by Patrick Delaney, LifeSite News:
‘It wasn’t us (who caused this conflict). We proposed to go the other way and we were pushed back,’ the Russian president said.
In Tucker Carlson’s viral interview of Vladimir Putin, which was released Thursday evening, the Russian president confirmed the host’s proposition that the U.S. government is “not run by the people who are elected” but rather by others, including “agency heads.”
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“That’s right, that’s right,” Putin said, affirming Carlson’s question in this regard after the Russian president’s description of three experiences he had with American presidents, suggesting this to be the case.
Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview pic.twitter.com/67YuZRkfLL
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 8, 2024
In the interview, which has received 156.7 million views in just over 24 hours on the ‘X’ platform alone, Putin recalled how his nation had hoped and expected it would be “welcomed into the brotherly family of civilized nations” after the fall of the Soviet Union (28:14).
Yet, a “rift” occurred in 1999 when NATO executed a 2 1/2-month bombing campaign of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Objecting to this violation of international law, “Russia protested and expressed its resentment” regarding the attack against their allied Orthodox Serbs.
When Putin became president in 2000, he wanted to restore relations with the West and while hosting outgoing U.S. President Bill Clinton in Moscow, he asked him, “Bill, do you think if Russia asked to join NATO, do you think it would happen?” Clinton’s response was positive, “you know, it’s interesting. I think so,” he recalled.
“But in the evening, when we met for dinner, he said, ‘You know, I’ve talked to my team, no, it’s not possible now,’” Putin recalled.
After several years seeking to build relations in other ways, Putin went on to recount an exchange with President George W. Bush around 2008 when he “repeatedly raised the issue that the United States (agencies) should not support separatism or terrorism in the North Caucasus (Georgia). But they continued to do so anyway.”
According to Putin, Bush thought it was “impossible” for this allegation to be true and asked for proof, which was immediately supplied by the Russian president. Realizing the report was accurate, Bush responded with apparent anger, “Well, I’m going to kick their ass.”
