In 2019 Vladislav Surkov, a close advisor to Putin and one of his chief ideologues, wrote: ‘Foreign politicians attribute to Russia interference in elections and referendums across the planet. In fact, the matter is even more serious – Russia is interfering in their brains, and they do not know what to do with their own altered consciousness.’
Surkov has since been disgraced, but Russia’s insidious information warfare escalated to new heights on 8 February with the broadcast of US pundit Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On X (formerly Twitter) alone, the replay has, at the time of writing, garnered over 85 million views. This is not counting the millions who will have viewed it on Tucker Carlson’s website, via Russia Today and on the Kremlin’s website. Clips and social media reposts will further push Putin’s message to millions across the globe.
Beyond giving a platform for Putin to repeat his usual lies on history, NATO expansion and the war in Ukraine to a worldwide audience, the interview also underscored the close alignment of Donald Trump’s interests with those of the Kremlin.
Trump/ Putin alignment
In one example out of many, Putin suggested that previous US presidents had been dissuaded by their advisors from integrating Russia into NATO or establishing a joint missile defence system with Europe.
Carlson seized the moment to advance the Trump/MAGA narrative that democracy in the US is being undermined, remarking: ‘you’ve described US presidents making decisions and being undercut by their agencies. It sounds like you’re describing a system that’s not run by the people that are elected?’
Carlson also embraced Putin’s hostile view of NATO and nodded approvingly to Putin’s claims that the CIA has been pushing US foreign policy objectives at the expense of world peace. This echoes analysts’ warnings that a Trump presidency would see a radical overhaul of US foreign policy, US relations with NATO and the desire to apply strong presidential control over the civil service and government agencies, including the CIA.
Putin also pushed his narrative that the war in Ukraine would be over in weeks if the US stopped giving Ukraine weapons – which seems to complement Donald Trump’s assertion that once he becomes president, the war will be over in 24 hours.
Timing
The interview could not have come at a worse time. The US Senate is still hoping to pass a bill approving aid to Ukraine in spite of Republican resistance, and Carlson’s media event can only serve to sow further division and confusion within a party which believes Ukraine funding represents a useful electoral issue.
In a mutually self-serving twist, the media frenzy that Carlson generated in Russia also allowed the Kremlin to eclipse reporting on the Russian Central Electoral Commission’s decision on 8 February to bar anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin from the Russian presidential ballot in March.
An unholy alliance
It was hard not to come away from the interview feeling that Carlson, a strong Trump supporter, and Vladimir Putin are batting for the same team. This is particularly worrying as polls suggest Trump will not only win the Republican nomination in the upcoming presidential elections, but the presidency itself.
This opens the door to imagining an unholy Trump-Putin alliance bent on destroying the post Second World War international order and the institutions that are the foundations of liberal democracies.
This would have fundamental implications for Europe’s defence and the UK’s identity and security, which has rested for more than 75 years on cooperation with the US through organizations like NATO.