“On social media, Kremlin officials moved quickly to use the Tucker Carlson interview as an opportunity to amplify Russia’s propaganda aimed at increasing support for the ongoing war in Ukraine. “There are people out there,” said Ben Scott, director of Reset, a London-based nonprofit that tracks misinformation. He told WIRED he is running a campaign.
This blanket report was repeated throughout Russian state media. The newsroom's homepage features multiple articles about the interview, many of which highlight how successful Putin was in getting his message across to Western audiences.
In one of more than a dozen articles published by the state news agency RIA Novosti, the author mentions 30 articles of President Putin and says that the interview “is aimed at introducing Russians and Ukrainians to a Western audience who knows nothing about Russian history.” The purpose is to make people realize that they are one nation.” – A minute-by-minute introduction to Russian history dating back to 862.
Even before the interview was published, Russian state television was tracking Karlsson's every move during his time in Moscow. The fact that he was charging his phone and using Wi-Fi.
The interview was also widely disseminated on Telegram, including on channels created specifically for the occasion and channels that were renamed, according to research shared with WIRED by Reset. These channels quickly gained many followers. One of his newly created Telegram channels called “Tucker Carlson in Russian” gained him over 18,000 new subscribers interested in interviews. Another channel, renamed “Tucker Carlson's Interview with President Putin,” has more than 200,000 subscribers. Some pro-Kremlin Telegram channels have published dashboards claiming exhaustive statistics on how interviews are conducted online, while others have published interviews over time on Google. posted a screenshot of a graph it claims shows interest in.
On Russia Today's official Telegram channel, the news outlet praised the reaction of Western media, writing: “The Putin-Karlson meltdown in the mainstream media reveals the weakness of Western discourse.” Other Telegram channels also posted clips of Western media reactions to the interview.
“Many Russian audiences believe that [the interview] “It was done with a singular vision: to educate Westerners,” Kyle Walter, research director at Logical, a company that uses AI to track disinformation, told WIRED. “Many channels have focused on how much attention this interview has garnered and how it clearly articulates the long history associated with Russia that 'doesn't exist in America.'
In the aftermath of the interview, Vladislav Davankov, deputy speaker of the State Duma and presidential candidate of the party “New People”, said that Russia has no right to do so, since the platform hosting Putin's interview has shown itself to be “neutral.” Roskomnadzor's telecommunications agency suggested that X should be unblocked. Since Musk came to power, he had “removed more than 90 percent of content prohibited in Russia” “in the dissemination of information.”
Many Russian Telegram users also praised Elon Musk's role in popularizing the interview. Musk pinned the interview to his X profile and encouraged his followers to watch it.
