In an interview released Thursday, Tucker Carlson urged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to release an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been held in a notorious Moscow prison for nearly a year.

Mr. Carlson's call on behalf of the reporter, Evan Gershkovich, marked only the second time Mr. Putin has directly raised an issue that has galvanized press freedom groups and strained diplomatic ties with the United States.

Large parts of the two-hour interview were taken up with Mr Putin's recounting of hundreds of years of Russian history. But in the final minutes, Mr. Carlson asked “as a sign of your decency” if he “would be willing to release him to us and we bring him back to the United States.” Mr Carlson added: 'This man is clearly not a spy. He's just a kid, and he may have broken your law somehow, but he's not a super spy, and everyone knows that.”

Mr Putin was noncommittal in his response. “We've done so many goodwill gestures out of decency that I don't think we're in it anymore,” he said, according to a translation of his remarks by Mr. Carlson's team.

Pressed by Mr. Carlson on the matter, Mr. Putin later added: “I also want him to finally return to his homeland. I am absolutely sincere. But let me say it again: the dialogue continues.”

The Russian leader suggested he wanted additional concessions from American officials before considering releasing Mr. Gershkovich. Mr. Putin suggested he might want to swap the reporter for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian citizen sentenced to life in prison in Germany for the 2019 killing of a Chechen former separatist fighter in Berlin.

Mr. Gershkovich, 32, was the first American journalist to be arrested in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War, and the U.S. government has labeled him “wrongfully detained,” meaning he is essentially considered a considered a political prisoner.

He was arrested in March in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg and charged with espionage, a charge that The Journal and U.S. authorities have strongly denied. Since then, he has been held in Moscow's infamous Lefortovo prison awaiting trial.

The Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch's family, which also controls Mr. Carlson's former employer, Fox News. “We are encouraged to see the Russian desire for a deal that brings Evan home, and we hope this will lead to his speedy release and return to his family and our newsroom,” the newspaper said in a statement after the broadcast on Thursday of the broadcast. Putin interview.

Last month, Mr. Gershkovich, who once worked as a news assistant for The New York Times, was ordered to remain in jail at least until March 30, the fourth time his detention has been extended. Russian authorities have indicated they may be open to a prisoner exchange for him, but only after a ruling in his case.

In December, Valerie Hopkins, a correspondent for The Times, asked Mr. Putin about Mr. Gershkovich's case at a news conference. The Russian leader replied only vaguely. “We want to make a deal, but it must be acceptable to both sides,” he said, adding: “I hope we will find a solution.”

In Thursday's interview, Mr. Putin gave a similarly vague answer to Mr. Carlson. “I do not rule out that the person you refer to, Mr Gershkovich, will return to his motherland,” Mr Putin said. “But we have to reach an agreement.

“I hope you release him,” Mr. Carlson replied.

President Vladimir V. Putin called on the United States to “make an agreement” on ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia to end the war. He spoke for two hours with a former Fox News host in an interview broadcast Thursday that was the Kremlin's most direct appeal to the American public since its invasion began two years ago.

'Wouldn't it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement,” Putin told Tucker Carlson, the American conservative commentator, in the Russian leader's first interview with an American outlet since 2021. “Start respecting our country and its interests and look for certain solutions.”

Much of the interview was a familiar Kremlin history lesson about Russia's historic claim to Eastern European countries, beginning in the ninth century, which Mr. Putin made little effort to distill for American ears. Mr Putin also laid out his threadbare and false justifications for the invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Russia's aim was to “stop this war” that he claims the West is waging against Russia.

But Putin was more direct than usual about how he sees his invasion of Ukraine ending: not with a military victory, but through an agreement with the West. At the end of the interview, Mr. Putin told Mr. Carlson that the time had come for talks about ending the war because “those in power in the West have come to realize” that Russia will not be defeated the battlefield.

“If that is the case, once the realization has sunk in, they need to think about what to do next. We are ready for this dialogue,” Putin said.

In response to Mr. Carlson's question about whether NATO could accept Russian control of parts of Ukraine, Mr. Putin said: “Let them think about how to do that in a dignified way. There are options if there is a will.”

The original Russian version of Mr. Putin's remarks was not immediately released, leaving viewers to rely on Mr. Carlson's on-air dubbed translation.

The interview, conducted on Tuesday, was Putin's first with a Western media outlet since the start of the war in Ukraine and his first with an American one since 2021. While Putin regularly gave interviews to mainstream US media in his first two years , After decades in power, his spokesman said the Kremlin chose Carlson this time because these traditional channels take “an exclusively one-sided position” towards Russia.

When given the opportunity to expand Carlson's efforts to portray Russia as a defender of “traditional values” in the face of what he often portrays as a degenerate and declining West, the Russian president was unusually reluctant. “Western society is more pragmatic,” he said. “Russian people think more about the eternal, about moral values.”

He added that “there is nothing wrong with” the Western path, noting that it had led to “good success in manufacturing, even in science.” It was an echo of Putin's frequent assertion over the past two years that his conflict is not with the West as a whole, but with a hegemonic ruling elite.

Putin's actions underlined his tactical confidence as his opponents face a vulnerable moment: Ukraine struggles on the battlefield, further military aid is halted in the US Congress and Kremlin-friendly politicians are on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic. Chief among these politicians is former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate whom Mr. Carlson frequently praises.

That coincidence means that the interview with Mr. Carlson comes at a time when Mr. Putin is feeling his “finest hour,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

Putin's end goal, she said, is to secure a peace deal in Ukraine that would strengthen Russian control over territory it has already captured and install a friendly government in Kiev, Ukraine's capital. But to achieve this, Putin appears to believe he needs the United States to pressure Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war, rather than continuing to oppose the Russian invasion.

“He believes he has a chance now,” she said.

Last spring, it seemed like Tucker Carlson had reached the end of his fiery streak path through American media and politics.

Fox News canceled its top-rated show, depriving Mr. Carlson of his nightly platform in prime time. But it kept him under a contract, worth more than $15 million a year, that prohibited him from taking a job with a rival.

Under the old rules of traditional media, Mr. Carlson would have been off the air and out of sight until the end of the 2024 election, when his contract expired. But Mr. Carlson is not your typical television star. And what was once normal in his industry is becoming increasingly archaic, shattered by the new rules – or lack thereof – of the fractured online media world.

By landing an exclusive interview with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — released Thursday on the social network X and Mr. Carlson's own streaming site, Tucker Carlson Network — the host has returned to the center of American politics with a vengeance.

The two-hour interview gave him a megaphone to the American public, just as many Republicans in Congress were trying to block a vital lifeline from U.S. military aides to Ukraine.

It also accomplished Mr. Carlson's goal of returning to the spotlight. For the first time since his defenestration by Fox, his name was once again on the lips of major national and international figures, the kind of fame on which Mr. Carlson has long thrived.

Hillary Clinton this week in an interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner called him “a useful idiot” and Putin's “puppy dog.”

Mr. Carlson gave Mr. Putin space for uninterrupted exposés on long-standing and decidedly one-sided grievances about Ukraine's origins and independence movements. But Mr. Carlson occasionally pressed, to Mr. Putin's visible chagrin, including why Russia jailed Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, and disputed Mr. Putin's claim that the Mr Gershkovich was a spy.

Whether the interview will improve Mr. Carlson's position in the long term remains to be seen.

Mr. Putin's interview will serve as a kind of advertisement for his streaming site, which he founded in December and costs subscribers $9 a month. Tucker Carlson Network is an attempt to replicate the business model of other conservative personalities like Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro, who have built standalone digital platforms outside of traditional media. Mr. Carlson is working with Red Seat Ventures, a company that counts Ms. Kelly, Bari Weiss and Nancy Grace among its clients, to handle ad sales on the new platform.

So far, however, Mr. Carlson's self-produced interviews on

His waning power seemed to be at least part of the reason Fox hadn't done more to stop his new venture, even though Fox said it violated the terms of his contract. (Mr. Carlson's lawyers have argued that Fox originally breached his contract and that his online show fell within his free speech rights.)

If Fox were to pursue a case against Mr. Carlson, it could give him a chance to claim that his former “corporate media” overlords, as he likes to call them, tried to censor him. It's exactly the kind of argument that plays to Mr. Carlson's fan base, which seems like a political movement in itself, giving Mr. Carlson a position of power afforded to few other television stars.

It was that influence that made Mr. Carlson such a boon to Mr. Trump — and Mr. Putin — during his time at Fox News.

Mr. Carlson was the most prominent promoter of pro-Russian arguments within the network, including his claim that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is a dictator used by the West to undermine Russia.

But his propaganda style also took him to the limits of cable television.

His involvement in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation case against Fox, which was settled for $787 million — and the pretrial discovery of a text by Mr. Carlson conveying inflammatory views on violence and race — influenced his company bosses, Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch, in their decision to cut his show.

Mr. Musk quickly stepped in to make Mr. Carlson the first host of a feature-length video show on X.

Mr. Musk completed his purchase of “Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy,” Mr. Musk explained to Mr. Carlson, who praised him for “restoring free speech to the internet.”

At And Mr. Musk has not worried about content that could alienate advertisers. (X has offered packages costing $300,000 for ads on four of Mr. Carlson's videos, and up to $1.5 million for ads on 48 videos, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.)

Mr. Carlson pushed and ultimately exceeded the limits of what the Murdochs could allow on their network. He hasn't come close to that mark for Mr. Musk, who has reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts that promoted health and election misinformation, matching a rise in racist and anti-Semitic posts on the social network. On Thursday, Mr Musk, the most followed user on the platform, shared Mr Putin's interview with his followers.

Mr. Carlson's show featured well-known Americans, such as Alex Jones, who took issue with content moderation policies on many social media platforms — including Twitter, as X was known before Musk bought it and eliminated most of those policies. .

Other guests included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, each of whom received a supportive reception from Mr. Musk at X.

That shared vision has sometimes extended to Ukraine and Russia. Mr Musk has angered Ukrainians by suggesting they negotiate for peace, which they equate to allowing Mr Putin to keep Ukrainian territory he took by bloody and illegal force.

And while Mr Musk has allowed Ukraine to use its Starlink satellite system for battlefield communications, he has admitted blocking its use for a planned attack on Russia in the Black Sea last year. Mr Putin, in turn, has praised Mr Musk as a “talented businessman”.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had similarly warm words for Mr. Carlson this week, saying that Putin had granted him an interview — which Mr. Carlson had been seeking since his Fox days — because Mr. Carlson “contrasts with the position of the traditional, Anglo-Saxon media.”

Mr. Peskov debunked Mr. Carlson's false suggestion that he was the first Western media figure to interview Mr. Putin since his massive invasion of Ukraine two years ago, because journalists had not bothered to ask. Numerous Western media outlets have made these requests, including The Times.

But Mr. Peskov agreed with Mr. Carlson that traditional media “cannot boast of attempting to even appear impartial.”

Russia has defined impartiality as adherence to its official line, deviation from which risks the decisive censorship of imprisonment. That goes against traditional journalistic norms – standards that Mr. Carlson does not have to concern himself with at X.

The interview certainly seems to be drawing a large audience. The test will be whether this will result in more subscriptions and interest in his show in the future – and if not, how Mr. Carlson will try to outdo himself for his next splash.

Kate Conger reporting contributed.

The idea was to isolate him, to make him a pariah, to put him in a box as punishment for blatant violations of international law. They kicked him out of their world leaders' clubhouse, shut down his country's economy and even issued an arrest warrant for him for war crimes.

But Vladimir V. Putin doesn't look so isolated these days. Mr. Putin, the czar-envious Russian president who invaded neighboring Ukraine without provocation and killed or injured hundreds of thousands, is having a moment in the United States.

With the help of a populist former Fox News star and America's richest man, Putin is given a platform to justify his actions, even as Russian and American journalists languish in his prisons. His favorite candidate is about to win the Republican presidential nomination, while Congress considers leaving Ukraine to the tender mercies of Russian invaders.

Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson on Elon Musk's social media platform, amid the debate over security assistance on Capitol Hill, driven by Donald J. Trump, offers a moment to reflect on the staggering transformation of American politics in the In recent years. A Republican Party that once defined itself through staunch opposition to Russia has increasingly turned to a form of neo-isolationism with, in some quarters, sympathy for Moscow.

Instead of a ruthless autocrat seeking to seize territory through the most violent war in Europe since the fall of the Nazis, Mr. Putin has turned himself into a kind of like-minded ally of certain right-wing forces in the United States, not in the last place Mr. Trump, who praised his aggression as “genius” just before Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine in 2022. And Mr Putin appears to have the upper hand in the US capital in a way that would once have been unthinkable, with the help of a party that still pays tribute to Ronald Reagan.

“For Putin, it is an expression of American weakness,” said Yevgenia Albats, an independent Russian journalist who moved to the United States last year after threats of prosecution. For Putin, she said, the Carlson interview proves that “Americans realized they were losing the war with him” and “sent him an envoy close to the next president to confirm his success.” It also serves a domestic purpose for Putin, she added. “It's a message to the elites who advocate the ceasefire: you see, the Americans blinked.”

American politics did not need Mr. Putin to stir things up. The rise of nativism, populism and polarization are homegrown phenomena with historical roots. After decades of rough bipartisan Cold War consensus over America's role in the world, globalization, mass immigration and foreign wars have discredited the old thinking for many and opened the door to figures like Mr. Trump , whose promise to “put America first” resonated. in large parts of the country.

Nevertheless, the change has hardly been more startling than when it comes to Mr Putin, whose government has pumped disinformation into US social media for years. By casting himself as the defender of traditional civilization against moral decay in the West, a place of “outright Satanism” with “several assumed genders,” Mr. Putin has built something of a following in the United States.

More than one in four Americans, or 26 percent, has a positive image of the Russian leader, according to him a study by YouGov, up from just 15 percent in early 2021 before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year later. Even if that number is an outlier compared to other surveys, it suggests there is a certain audience for the Kremlin master.

Mr. Carlson is among those more willing to listen and deliver Russia's message to Americans. As others have notedMr. Carlson used to call Mr. Putin the “Russian dictator” who is “in league with our enemies,” but now he claims that Moscow has been misunderstood, or at least not heard. His comments on the attack on Ukraine have been cheerfully repeated in Russian state media.

In a video Explaining his decision to interview Mr. Putin, Mr. Carlson claimed that Americans and other English-speaking people were unaware of what was really happening regarding the war in Ukraine. “Nobody told them the truth,” he said. “Their media outlets are corrupt. They lie to their readers and viewers.”

Never mind that even the Kremlin said Mr. Carlson was not telling the truth when he said he was giving Mr. Putin a platform because “no Western journalist bothered to interview him.” Numerous Western news organizations have requested interviews since the 2022 invasion, as confirmed by Dmitry S. Peskov, Putin's spokesman, but the Kremlin chose Carlson because it viewed him as more open than “the traditional Anglo-Saxon media.”

A predictable wave of outrage followed Mr. Carlson's video announcement, which made no mention of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia a year ago on espionage charges that he and his employer have vehemently denied, or Russian journalists or dissenters jailed by Putin's government. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Mr. Carlson a “useful idiot,” borrowing Lenin's phrase for Western stooges, and former Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, called him “a traitor.”

Mrs. Clinton further suggested that the interview underscored a broader and disturbing phenomenon in the United States. “It is a sign that there are people in this country right now who are acting as a fifth column for Vladimir Putin.” Mrs. Clinton said on MSNBC this week.

Among those most frustrated by this are traditional Republicans like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party's leader in the Senate, who is facing growing skepticism at his own conference over aid to Ukraine.

While 11 Republicans in the Senate voted against aid to Ukraine in May 2022, shortly after the invasion, 31 voted not to advance the aid on Thursday and it remains unclear whether Republicans in the House of Representatives will hold a vote on the package allow.

Mr. Kinzinger, who broke with Mr. Trump and became one of his most outspoken critics, recalled that Republicans attacked President Barack Obama for not doing more to help Ukraine when Russia first seized Crimea in 2014. Mr Kinzinger wrote on social media on Thursday: “The current Republican Party reportedly attacked Obama in 2014 for doing too much for Ukraine.”

Waiting in the wings is Mr. Trump, determined to regain his old office. Although Robert S. Mueller's investigators in 2019 found no criminal conspiracy between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin's Russia during the 2016 campaign, the former president's enigmatic affinity for the Russian ruler remains pronounced and still baffling to many .

Even in a recent campaign speech, Mr. Trump approvingly cited Mr. Putin's views to argue that the Justice Department was unfairly prosecuting him, citing Russia's statement that the former president's trial “demonstrates the depravity of the American political system .”

At other times, Mr. Trump has declined to say whether he hopes Russia or Ukraine will win the war and has indicated he would like to trade Ukrainian territory to push Russia to end the conflict.

Mr Putin has taken note. As he spreads his message on social media, watches US lawmakers hesitate to arm the victims of his aggression and awaits the outcome of the presidential race, the Russian leader sees a way out of the box.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has interviewed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the Kremlin said Wednesday, a sign that the Russian leader is trying to make a direct appeal to U.S. conservatives as U.S. aid to Ukraine comes to a head game is. .

Dmitry S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said Mr. Carlson conducted the interview on Tuesday. He did not say when it would be released.

Mr. Carlson has been in Moscow for several days, according to Russian state media, which provided a detailed account of his visit, raising expectations for a possible interview by Mr. Carlson with Mr. Putin. On Tuesday evening he announced that he was interviewing the Russian leader.

“We are here to interview the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin,” Mr. Carlson said in an interview video apparently filmed from a high-rise building in central Moscow and posted on the social media network X. “We will do that soon.”

Mr. Carlson, whose show appears on X, did not specify the timing of an upcoming interview. It would be Putin's first formal interview with a Western media figure since the start of his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and his first with an American outlet since he spoke with CNBC in 2021.

Putin's government has drastically reduced the ability of Western journalists to report on Russia and has jailed a Wall Street Journal correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, for more than 10 months on espionage charges leveled against him, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny it. The Kremlin has referred to Western countries as “numbed” by anti-Russian propaganda.

The interview comes at a crucial time for the war in Ukraine, as US aid to Kiev is stalled in Congress. A Senate vote on a relief package Wednesday will almost certainly fail after a growing number of Republicans said they would not support it.

By speaking to Mr. Carlson, Mr. Putin would most likely be trying to seize a unique opportunity: a chance to reach a potentially sympathetic audience in the United States.

Mr. Carlson, like Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, is skeptical of further U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia's invasion, and has embraced Mr. Putin's efforts to position himself as a global standard-bearer for “traditional values,” such as opposition to LGBT rights.

Putin's calculation seems to be largely related to the war in Ukraine. The interview could fuel political divisions over Ukraine within the United States, especially if Putin signals openness to a negotiated end to the war.

In promoting the anticipated interview, Mr. Carlson falsely claimed that he was the only one among Western media figures to attempt to interview Mr. Putin. Several Western news organizations, including TV networks and The New York Times, have requested interviews.

“Does Tucker really think that we journalists haven't tried to interview President Putin every day since his massive invasion of Ukraine?” Christiane Amanpour, the CNN and PBS journalist, wrote on Xadding that Mr. Carlson's claim was “absurd.”

Mr. Peskov discussed that point on Wednesday, saying, “Mr. Carlson isn't right, but he couldn't have known that. We get a lot of requests for interviews with the president.”

Mr. Peskov said that Western newspapers and television networks “cannot boast of attempts to appear even impartial when it comes to reporting on what is happening” and that “there is no desire to communicate with such media.” Mr. Carlson, he said, is taking a position that “contrasts with the position of the traditional Anglo-Saxon media.”

An interview in the Kremlin could be mutually beneficial for Mr. Carlson and Mr. Putin. Mr. Carlson lost the most prominent platform in conservative media when he was kicked out of Fox's lineup last year, while Mr. Putin lost the most prominent promoter of his anti-Ukrainian talking points in the United States.

Mr. Carlson's arrival in Moscow and speculation that he was there to interview Mr. Putin drew a mix of condemnation and praise from prominent X users.

“He is a traitor,” former Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican of Illinois, wrote in a message, referring to Mr. Carlson. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia who is joining Trump, praised the news: proverb: “Democrats and their propagandists are reeling from the prospect of Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.”

Mr. Carlson said in his video that the interview would be posted on

However, that may not be the case for the Russian government, which has restricted access to Twitter as of March 2022, claiming the platform is hosting false information about the war in Ukraine.

While Carlson continues to supply the Kremlin media with pro-Putin commentary for consumption in Russia, he has become an inferior figure in the United States since leaving Fox News, where he averaged more than 3 million viewers a night.

Western officials and Russians close to the Kremlin have said in recent months that as Russia resumes the initiative on the battlefield and further U.S. aid to Ukraine stalls in Congress, Mr. Putin appears to see an opening for negotiations that could put him in the could play cards. But many of Ukraine's supporters say seeking a deal with Putin now would amount to a capitulation because it would almost certainly require Ukraine to give up roughly a fifth of Ukraine that Russia now controls.

In breathless coverage of Carlson's movements in Moscow in recent days, Russia's pro-Kremlin media appeared to be building rumors about a possible Putin interview. On television and online, Russian state media have treated Mr. Carlson like a visiting celebrity, offering a stream of photos and videos of his various stops — arriving at the airport, dining at a restaurant and enjoying the “Spartacus” ballet in the Bolshoi. Theater.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will be present “soon” for an interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host said Tuesday, a sign that the Russian leader is trying to make a direct appeal to American conservatives as U.S. aid to Ukraine is stuck. in the balance sheet.

“We are here to interview the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin,” Mr. Carlson said in an interview video apparently filmed from a high-rise in central Moscow and posted on social network X. “We will do that soon.”

The Kremlin did not immediately confirm that the interview would take place and declined to comment on the possibility when asked by journalists in recent days. Mr. Carlson has been in Moscow for several days, according to Russian state media, which provided a detailed account of his visit, raising expectations for a possible interview by Mr. Carlson with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Carlson did not specify the timing of an upcoming interview. It would be Putin's first formal interview with a Western media figure since the start of his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and his first with an American outlet since he spoke with CNBC in 2021.

Putin's government has drastically reduced the ability of Western journalists to report on Russia, jailing The Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The Kremlin has referred to Western countries as “numbed” by anti-Russian propaganda.

The interview would come at a crucial time for the war in Ukraine, with US aid to Kiev stalled in Congress. A Senate vote on a relief package Wednesday will almost certainly fail after a growing number of Republicans said they would not support it.

An interview in the Kremlin could be mutually beneficial for Mr. Carlson and Mr. Putin. Mr. Carlson lost the most prominent platform in conservative media when he was kicked out of Fox's lineup last year, while Mr. Putin lost the most prominent promoter of his anti-Ukrainian talking points in the United States.

By speaking to Mr. Carlson, Mr. Putin would likely be trying to reinforce this point and seize an opportunity: a chance to reach a potentially sympathetic audience in the United States.

Mr. Carlson, like Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, is skeptical of further U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia's invasion, and has embraced Mr. Putin's efforts to position himself as a global standard-bearer for “traditional values,” such as opposition to LGBT rights.

Putin's calculation seems to be largely related to the war in Ukraine. The interview could fuel political divisions over Ukraine within the United States, especially if Putin signals openness to a negotiated end to the war. Mr. Carlson's arrival in Moscow and speculation that he was there to interview Mr. Putin drew a mix of condemnation and praise from prominent X users.

“He is a traitor,” former Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican of Illinois, wrote in a message, referring to Mr. Carlson. Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, the Trump-aligned Georgia congresswoman, praised the news: proverb: “Democrats and their propagandists are reeling from the prospect of Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.”