Vladimir Putin considers Russian defeat in the war against Ukraine “impossible”: “It will never happen”

For Vladimir Putin, a defeat for Russia in the war triggered by the invasion of Ukraine is “impossible” and “will never happen”. This is how the Russian president defined it in an interview with American television host and ultra-conservative Tucker Carlson, published on Thursday and recorded on Tuesday in Moscow.

“There has been an uproar (…) about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield,” Putin introduced and noted: “In my opinion, it is impossible by definition. It will never happen.”

The tension between his regime and the United States was part of the two-hour memo – the first that Putin has provided to Western media – and circulated on Carlson’s social networks. And although he did not make direct references to candidate Donald Trump, he advanced the US electoral process by refusing that the relationship between the two powers depends on a change of presidency in Washington.

Putin believed that the connection – or lack thereof, strictly speaking – had more to do with what he called “the idea of ​​dominance” that the United States has over the world. “It’s not about who the leader is or the personality of a specific person, but about the elites themselves: it’s the idea of ​​domination at all costs based on the dominant forces of American society,” he advanced.

It was the closest he came to a reference to Trump, beyond accepting that he had a good “personal relationship” with the former Republican president. Carlson did not insist on this point and thus avoided what could be seen as another Russian interference in American domestic politics, following suspicions and investigations into his role in the triumph that brought the tycoon to the Casa Rosada.

Putin acknowledged that he has and had “a good relationship” with George Bush Jr, “and also (I had) that personal relationship with (Donald) Trump”, although he insisted on downplaying the weight and importance of names.

The ironclad Russian sovereign allowed himself to express his vision of the United States: “It is a complex country. Conservative on the one hand, rapidly changing on the other… it is not easy to understand.” And he even allowed himself to show a certain – not innocent – ​​perplexity about the complexity of his electoral system:

“Who makes decisions in elections? Can it be understood that each state has its own laws, that it regulates itself?”, asked the man who is seen by much of the West as an autocrat who persecutes every attempt at opposition to his regime.

It was expected that in this interview Carlson would ask more emphatically about Trump, a politician very close to him, but the Russian president avoided him and did not give, as was feared, messages that could be seen as interference in the near future . US elections in November.