Putin v History

In Soviet Russia, Vladimir Putin interviews Tucker Carlson

Feb 11, 2024

“The Ukrainian bill depicts Yaroslav with a Ukrainian-style moustache in the tradition of Prince Sviatoslav and the Ukrainian Cossacks […] The Russian bill shows Yaroslav with a beard in the tradition of Ivan the Terrible and the Muscovite tsars of his era.”
Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe — A History of Ukraine

The beauty of propaganda unfolds as Vladimir Putin stages his own rendition of “Goodbye, Lenin,” seemingly convinced, perhaps rightly so, that Western conservatives have been in a slumber since the Cold War’s end.

For Tucker Carlson, the interview presented a paradox: a no-win situation that was also a win-win situation. He would leave the lair of the murderous dicatator either under arrest, or clutching an interview that, regardless of its substance, would inevitably be dismissed as ‘softball’ by the modern mainstream ‘journalist.’

Andrew Neil, in a charged tirade, concluded that Tucker’s method underscored “the otherwise curious appeal of this Russian autocrat among America’s hard right as they view him, however absurdly, as the world’s final unwavering champion of Christian values against everything they despise or fear — migrants (especially Muslim migrants), the LGBTQ+ community, clandestine forces undermining them, ‘global elites.’” Which sounds about right, even if he’s wrong.

Setting aside the anticipated bad-faith, it obviously wasn’t a good interview. Tucker deserves credit for securing and producing the interview, no doubt about it. As for the preparation and execution, let’s leave our congratulations on a job, well, done.

Putin, well-versed in pagan poetry, writes his name in history with the vivid colours of innocent blood, yet, to some, he managed to portray himself as a ‘well-meaning elderly man with a conveniently selective memory.’ These ‘conservatives,’ for some reason, found solace in his portrayal, pleased by his seemingly sharper intellect compared to Biden’s — a low bar, considering most vertebrates could claim the same. However, they miss the broader implications of Putin’s sharp intellect.

Yet, Putin’ uncanny memory seems to have conveniently overlooked the significant impact of events such as the Holodomor and Chernobyl in shaping Ukrainian identity. His mind blurs the distinction between Ukraine as a state — which is a modern construct — and its historical legitimacy as a nation.

In The Gates of Europe — A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy, widely acknowledged as one of the foremost texts on the region’s history, there’s a compelling discussion on the formation of identities within the Kievan Rus’. Putin and Tucker might benefit from it:

Historians look to those principality-based identities for the origins of the modern East Slavic nations. The Vladimir-Suzdal principality served as a forerunner of early modern Muscovy and, eventually, of modern Russia. Belarusian historians look to the Polatsk principality for their roots. And Ukrainian historians study the principality of Galicia-Volhynia to uncover the foundations of Ukrainian nation-building projects. But all those identities ultimately lead back to Kyiv, which gives Ukrainians a singular advantage: they can search for their origins without ever leaving their capital.

Putin does, however, correctly note that the concept of Ukrainian ethnicity emerged only in the 19th century. Previously, the noun ‘Ukraine’ just denoted some borderlands. This does not negate the existence of predecessors to the modern Ukrainians, such as the Cossacks who emerged in the 13th century.

Revealing his acclaimed anti-liberal stance, Putin frames his argument against an independent Ukrainian identity by starting with language, familial connections, customs, and religion, before addressing economic ties.

This claim, like many of his others, passed without scrutiny by Tucker. The notion of fact-checking Putin on Russian history is laughable anyway. Yet, the point in case is that the head of the KGB lies. And as any skilled liar knows, interspersing truths amidst falsehoods is key to keeping the audience on their toes.

Given the opportunity, I would pose a question to Putin: Considering the legacy of Russian ideologues, ranging from Tsarist zealots to Marxist revolutionaries, who promised peace and prosperity yet unleashed nightmarish hell on Earth, why should Western conservatives now place their faith in Russia’s vision?

However, Putin’s preempted ‘history lessons’ cut off any initial inquiry, presenting a embellished narrative of Russia’s pseudo-history. Described by some as ‘long-winded,’ his account was, in fact, concise and deliberate. In a clearly rehearsed exposition, far from spontaneous and ‘from memory’, Putin went on to hijack the key figures of the Christianisation of the Kievan Rus’: Yaroslav the Wise and Volodymyr the Great.

Putin acknowledged Prince Volodymyr was baptised in 988, marking the Christianisation of Kievan Rus’, conveniently omitting that this event took place in Crimea, which he continued to assert was never connected to Ukraine.

He then leaps centuries in history to absurdly designate Moscow as the cradle of a unified Russian state, blatantly ignoring that 250 years before Moscow’s founding, the Kievan Rus’ was established — in Kiev, of all places.

The logic is straightforward: Russian heritage stems from Kievan Rus’, which originated from Kiev. Thus, Putin’s assertion that Ukrainians and Russians are one and the same isn’t far-fetched. However, his attempt to invert this causality is where the absurdity lies.

This brings to light another of Putin’s outlandish claims: his purported withdrawal from Kiev as a gesture of goodwill during the Istanbul talks in March 2022. The optimistic Western interpretation, suggesting his 40-mile tank column retreated due to ‘fierce resistance,’ is equally unfounded.

The retreat from Kiev was a tactical move, his hand forced as his bluff neared exposure. Putin’s actions in Grozny, Aleppo, and then Bucha and Mariupol have shown his readiness to decimate civilian populations to fulfil his objectives. Some speculate that, should he fail to ‘conquer Ukraine,’ he would not hesitate to devastate it to the extent that nobody else could claim it. Only Kiev holds too much significance to be subjected to such ruin.

The Kievan Rus’ began as a Viking trading outpost with the Byzantine Empire. With Volodymyr the Great’s conversion to Christianity and his marriage to the Byzantine Emperor’s daughter, Kiev transformed into the cradle of the Slavic world. Built to the image of Constantinople, Kiev’s Byzantine architecture in churches and palaces became a blueprint for emerging cities like Moscow. The roots of the Russian Orthodox Church trace back to the Kievan Orthodox Church. Even the Cyrillic alphabet, employed in Russian propaganda, originated in Kiev.

To support the myth of the Kievan Rus’ as the original, unified ‘Russian’ state, Putin invents a “Lithuanian-Russian Duchy.” In reality, there was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the later Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — Baltic Catholic monarchies ruling over a Slavic Orthodox population, who, as Putin highlights, spoke the “old Russian language.”

That’s Old Church Slavonic, standardised in the 9th century by Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius for Gospel translations and liturgical texts during the Christianisation of the Slavs, in what is now Ukraine. So, Putin’s “old Russian” sounds a lot like “old Ukrainian.”

Putin’s historical lies may serve a deeper purpose: laying groundwork for claims over the Baltics and confronting ‘Polish colonisers’ later on. To this day, the Baltics comprise Catholic Lithuania, Lutheran Estonia, and Latvia, divided almost equally between Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Putin has firmly denied intentions to invade the Baltics during the interview. Or at least, Poland and Latvia.

Back to Putin’s weird history class, in 1654, Tsar Alexis I intervened to protect what might be considered a proto-Ukrainian state—the Cossack Hetmanate—from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth via the Pereyaslav Agreement. This moment further muddies the waters of their shared past, as Russia and Ukraine were already distinct by then.

Fast-forward to the 20th century, Putin absurdly accuses Poland of colluding with Hitler, glossing over his own Russia’s — “then named as USSR” in his words — pre-WWII pacts with the Nazis. This is a fact one would hope Tucker would promptly challenge, yet it went unchecked.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, a notorious pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, included secret protocols dividing Eastern Europe, leading to Poland’s partition, along with the Baltic states, Finland, and Romania. Earlier, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 saw Soviet Russia ceding vast territories, including Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states, to pre-Nazi Germany and its allies.

Moving on, Putin’s selection of cities to namedrop is very interesting. He opts for Königsberg’s German name—famously the only place Kant has seen in life —, now belonging to Russia and called Kaliningrad. He also delves into Gdansk’s history, the formerly German and now Polish city, from where Lech Walesa struck a critical blow to the USSR. The reasoning? It’s anyone’s guess.

Putin’s narrative then takes yet another surreal turn, establishing Poland as the instigator of WWII, again unchallenged. He then hints at his own vision for redrawing the borders around Poland and Ukraine, suggesting potential allies in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Suddenly, even Romania is implicated in Eastern Ukraine’s destiny, indicating Putin’s ambition to reshape Europe and forge new alliances.

Yet, this might be a ruse, playing on Western fears of a European populist alliance leaning towards Putin, spearheaded by figures like Le Pen, Orban, and the AfD.

Ironically, Putin’s most effective allies in Europe may not be Eastern autocrats but Western European liberals like Germany’s former socialist Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Austria’s former Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, who have suffocated Europe’s energy security with Putin’s natural gas, later joining the boards of Russian energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom.

Discussing NATO’s eastward expansion, Putin unabashedly recounts how he manipulated ‘third-way’ neoliberal politicians in late ‘90s and early 2000s Europe.

Putin neglects to acknowledge his indebtedness to ‘liberal capitalism,’ which unwittingly promoted various forms of socialism—Fabianism in Western Europe and the USA, Marxist socialism in the USSR, Eastern Europe, and China, and National Socialism in Central Europe—investing vast sums and inadvertently bolstering the military might of Stalin’s Red Army, Hitler’s Wehrmacht, and China’s economic and military surge.

Russia’s newly minted war machine, coincidentally or not, was financed by Europe’s green agenda and its reliance on Russian natural gas.

As Putin spoke, Russia was once again stirring tensions in the Balkans. Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić’s victory comes with increased paramilitary activity in Kosovo. A peculiar figure, Vučić declares allegiance to the EU, IMF, and NATO. Yet, mantains “friendly relations” with Putin. And, as Putin said during the interview, Serbia is “a nation that is special and close to us.”

A resurgence of conflict in the Balkans would benefit Russia’s goal to become the region’s sole reliable conflict negotiator, highlighting — yet again — NATO’s deterrence strategy’s inefficacy.

Transnistria, a breakaway region in Moldova near the Ukrainian border, is conveniently overlooked by Putin. There, thousands of Russian troops are stationed, and Russia-aligned rebels have proclaimed independence in 2006.

As Putin wraps up his weird history class, one cannot but wonder about the eventual release of the files he handed to Tucker—provided they haven’t been poisoned with arsenic or the like.

When it comes to historical timelines, Putin offers a perspective of rare clarity, tracing a direct lineage from Kievan Rus’ through the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Russian Tsardom, the Russian Empire, and the USSR, culminating in the modern Russian Federation.

He views this progression as an unbroken, singular Russian state—a conviction deeply rooted in his own ideas. Confidently, he aligns himself not with perishable bureaucrats like Scholz, Biden, or Macron but with historical figures such as Ivan the Terrible and Otto von Bismarck, albeit straying into the realms of fantasy.

Putin’s suggestion that the buffoonish Boris Johnson could significantly alter the course of history these days, frankly, lends him some credibility and reflects poorly on the West.

The Old, Cold Warriors

We’re finally getting to what really matters. Putin laments the West’s persistent rehashing of the Cold War long after its supposed conclusion. Because of that, some on the right believe that appeasing Putin now might, somehow, unlitigate the past. However, NATO’s expansion, misguided from its inception, has entangled us too deeply for any retreat.

Putin dissects the West's unyielding Cold War stance with a peculiar insight: a surplus of Cold War apparatchiks on the Western front, faithful to a bastard liberal doctrine that the right blend of military coercion and open markets would conjure up a Russian democracy, unprecedented in its illustrious thousand-year history.

He tacitly chides Gorbachev for his rosy illusions of Western promises post-Cold War, yet admits to being duped by similar promises, perhaps seeking empathy through a semblance of modesty.

Following the USSR’s collapse, opportunists seized the moment to reap the rewards of their prolonged engagement with communism, descending on Russia like vultures to claim assets and consciences at fire-sale prices.

Putin’s portrayal of this openness, this “bourgeois” Russia, spares his predecessor Boris Yeltsin from critique. Yeltsin, ridiculed in the West yet revered in Russia, is the national hero who, taking to the streets of Moscow, defiantly stood up to tanks and quelled a communist coup.

In Putin’s tale, “bourgeois” Russia, failing to secure true love from the West, is portrayed by the Kremlin’s artist as a damsel in distress, forced into alliances with China and others to shield against perceived threats, such as “Iranian missiles.”

“Look at the situation in Armenia now,” he never said, nor was he asked.

Immune to the “bourgeois” dream, the Soviet elite — especially the KGB — refused to be relegated to a minor role in this new chapter of the global revolution. Recognising communism’s fall but not their own defeat, they devised Eurasianism, a strategy even more antagonistic towards the West than communism had been.

The liberal approach, known for its preference for negotiation over conflict (even with figures like Stalin and Mao), finally encountered an adversary that refused to engage in dialogue.

Much of the Cold War was a façade: the Western elite engaged with communism without any real intention of dismantling it. Instead, they often provided significant support.

Putin isn’t just a competitor to that order; he’s a bona fide enemy, filled with resentment and dreams of revenge. With him, the Cold War is intensifying, moving beyond pure rethoric, and the ideological face-off between ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ that masked the true battle between East and West.

Crucially, the Middle East is positioned between these blocs. Here, Muslim nations must decide: remain under Russia’s influence, negotiate with the Western elite, or aspire to transform the world into a vast Caliphate.

Putin has repeatedly, though not in this particular interview, warned about an imminent war between the West and Islam, notably leaving out Russia’s position in such a conflict.

The West’s hasty claim of victory may have inadvertently set the stage for Russia’s comeback. The Cold War’s abrupt end now seems premature, especially with China’s ascent prompting a reevaluation of the missed opportunity to align more closely with Russia when we had the chance.

The alignment between Putin’s political-military strategy and Eurasianism is more than just coincidence. Thus, overlooking the reaction of Eurasianism’s leading thinker, Aleksandr Dugin, when discussing this interview would be ill-advised. Let’s see (my emphasis):

Why is Tucker Carlson’s interview considered pivotal for both the West and Russia? Let us start with the simpler part: Russia. Here, Tucker Carlson has become a focal point for two polar opposites within Russian society: ideological patriots and elite Westernisers who nonetheless remain loyal to Putin and the Special Military Operation. For patriots, Tucker Carlson is simply ‘one of us’. He is a traditionalist, a right-wing conservative, and a staunch opponent of liberalism. This is what twenty-first-century emissaries to the Russian tsar look like.
Putin does not often interact with prominent representatives of the fundamentally conservative camp. The attention the Kremlin pays him ignites the patriot’s heart, inspiring the continuation of a conservative-traditionalist course in Russia itself. Now it is possible and necessary: Russian power has defined its ideology. We have embarked on this path and will not deviate from it. Yet, patriots are always afraid we will. No.
On the other hand, the Westernisers sighed with relief: see, not everything in the West is bad, and there are good and objective people, we told you! Let us be friends with such a West, think the Westernisers, even if the rest of the globalist liberal West does not want to be friends [...] We are at war with the liberal West, so let there at least be friendship with the conservative West. Thus, Russian patriots and Russian Westernisers (increasingly more Russian and less Western) come to a consensus in the figure of Tucker Carlson.
[…]
No, it is not about Putin supporting Trump, which could easily be dismissed in the context of war with the United States. Carlson’s visit is about something else. Biden and his maniacs have effectively attacked a great nuclear power through the hands of Kiev’s unleashed terrorists, and humanity is on the verge of destruction [Note: this is a point Putin makes in the interview, as well as the next in the game of propaganda is very difficult to beat the USA]
The globalist media continue to spin a Marvel series for infants, where Spider-Man Zelensky magically wins with superpowers and magical pigs against the Kremlin’s ‘Dr. Evil’. However, this is just a cheap, silly series. […] There is a real Putin and a real Russia, not these staged characters and settings from Marvel.

The Beamtenstaat

Vladimir Putin once declared, “There is no such thing as a former KGB man,” to our benefit, I’m sure. He’s convinced the U.S. orchestrates opposition against him, particularly terrorism in the North Caucasus, taking perverse pride in what he sees as the essence of Russian statecraft in the 21st century: for him, power doesn’t lie in diplomacy or military might, but in the omnipotence of secret services. In Putin’s Russia, the so-called deep state isn’t an anomaly; it is the state in its truest form.

He perceives the West in similar terms, dismissing the notion of a covert cabal of conspirators, and maintaining that governments operate universally in the deep state. The difference in Russia, however, is stark and troubling: in the absence of democracy, Putin reigns supreme over the deep state.

He views Western democratically elected leaders as puppets, constrained by this covert power. He diagnoses this as a chronic disease afflicting Western democracies, conveniently ignoring the roles of multilateral and third-sector organizations, over which he exerts his covert influence.

Leon Trotsky, briefly serving as Soviet Russia’s Foreign Minister in 1917, boldly advocated for the abolition of diplomatic secrecy, earning the enthusiastic endorsement of then U.S. President Woodrow Wilson with his “Fourteen Points.”

Yet, what Wilson couldn’t have predicted—and what Trotsky couldn’t overlook—was the Soviet Republic’s evolution into a state fundamentally rooted in secrecy, where the secret police wielded absolute power. The USSR perfected the art of concealing its governmental workings while boldly scrutinising and exposing those of the Western nations.

In Putin’s not-so-post-Cold War narrative, the legacy of governmental secrecy persists, with the KGB’s successor, the FSB, sometimes veiled in mystery, other times in murder. To him the CIA, conversely, is very much alive, conspiring to take down its enemies through every sordid action possible. Again, the latter might be true. It should anyway.

Putin’s Regime, bolstered by its military and an omnipresent secret service, is supported by a vast network of alliances, spanning from the Chinese military to Islamic terrorist organizations and Western leftist parties. The transformation of the FSB into a capitalist behemoth, engaging in money laundering, drug trafficking and weapons dealing, funding conflicts, and influencing cultural wars, highlights Putin’s mastery over Russia’s ‘ESG-equivalent’ agenda, in stark contrast to the West’s apparent paralysis at the hands of HRcracy.

The KGB/FSB, ever-expanding since Lenin’s era, emerges as the most formidable and affluent organization globally, executing long-term strategies beyond any Western government’s wildest imagination.

Putin’s admission, “When I talk about partners, I’m talking about special services,” reveals a deep-seated reality where the deep state is the norm, urging a reevaluation of our democratic principles and the invisible forces dictating the fate of the West.

In Putin’s envisioning of the Beamtenstaat—a bureaucracy-dominated state—whether in Russia or the West, nobody is not a spy. His commentary on journalist Evan Gershkovich’s plight might even be half-sincere.

The Eurasian Empire, as conceptualized by Dugin and Putin, merges Marxism-Leninism, Russian messianism, fascism, and esotericism, appealing to diverse factions for varied reasons. However, the essence of Eurasianism is calculated chaos, fostering the ‘class struggle’ of conflicting ideologies to forge a global power hierarchy.

This blend of ideology and strategy, cultivating confusion and revolution from its inception, underlines the inherent violence and genocidal tendencies at the heart of the Eurasian doctrine. The essence of this project remains grimly consistent with the historical pattern of Russian revolutionary movements: masking their genocidal intents as mere accidents on the path to utopia.

From Budapest to Bucharest to Minsk

This doesn’t mean that Western leadership hasn’t failed repeatedly. It began with the 1994 Budapest Agreement when Western leaders naively took Russia’s word as a guarantee and convinced Ukraine to surrender the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for magic beans that would protect its borders against Russian aggression.

Thankfully, Putin spared us a victory lap on this occasion.

A decade later, the West laid the serpent’s golden egg by promoting democracy through a coup d’état in Ukraine—the Orange Revolution—effectively reducing Ukraine to a banana republic. Even if Putin’s complaints echo a thief lamenting his stolen loot, we can’t ignore the truth.

And the truth (also) is, the West has both underestimated and overestimated the Russian threat. There was little indication of Putin’s imperialist ambitions before NATO’s 2008 Bucharest declaration that Ukraine and Georgia were being considered for membership, a move that directly led to Russia’s takeover of Ossetia.

In 2014, the EU overlooked Russia’s inevitable reaction to Ukraine’s proposed accession to the bloc, a prospect that both the EU and Putin knew was impossible. The fallout from the Euromaidan affair resulted in a misguided military effort, including the indiscriminate bombing of ethnic Russian civilians by the Ukrainian government—even if provoked, that’s an undeniable fact. Which led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Yet, even accepting Euromaidan as the inception of the current conflict, the notion that Putin sought to “put an end to war” by invading Ukraine in 2022 remains utterly fallacious.

It was obvious that the West didn’t force Russia into anything, but it engaged in the devious pas de deux.

John Mearsheimer, famous for spreading the misguided notion of the ‘West’s guilt,’ starts from the solid premise that Putin is neither crazy nor irrational; suggesting that pursuing a Greater Russia or reviving the USSR would doom Russia, a rationale that, according to him, has restrained Putin’s ambitions. Which sounds sensible.

Mearsheimer concludes that NATO expansion, EU enlargement, and faux democracy promotion provided Putin with pretexts for waging what he terms a “civil war” and launching his “special military operations.”

Our mistake wasn’t NATO’s expansion but boasting about it without follow-through. After years of mixed signals, when NATO failed to reach Russia’s doorstep, Putin brought his forces to NATO’s.

On the Minsk Agreements, mediated in 2014 by France and Germany to address the Donbas issue, Putin is right to note their disregard by all involved—a result of Western liberals’ confusion over Russia’s role as a party or mediator, a confusion that persists. With Western leaders preoccupied with climate change as the “greatest threat of our times,” no effort was made to implement the agreements.

Europe’s overreliance on Russian oil and gas, NATO countries’ hesitancy to increase military spending, sanctions that increase Western economic vulnerabilities more than hurt Russia, the disjointed delivery of military aid to Ukraine, and the failure to deter Russian military advancements, should be more than enough for a reassessment of the Western governance model.

Putin, the Presbyter

Guided, at least in part, by the allure of the Russian Orthodox Church, Putin has chosen to hoist the banner of traditional Christianity, wielding it against the hedonistic and agnostic West, thereby securing the allegiance of broad swathes of disillusioned conservatives.

Yet, as he charms this audience, Putin, through economic and military cooperation deals, bolsters anti-Christian regimes worldwide, leaving such conservatives with the inglorious task of pandering to their sworn enemies, in exchange for fleeting, and likely illusory, ideological solace.

These are the same ‘conservatives’ who regard Communism as on par with, or even worse than, Nazism. So, it begs the question: why would they back Putin’s Russia? It’s similar to a post-WWII scenario where the Nazi regime’s Gestapo chiefs retain their power, unscathed by criminal probes, as powerful as ever. The Soviet state, the KGB/FSB, and the Russian Mafia are one and the same. The end of the former USSR, it’s obvious now, was just a smokescreen to dismantle global opposition to the “Russian statehood” Putin so well describes. And the success of this operation, needless to say, appears significant.

With a single statement, Putin conveys one message to the masses and another to his actual public—a tactic straight from the communist playbook. And Putin, make no mistake, is a national-Bolshevist.

Without the slightest irony or self-awareness, he proclaims Russia as the nurturing motherland for its diverse populace. “One big family,” bearing the weight of history’s most bloodied chapters since the flood.

Putin then asserts, in more liberal fashion, “Russia has always been very loyal to those who profess other religions.” Without delving too deeply, let’s just remember ‘pogrom’ is a Russian word.

Tucker’s awkward inquiry, “do you see God at work in the world?” seeks to elicit from Putin a declaration of faith. Instead, it reveals Putin as embodying what he criticises in the West: mere pragmatism.

He equates patriotism with allegiance to a regime, personified as the motherland, only to claim his non-pragmatic stance. Aligning more closely with the ideological pattern of France’s Nouvelle Droite, materialistic and evolutionist, than to the telelogical aspirations of his Western followers.

When you have a purpose, being immoral is being stupid. Let’s not forget this hen the next ideologue knocks on our doors.

Note: This piece represents roughly half of my notes on the interview; the remainder is still unedited, and I may publish it if there’s interest. Please leave a 'like' or a comment to let me know!