Ukraine conspicuously silent on Tucker Carlson interview request
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 16th, 2024.
Adam Galici | CNBC
Ukraine’s leadership has remained conspicuously silent on U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson’s interview request following the journalist’s repeated criticism of Kyiv.
Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week. The former Fox News host has expressed pro-Kremlin views while disparaging U.S. support for Ukraine, criticizing Western media interviews with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the president himself, calling him “sweaty and rat-like” and a “persecutor of Christians.”
Carlson said he’d also requested an interview with Ukraine’s president, although there has been no public response from Kyiv. Zelenskyy has not commented on the Putin interview either.
Deputy Prime Minister Hanna Maliar noted on Telegram that “the only interview that is safe in this situation is an interrogation in The Hague,” alluding to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine. Russia said the ICC’s actions were “outrageous” and that it did not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar during a media briefing of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv on April 13, 2023.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Russian state media tracked Tucker Carlson’s every move while he was in Moscow, and Maliar noted that “the Russian information environment is happy that a famous American journalist will interview Putin.”
“There are such democratic practices that can lead to the destruction of the bearers of democratic values,” Maliar said.
“As soon as they start a discussion about why Putin is doing this; where something human is hidden in him, which will smile and…
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