Tucker Carlson Has Interviewed Putin, Kremlin Says

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, has interviewed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, a sign that the Russian leader is seeking to make a direct appeal to American conservatives as U.S. aid to Ukraine hangs in the balance.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said Mr. Carlson had 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 has delivered a blow-by-blow account of his visit, raising anticipation of a potential interview by Mr. Carlson of Mr. Putin. On Tuesday night, he revealed that he was interviewing the Russian leader.

“We’re here to interview the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin,” Mr. Carlson said in a video apparently shot from a high-rise building in central Moscow and posted to the social media network X. “We’ll be doing that soon.”

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

Mr. Putin’s government has drastically reduced the ability of Western journalists to cover Russia, and has imprisoned a Wall Street Journal correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, for more than 10 months on espionage charges that he, his employer and the United States government vehemently deny. The Kremlin has referred to Western countries as having been “stupefied” by anti-Russian propaganda.