. He owned Yukos Oil Company, and there are many stories of mafia style crime, including assassination of opponents. He now lives in London.
A 1999 article in The Guardian, titled ‘White House under fire for 'covering up' Russian corruption’, links Khodorkovsky’s bank Menatep with “an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials”, a schema that included a close aide to Boris Yeltsin. The Guardian also added that “the Clinton administration had covered up a failed CIA attempt to infiltrate” this money laundering venture.
In 2011, the European Court of Human Rights published their judgement in a 2004 suit by Yukos against the Russian Federation, alleging that the Russian trial that had put Khodorkovsky behind bars was politically motivated. The court made short work of that claim: “Having examined the materials of the case and the parties’ submissions and despite its earlier conclusions under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (b) of the Convention in respect of the 2000 Tax Assessment (see paragraph 551), the Court has little doubt that the factual conclusions of the domestic courts in the Tax Assessment proceedings 2000-2003 were sound. The factual issues in all of these proceedings were substantially similar and the relevant case files contained abundant witness statements and documentary evidence to support the connections between the applicant company and its trading companies and to prove the sham nature of the latter entities (see paragraphs 14-18, 48, 62-63, 165, 191-193, 212 and 213). The applicant company itself did not give any plausible alternative interpretation of this rather unambiguous evidence, as examined and accepted by the domestic courts.”
To make Khodorkovsky into an ‘opposition leader’ and a ‘political prisoner’ is laughable, but it works to give him extra credibility when criticizing Putin (whether or not he has any ties with the CIA or MI6 is impossible to verify). It would be a logical fallacy to leave it at this to discredit his series of tweets, so let’s take a closer look, and address some of them on their merits.
I will go through his whole series, as some points merit a revisiting, and provide some more information on the conflict and the people involved.
His first tweet states:
“❌ He claimed Russia had become Europe’s largest economy
✔️ Russia ranks 32nd in Europe for GDP (PPP) per capita.”
As Putin clearly had mentioned that he was using GDP (PPP), and NOT per capita. Using the former measure, Russia ranks 5th, after China, the US, India and Japan, followed closely by Germany in 6th position. So not a lie, but a correct statement by Putin.
Second:
“❌ Putin once again trotted out the old lie about US promises NATO would not expand east
✔️ There was never such an agreement – even Gorbachev said so – and in any case, countries join NATO of their own free will. If Putin didn’t want NATO to grow, he shouldn’t declare war on his neighbors.”
A look at the in-depth analysis on that topic in my first article puts that to rest. Technically, there was indeed no formal agreement, but there is a solid trail of the statements and assurances that had been exchanged to get Gorbachev to agree with the German reunification.
The short version is this (from my article):
“In 2014, when then former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, admitted that the expansion of NATO was not discussed at that time. Gavin E L Hall, Teaching Fellow, Political Science and International Security from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, noted the following when describing this speech by Gorbachev in this The Conversation article:
“There was, he said, no promise not to enlarge the alliance, though in the same interview Gorbachev also stated that he thinks that enlargement was a “big mistake” and “a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made” in 1990.”
Such high-level negotiations, especially in very volatile and fast-changing situations, do rely on diplomacy and mutual understanding, even if a lot of that understanding and diplomacy never gets formalized into an official, signed treaty. Even Gorbachev talks about the ‘spirit of the statements and assurances made’, which forms the important framework within which decisions and concessions were made, and minds where changed. To reject the importance of such an assurance, simply because it was later dropped by Baker (as George H.W. Bush was absolutely against it!), and didn’t make it into an official treaty, is untenable.”
Third:
“❌ Putin denied ever having said the US was preparing to attack Russia
✔️ In fact, he did say that, three days before invading Ukraine, which he said would be the “advanced foothold” for the so-called NATO assault”
A bit more nuanced. The interview had this exchange:
“Tucker Carlson: On February 24, 2022, you addressed your country in your nationwide address when the conflict in Ukraine started and you said that you were acting because you had come to the conclusion that the United States through NATO might initiate a quote, “surprise attack on our country”. And to American ears that sounds paranoid. Tell us why you believe the United States might strike Russia out of the blue. How did you conclude that?
Vladimir Putin: The point is not that the United States was going to launch a surprise strike on Russia, I didn't say so.”
Putin had said: “The information we have gives us good reason to believe that Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the subsequent deployment of NATO facilities has already been decided and is only a matter of time. We clearly understand that given this scenario, the level of military threats to Russia will increase dramatically, several times over. And I would like to emphasize at this point that the risk of a sudden strike at our country will multiply.” That is not the same as ‘denying he ever said the US was preparing to attack Russia’, which is a much more direct and clear statement. Was Putin’s intent to say that the US had an actual attack plan for such a surprise strike that he got wind of? “The point is not that the United States was going to”. Putin was talking about the increased risk, “like a knife to the throat”. This is an important nuance: the aim of his words was the risk posed by the continued expansion of NATO, down to Russia’s doorstep, in Ukraine, and not to talk about credible intelligence of an impending surprise attack. Parsing words? Perhaps, but it shows at least that this cannot simply be brushed of as ‘a lie’.
Fourth:
“❌ He said the Maidan protests turned violent, even though Yanukovych refused to use any force against them
✔️ Yanukovych’s Berkut riot police brutally dispersed protesters, and its snipers shot dead 76 people in three days in February 2014”
This is very interesting, as just very recently a study has made it to Western news outlets that the Maidan protests were a false flag operation, and that the Berkut riot police were NOT the shooters who killed those protesters. The study, titled “The “snipers’ massacre” on the Maidan in Ukraine”, was published on October 16, 2023, was written by Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian and Canadian political scientist at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. (A 15 minute interview with him about this topic can be found here).
A December 11, 2023 article by The Grayzone, titled “Ukrainian trial demonstrates 2014 Maidan massacre was false flag” states very clearly: “Two police officers charged with the mass shooting of opposition protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2014 have been released after a Ukrainian court determined the fatal shots in the infamous massacre were fired from an opposition-controlled building.”
I had written about the snipers on Maidan in an August 1 2022 article, The War in Ukraine: Europe’s meddling, and concluded “And with snipers firing on both police and protestors, and very high-level officials ordering the police to leave Kiev… There was an agenda, that has no regards for the democratic process, even if it nominally purports to defend democracy.” Now we can piece the full story together, and assign a name: Right Sector and Svoboda, both neo-Nazi outfits, brownshirts hired by the Americans (including the recently retired Victoria Nuland) behind this color-revolution to overthrow the democratically re-elected president of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, to incite violence, to increase pressure on Yanukovich to resign. He eventually buckled, when the killing reached tens of victims.
The Grayzone continues: “By contrast, the mainstream media has so far remained eerily indifferent. In an apparent attempt to distort the trial’s outcome, several outlets — including Reuters — simply referred to the court “sentencing” the officers in their headlines. The Kyiv Post went as far as falsely claiming all five had been found “guilty” of “Maidan crimes.”
But there is more to the story than these outlets have let on. As even the Western-funded Kyiv Independent acknowledged, “a former top investigator” previously tasked with probing the massacre said the verdict followed years of deliberate sabotage by Ukrainian authorities, who “have done their best to make sure there are no real results.””
And:
“For Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, a University of Ottawa political science professor who has spent years documenting overwhelming evidence of opposition responsibility for the massacre, such findings are a long-overdue vindication of his research.”
So, again, something that we could reasonably infer already in 2014 and 2015, now confirmed and vindicated, even by a Ukrainian court! Mr. Khodorkovsky is wrong again, in his list of ‘lies’.
The importance of this recent development cannot be overstated, as it provides actual proof that the whole Maidan story is false. It was orchastrated, with Neo-Nazi groups shooting at both the police and THEIR OWN PEOPLE! All in order to pressure the duly re-elected president of Ukraine, Yanukovich, to resign. This blatant disregard for the lives of their own people sets the tenor for the rest of the bloody 10 years since…
Fifth:
“❌ He said Kyiv started the conflict in Donbas by using its air force against civilians
✔️ The conflict began on 12 April 2014 when FSB officer Igor Girkin led ‘separatists’ to seize the town of Sloviansk. Ukraine first used its aviation in response, on 26 May, in the battle for Donetsk Airport”
What did Putin say? “They launched a war in Donbass in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians.” This is something different: not a specific statement, but a ‘pars pro toto’, meaning that Ukraine used her army against her own dissident population, labeling them as ‘terrorists’, not to be dealt with through police, but the military. That is still a true statement.
Sixth:
“❌ During his rambling exercise in alternative history at the beginning of the interview, Putin said Ukraine was an artificial entity created at the initiative of Joseph Stalin
✔️ Ukraine was added to the Soviet Union in 1922, under Lenin. But the Ukrainian People’s Republic was declared in 1917 – before the Bolshevik takeover – and recognized by Russia’s provisional government”
Again, categorically false. What did Putin say in his interview? “In 1922, when the USSR was being established, the Bolsheviks started building the USSR and established the Soviet Ukraine, which had never existed before.” Who started this? Stalin only became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924, so this process started under the leadership of Lenin. The transcript directly contradicts Khodorkovsky.
Seventh:
“❌ He said Poland had ‘forced’ Hitler to declare war in 1939 by being ‘uncooperative’ with his plans
✔️ Hitler’s plans included the extermination of Poland’s Slavs and Jews, and its repopulation with Germans. The so-called Polish provocation used as a pretext for the invasion was a German false flag”
This is the most interesting claim, because of what Putin actually said. First, Putin did not say Poland ‘forced’ Hitler, but ‘pushed’ him. Still, Putin is rather soft here. Yes, Poland did not send the requested diplomats to resume negotiations on August 30, 1939 (because the British had not forwarded that request to the Polish government), then sent someone who did not have any negotiating authority, that can be seen as an insult, ‘going to far’.
The plans mentioned had nothing to do with such extermination, but with a proposed deal about the Danzig Corridor, where Germany requested that territory, originally Prussian and lost after WW1, to be returned to Germany, just as the Poles had happily joined in with Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia: “Poland annexed the town of Český Těšín with the surrounding area (some 906 km2 (350 sq mi)), some 250,000 inhabitants, Poles making up about 36% of population, and two minor border areas in northern Slovakia, more precisely in the regions Spiš and Orava. (226 km2 (87 sq mi), 4,280 inhabitants, only 0.3% Poles).” Now, Germany would have attacked at some point, either way.
Putin glosses rather quickly over the Soviet response and their own annexation of half of Poland, ‘to regain its historical lands’. It is a twisting of history to suit Russia’s own narrative, not yet willing to fully accept responsibility for Stalin’s actions, but surprisingly light-footed.
Eighth:
“❌ Speaking of Zelenskyy, Putin said he had once asked the Ukrainian president why he, as the son of a WW2 veteran, would ‘collaborate with neo-Nazis’
✔️ Zelenskyy’s father was born in 1947, after the WW2 ended”
This is simple, too: while it is true that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s father, Oleksandr, was born in 1947, and thus could not have fought in WW2, it is also a fact that Semyon Ivanovych Zelenskyy, his father’s father, served in the Red Army's 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division and saw action against the Nazi armies in WW2. Is that a ‘lie’? If anything, a misspeaking that did not change the meaning or intent of Putin’s words.
Ninth:
“❌ Putin said NATO has ‘options’ to recognize Russian annexation of parts of Ukraine
✔️ It does not. The UN has declared the annexations illegal under international law, and even if it wanted to, NATO has no more right to contest that ruling than Russia does”
Well, NATO https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_207558.htm indeed stated this: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the plan to hold so-called “referenda” on joining the Russian Federation in the Ukrainian regions partly controlled by the Russian military. As the UN General Assembly reaffirmed in its resolution “Aggression against Ukraine” adopted on 2 March 2022, no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal. Allies do not and will never recognize Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea. Sham referenda in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine have no legitimacy and will be a blatant violation of the UN Charter. NATO Allies will not recognize their illegal and illegitimate annexation. These lands are Ukraine. We call on all states to reject Russia’s blatant attempts at territorial conquest.”
Question remains: were those referenda indeed a sham? What about the multiple breaches of the UN charter by Ukraine, in mistreating the ethnic Russian or Russian speaking people in her own borders? What if a new referendum took place? What if the whole war is reevaluated, as my own series have done, necessitating a reversal of the judgement by NATO? NATO surely has options, here. Whether they will use those, under their current leadership, is of course a whole different question.
Tenth:
“❌ Putin claimed that Ukrainians ‘still consider themselves Russians’
✔️ Putin fundamentally misunderstood Ukrainian national identity and falsely believed Ukrainians saw themselves as Russians, a key mistake that led to the disastrous invasion. A 2022 poll revealed 93% favor independence, just 3% support merging with Russia.”
Putin did not claim that of all Ukrainians. The only example of such statement that I could find in that interview, was about a very limited example of a combat encounter.
“I will give you very unusual examples. There is a combat encounter on the battlefield, here is a specific example: Ukrainian soldiers are surrounded, this is an example from real life, our soldiers shout to them: “There is no chance! Surrender yourselves! Come out and you will be alive!” Suddenly the Ukrainian soldiers were screaming from there in Russian, perfect Russian, saying: “Russians do not surrender!” and all of them perished. They still feel Russian.
What is happening is, to a certain extent, an element of a civil war. Everyone in the West thinks that the Russian people have been split by hostilities forever. No. They will be reunited. The unity is still there.
Why are the Ukranian authorities dismantling the Ukranian Orthodox Church? Because it brings together not only the territory, it brings together our souls. No one will be able to separate the soul.”
It shows a way of thinking that is unity based, where even Putin accepts the rights of Ukrainians to go their separate way: “I say that Ukrainians are part of the one Russian people. They say, ”No, we are a separate people.“ Okay, fine. If they consider themselves a separate people, they have the right to do so, but not on the basis of Nazism, the Nazi ideology.”
Eleventh:
“❌ Putin said Zelenskyy had banned peace talks with Russia
✔️ Zelenskyy banned negotiations with Putin specifically, and said Ukraine was ‘ready for dialog with Russia, but with a different president’”
Yeah... Russia voted for Putin again, this past month, with overwhelming numbers. Putin does reflect the will of Russia, and banning talks with Putin is, in effect, banning talks with Russia. Look at the rhetoric in Ukraine: it is against Russians, Russian language, Russian history, even a shared history: not just Putin has to go, anything remotely Russian, too.
Lastly:
“❌ He said WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested for gathering secret information about the Russian military on behalf of US intelligence services
✔️ Before his arrest, Gershkovich had been working as a journalist in Russia since 2017. He is being held unlawfully in order to strong-arm the US into agreeing to some kind of concessions.”
This is a tough one to either confirm or deny. Since the case is said to deal with classified information, the Russian courts have not provided any proof of the espionage committed. Is that to hide ‘unlawful strong-arming’, or to protect legitimate security concerns?
Fact remains: unless he brings actual proof that the arrest was unlawful, this is not a lie by Putin.
In short, a lot of hot air, outright errors of his own, and some insinuation.
Does that mean that Putin’s interview was 100% fact and neutral? Of course not. Putin had a very clear goal, to present his case to the American people and the world, in defense of his views and his project with Russia, for which he was recently re-elected.
In the next few days or week, I will post part 2, which will deal directly with some very important internal shifts within Ukraine, the situation in the Ukrainian military, and what is actually happening on the battlefield.
Stay tuned!