Carlson-Putin Interview Smashed US Media Censorship Wall - Ex-Asst. Defense Secretary

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Russian President Vladimir Putin broke through the impenetrable barrier of Western mainstream media’s censorship to present directly to the American and European publics his proposals to end the Ukraine conflict, former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Chas Freeman told Sputnik on Friday.

"Tucker Carlson has done the American public an enormous favor by offering it an opportunity to break past the wall of censorship by our oligopoly media and hear Mr. Putin directly," Freeman said.

In his two-hour long interview with Carlson, the Russian president listed Moscow's conditions for bringing NATO's proxy full-scale war against Russia in Ukraine to a halt.

Ball in NATO’s court on ending Ukrainian crisis

“I think that the most important message in Putin's interview [to Tucker Carlson] is that Russia is ready for a political or diplomatic solution of the Ukraine conflict,” Russian international affairs observer Dmitry Suslov told… pic.twitter.com/NPiUkdBl5w

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) February 9, 2024

Freeman said Putin was reiterating proposals to end the war he had repeatedly offered before and that Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul in 2022 had wanted to accept before being pressured by the US and its NATO allies to reject.

"For anyone who has made the effort to listen to what President Putin has said, as opposed to automatically tuning out, there is very little that is surprising in this interview," he said.

Putin confirmed to Carlson that Russia favored a “negotiated settlement” to the crisis in Ukraine, saying that it would be up to Kiev and its Western partners whether or not to accept it.