A View of Tucker Carlson's Interview with Vladimir Putin

Before you get upset with me for telling you something that you may not like, please let me tell you why I think the way I do.

First of all, I lived in Russia from 1994 to 1997 in the cities of Novosibirsk in Siberia, St. Petersburg, and Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, to share the Gospel with the Russian people. And I visited one of the most remote places in the Russian Arctic, the village of Teriberka. The Russians were very kind to me and I made lots of friends. It was fun learning to communicate in Russian and learning the customs and culture of the Russian people. Russians have a sense of humor just like Americans. They often use amusing sarcasm to make their point. They’re a well-mannered people and sometimes corrected me on my manners, something I appreciated.

Besides Russians, I also met the peoples of all the 14 other republics of the former Soviet Union who lived in Russia. There were lots of ethnic Ukrainians in Russia including two sisters in Christ from Kiev, my partners in evangelism to the Russians. I can tell you at the time there was no natural enmity between Russians and Ukrainians, at least there wasn’t until Putin came along. Russians and Ukrainians were like cousins, one big family. I couldn’t tell them apart! All the Ukrainians in Russia speak the Russian language, and even in Ukraine 1/3 of Ukrainians speak only Russian.

At the time there was still a spiritual vacuum in Russia because of the demise of Communism. One lady told me Communism and the Soviet government was her god. She said it was as if her god had died when the Soviet Union broke apart. Many were disheartened. But because of that, they were open to hearing the Gospel! My elderly friend from Moscow, Helen, one of the English-Russian interpreters to Japanese NHK journalists when they interviewed the first man to orbit the earth, Yuri Gagarin, appreciated all the Bible-based literature I gave her. I saw a lot of Russians come to know Jesus as their savior!

I also went to other former Soviet Republics, Estonia where I lived for one month, Latvia for one week, and Lithuania for a couple of days. There’s an ethnic Russian population in those former Soviet Republics, and they live in peace with each other. All the ethnic Russians had to learn the languages of those countries to earn a living there after the Soviet Union broke apart. Before that in Soviet times, they were allowed to do business speaking Russian. Now they are not!

Unlike Belarus and Ukraine then, there was a natural enmity between those three Baltic nations and Russia! And why? Russian is not their language and they were forced to join the Soviet Union against their will.

I once passed through Belarus on my way from St. Petersburg to Poland, the land of my grandparents. Lukashenko was president of Belarus even then! I was surprised then (1976) to learn that not all of the Polish people like Russia. Much less now for sure.

I also passed through Ukraine by train from Novorossiysk, a city on the Black Sea, on my way back to St. Petersburg. Ukrainian immigration officials saw that I didn’t have a visa for Ukraine, but my Russian friends talked them out of fining me! I was on a train line built during Soviet times. There were no borders then between Soviet Republics. The area of Ukraine I passed through is the Donbas region Putin annexed to Russia. I do not believe it was with the will of the people there.

Before I went to Russia when I lived in Japan, I met a young lady from Latvia in Tokyo. I knew she could speak Russian, and because I was studying the Russian language from NHK radio programs, I wanted to try out my Russian with her. I spoke to her some words in Russian and she immediately stopped me! “Russian is not my language,” she said. But there’s no doubt in my mind she understood what I said.

Once in Tallinn Estonia, I heard a lady scold a boy for standing on the park bench. At first, she spoke to him in Estonian, and because he didn’t seem to understand her, she spoke in Russian and he got the point. That was in 1977. I’m sure Russian speakers in Estonia are less and less and all ethnic Russians in Estonia are Estonia speakers by now.

Of the 15 former Soviet Republics, only Ukrainians and Belorussians are Slavic peoples with a language very similar to Russian. It stands to reason they would get along with each other more. The other former Soviet peoples all have different languages, and those languages are not related to each other.

I’m telling you all this because I didn’t know the attitudes of the people of these countries before I actually lived there, and therefore I’m assuming you may not know them either. It’s one of the reasons why I was heartbroken over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine! Not only Ukrainians, but the Russian people themselves are suffering and dying in this war! I only want the war to stop!

I also want you to know that I like Tucker Carlson. I appreciate his conservative views. I saw once a video an average New Yorker made when he saw Tucker Carlson fly fishing in Central Park New York City. Tucker was very cordial to him and answered all his questions. You can tell a lot about a person when you see how he treats others.

That being said, I was surprised Tucker went out of his way to give Putin an opportunity to spread his propaganda.

Putin, a former head of the KGB, is not to be trusted no matter what he says. I met lots of Russians on the island of Guam where I lived for 5 years. None of them like Putin! They ALL call him a criminal! And they all support Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion! I know that for a fact. I had a Russian friend who attended my church in Guam, Alex from a town in southern Russia near Crimea and the Black Sea, and that’s what he told me. And I met other Russians in Guam who agreed with him. Some of them actually fled from Russia to escape prosecution by Putin’s government!

Putin is not merely just a criminal, he’s a murderer of his OWN PEOPLE! The 1999 Moscow apartment bombings were a false flag operation that brought him into power. Yeltsin appointed him to take over under the condition Putin would not prosecute the Yeltsin family for ripping off billions from the Russian government. They are ALL corrupt! And Tucker trusts that guy?! Incredible!

Putin is the aggressor. He invaded Ukraine. To justify him for the invasion is a great delusion. To think he’s justified in what he’s doing is spitting on all the graves of the ones that died in the war so far, the graves of BOTH Ukrainians AND Russians!!

Lydia from Kyiv was my evangelism partner in St. Petersburg and Murmansk. Wouldn’t you think she knows the situation better than most Americans who never have been to Russia or Ukraine? This is what she wrote me:

From my relatives and acquaintances I know how strong and effective Russian propaganda is. I experienced friends who turned to enemies because they believed what was broadcast more than the people involved. But the truth is people from Donbas could travel all over Ukraine freely, speak Russian, and even get Ukrainian social benefits. Nobody was attacking them either in words or by deeds. You are smart man, but it seems to me you’ve caught some of that propaganda. Putin is a liar. And he used the same false accusations to attack other countries as well. You might’ve known that.

That video you posted about what was happening in 2013, before and after is not accurate, not true. The same twisted lies they fed and keep on feeding to Russians and anybody for that matter.

If someone in power is concerned that somebody’s rights are violated (like ethnic Russians), why can’t he do it the civil way: collect the evidence and go to international court with it?

Ukrainian independence is what Putin didn’t like and you can get that message from his speeches before he started this inhuman war. By what can you justify the targeted bombing of a maternity hospital, and an orphanage, and the shootings of unarmed civilians?

Why do we have to run from our homes for dear lives to become refugees now? Every day cities and towns are bombed. Every day something is destroyed in Kyiv and I check the news in the morning worried sick it might be our apartment building. I just pray for my parents, sister, and all my loved ones to be safe. Over 60 of my fellow Kievans were killed, four of them were children.

In Ukraine people of different nationalities live together peacefully and we don’t want anyone’s territory. We want to live in peace and choose our own course without anybody dictating to us what to do.

The sad truth is most Russians consider themselves superior to Ukrainians and any other nations as well.

I’m sorry if I sound overly emotional, I actually am and some of the thoughts are hard to put into words. I didn’t want to offend you in any way, and I hope you’ll come to the right conclusions.

Lydia apparently thought from something I posted on Facebook that I agreed with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I never did. I made that clear to her in a reply.

If you have seen Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin, how can you reconcile what he says with what Ukrainian Lydia says? You can’t. I trust what Lydia says. She’s fled Kyiv for her life with her daughter Diana and is now living in France.

Just because Biden supports the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion does not mean Putin is wearing the white hat! We should not judge according to appearances! I don’t support Biden or most of his policies, but neither do I justify Putin in his actions. I think the situation is deeper than most people realize.

My friend from Belarus, Yanek, another one of my evangelism partners in St. Petersburg and Murmansk Russia, believes Putin was tricked into invading Ukraine because he was given false information. He thought the war would be over in days. He apparently thought the Ukrainian people would welcome the Russian soldiers as liberators from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “repressive” government! Whatever you may think about Zelinskyy and his government, you can see that was not the case!

My friend Russian friend Alex says the Orthodox Church fully supports Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I hear the Catholic Church is stronger than the Orthodox in Western Ukraine. Could the war really be all about a Jesuit / Vatican plan to destroy Russia? I believe Western Europe is controlled by the Vatican, and the Vatican has failed twice so far to conquer Russia through Napoleon and Hitler.

Contrary to what others are saying, I can’t see how Putin can win this war. Even if he takes over Kyiv, it’ll be like the Nazi takeover of Paris. Just like the French underground resistance was a thorn in Hitler’s side, so would a Ukrainian underground resistance be to Putin. That’s what I believe.

Historically Ukrainians have more reasons to not like Russians than vice versa. Millions of Ukrainians starved to death from 1932-1933 because all the food from their farms was shipped to Russia!

I have lost friends over my view about Putin and the Russian invasion. Putin is feeding American conservatives what he knows they like and want to hear! But his only interest is money and power. He’s not in it for the welfare of the Russian people.

I hope I don’t lose you too, but this is how I see it based on what I know directly from my own experiences in that part of the world and what my Russian and Ukrainian friends tell me, and not what the media or American conservatives tell me. I too am an American conservative! But my allegiance is first of all to God’s Kingdom, the Lord Jesus, and the truth.

Decoding Putin’s Interview with Tucker Carlson

The 7-minute video below is an interview with Jack Barsky, a former KGB spy in America. He gives insights into Vladimir Putin’s recent interview with Tucker Carlson about Putin’s assertions about Ukraine, military support, and diplomatic strategies.

Here’s a quote during the interview from Mr. Barsky:

Mr. Carlson sat through most of that interview like a middle school student. But at one point he should have been prepared to know that Putin was just lying. Putin was stating that the war was started by Nazis in the Ukraine in 2014. That’s a blatant lie! In 2014 there was an uprising by the people to support the parliament’s decision to get closer to the European Union. And then Putin’s next step: He invaded Crimea.

Comment from a new friend on Facebook:

I was very impressed by what this man has to say about why the Republicans are embracing Putin.

Its all some kind of harebrained gambit to discredit the other political party. Tucker’s logic for this is something like “If Biden and the Dems hate Putin, we will embrace him.” Trump and others play this same game. The truth or what is right doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is if “our” team comes out on top. The underlying modus operandi is “Blow up all our institutions and our long-standing views on decency and manners, as well as what is right or wrong. If we are the creators of chaos, we can be the rulers when the whole thing collapses.” I’m a bit of a liberal, but I have to say the Dems do something similar, but in an awkwardly opposite style. They just ignore any major problem that the Republicans want to fix. For example, Biden’s inaction on the border and illegal immigration. Also, some Dems also champion new so-called “liberal” ideas, such as gender reassignment for adolescents that is widely unpopular and drives many Centrist and conservative voters away. The extremists on both sides are making headlines with radical views, and that makes it impossible to do the things that 80% of Americans need and want; repair bring our infrastructure up to date, put in place logical, practical, workable solutions to the border problems. solve the homeless crisis, make it possible to financially support your family if you work. (Thanks for listening to my rant 😉 )

May the war between Russia and Ukraine end! In Jesus’ Name!