Historian Oleksandr Alfyorov believes that in an interview Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an American media personality Tucker Carlson, in fact, both tried to convince conservative representatives of the Republican Party in the U.S. that the government in Ukraine has been allegedly oppressing religion.
In an interview with Liga.net, the historian explained this by recalling that Christian ethics are the basis of Western civilizations, so such theses are aimed to reach out to the so-called “red states”.
“We can be Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, or evangelicals. Putin was addressing the conservative Republicans, people whose rules of conduct are based on Christian ethics. ‘Look, they are destroying the church there’. Carlson presented this as a persecution of religion, of Christianity. A shift of concepts of a kind… The Church plays one of the most key roles for us to be understood in the world,” he said.
It should be recalled that on February 6, an Ukrainophobe journalist Tucker Carlson, known for spreading Russia’s malign fake narratives about the war, interviewed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Moscow. During the two-hour conversation, the former Fox News presenter, who had initially vowed “sharp questions”, never asked Putin about the mass murders committed by the Russian army, the abuse of Ukrainian civilians in the occupied territories, the ICC warrant on Putin, or the abduction of Ukrainian children. There were also no questions about violations of freedom of speech and religion in Russia.
The White House later emphasized that the administration considers such a media product unnecessary. The European Union added that the interview only confirms that the allies should continue to support Ukraine, stating that the world is already used to the “paranoid excuses” voiced by the Kremlin. After that, Kyiv officials once again rebuked Putin as a “sick person”, emphasizing that the war criminal should not be interviewed, but interrogated.
