Ex-UK PM slams Tucker Carlson as ‘traitor’ for Putin interview

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has denounced journalist Tucker Carlson as a “traitor” for failing to antagonize President Vladimir Putin during his interview with the Russian leader in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday.

“We must not fall for this tissue of lies, above all the notion that Putin is somehow fated to succeed in Ukraine,” Johnson said. “On the contrary, he is doomed to fail.”

The British politician, who resigned in disgrace in 2022 amid mounting scandals regarding his government’s flouting of its own Covid-19 rules, implored his followers to read the lengthy condemnation of Carlson’s sit-down with the Russian leader he penned for the Daily Mail.

Johnson’s op-ed repeatedly invoked Adolf Hitler, insisting that Carlson was being “a traitor to journalism” by playing “Dictaphone to the dictator.”

The Russian president’s extended explanation of the history of Ukraine was merely a “mixture of semi-masticated Wikipedia and outright falsehood” – insisting Putin “demolished his own thesis” by “reckless and criminal violence” against Ukraine.

Carlson had fallen down on the job by not asking “tough questions” or taking him to task “for the torture, the rapes, the blowing up of kindergartens” supposedly committed by the Russian military – atrocities often invoked by Ukraine’s supporters in the West in the absence of evidence.

Johnson especially took issue with what he called the “ludicrous suggestion that the UK government persuaded the Ukrainians to fight on, rather than surrender to Putin’s tender mercies, in the spring of 2022,” claiming that “every member of the Ukrainian government will confirm” that it was Kiev that made the decision to tear up the peace treaty.

“Nothing and no one could have stopped those lion-hearted Ukrainians from fighting for their country – and nothing will,” he wrote.

He likened Carlson’s interview to the American newspapers that published sympathetic interviews with Hitler, insisting Putin was “exactly like” the Nazi bogeyman because he discoursed at length about “the alleged injustices suffered by speakers of his native tongue.” 

Johnson infamously pressured Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky not to accept what he called a “bad peace deal” in May of 2022, insisting that negotiating with Putin was the equivalent of reasoning with “a crocodile when it’s got your leg in its jaws,” given the Russians’ advances through Ukrainian territory. 

After successfully scuttling the negotiations, the British leader declared through a spokesperson that “the world must avoid any outcome where Putin’s unwarranted aggression appears to have paid off.” 

The 15-point peace deal negotiated between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul would have involved Kiev renouncing its efforts to join NATO and committing to neutrality in exchange for a withdrawal of Russian troops from parts of the country.

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