Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that his country is ready for dialogue with the West and has repeatedly offered to seek a peaceful solution to the crisis in Ukraine. He asserted that Russia had informed the American leadership that the conflict in Ukraine could end within weeks if Washington stopped supplying arms to Kyiv. In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, published on Carlson's website in English, Putin said: "We inform the American leadership: If you really want to stop the fighting, you must stop supplying weapons, and everything will end within a few weeks. That's it, and then we can agree on some terms..."
Putin reiterated that Russia has repeatedly proposed to find a peaceful resolution to the problems that arose in Ukraine after the 2014 coup. He stated, "I repeat again: We have repeatedly proposed to find a solution to the problems that arose in Ukraine after the 2014 coup by peaceful means, but no one listened to us. Moreover, the Ukrainian leadership, which was under complete U.S. control, suddenly announced that it would not implement the Minsk agreements and did not like anything in them, and continued military activities in this area.”
Putin expressed confidence that if the people of Donbas were convinced to return to the framework of the Ukrainian state, taking the Minsk agreements into account, wounds would "gradually heal," but Kyiv wanted to resolve the issue only through military force. When Carlson asked if he had informed the American leadership that Russia would "act" if the supply of weapons to Ukraine continued, Putin replied, "We have been talking about this all the time. We urged the leadership of the United States and European countries to stop this process immediately, so that it would be possible to implement the Minsk agreements. Frankly, I did not know how we would do this, but I was ready to do it."
Putin noted that Russia is ready for dialogue with the West and emphasized that Russia's strategic defeat will never be realized, and the West, including the ruling class, is beginning to realize this. He stated, "Western countries are still making a loud noise saying that it is necessary to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, a defeat on the battlefield, but now, apparently, they are beginning to realize that this is not easy." He added, "This will never happen."
The interview was conducted in Moscow on Tuesday and was broadcast on Tucker Carlson's website. Putin spoke in Russian, and his statements were dubbed into English. He began with a lengthy discussion about Russia's relations with Ukraine, Poland, and other countries. The Kremlin stated that Putin agreed to the interview with Carlson because the approach taken by the former Fox News host differed from the "one-sided" coverage of the conflict in Ukraine that many Western media outlets follow.
Carlson is known to have a close relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is expected to be the Republican party nominee in the upcoming presidential elections in November. Trump calls for de-escalating the war in Ukraine, while President Joe Biden's administration provides strong support to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's government and opposes sending billions of dollars in aid.
