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Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

Phew. While most people watched Chinese variety shows during Chinese New Year, I watched the Putin/Tucker interview AND a podcast by Konstantin Kisin analysing it. Hope to see reactions from the Russian Youtubers I follow too.
Here's my thoughts:
- The Russian history was needed. While i know the basic facts about how the Russian war came about, most US folks probably don't
- I didnt find Putin's reasoning for the invasion convincing tho - esp denazification. I still think it is wrong

1/3

I surprisingly liked Tucker's questioning. I found most US interview styles annoying as they always insert their opinions and agenda in them, are leading and confrontational. I like that he let Putin speak and didn't interrupt. Too often journos liked the sound of their voices too much. 🙄 However, as Tucker did not seem to be prepared with the Russian history bits he can't rebut/clarify Putin's points. 2/3

Context: I was trained by a Canadian interview expert so I know what's good techinque

Putin is very intelligent - I am surprised people are surprised by this. 😅 How did you think he stayed in power??
A lot of geopolitical analysts would agree that the war was the result of geopolitical incompetence & about US hegemony.
Nordstream lol it is also true most of the world, esp non-Western countries, suspect the US did it. Again surprised people are surprised by this.
All in all a fascinating interview & one the historians will always analyze in the future.

@liztai Anyone who knows Russian will have heard Putin say the same things on countless occasions. His understanding of history is not particularly good, but he is definitely passionate about it.

@anderspuck i hear that most Russians are. I don't enough about Russian history to know but according to Konstantin Kisin who was from Russia, he was right for most of it but they were skewed to fit his narrative.

@liztai Many of the facts are true, albeit somewhat skewed. The biggest problem is his assumption that we can look centuries back in history and say something meaningful about how borders and nations should be divided today. Most of today's countries did not exist in the 1700s, but that does not mean that they shouldn't exist today.

@anderspuck yes, this, which was why i found the justification for his invasion weak.

@anderspuck @liztai Precisely! Imagine if Denmark demanded Norway, Southern Sweden, Gotland, Estonia, and Schleswig-Holstein back? No one demands that. No one.

@edupont_clearly @anderspuck it is a flimsy argument. I view the Taiwan issue in the same way 🤣

@liztai @anderspuck Sikorsky posted this on the bird site, and I appreciate his sense of humour:

@edupont_clearly @liztai @anderspuck Most countries had a period of time in historie, where they where more powerfull and were ruling over larger areas of land.

Dictators, autocracies and hardcore nationalists seem to have an unbearable pain which they cannot escape. As if a country has phantom limb pain.

@HenrikBruunDK @edupont_clearly @liztai A strong argument can also be made that while countries have existed for a long time, nations are a relatively new phenomenon. That is an important detail when trying to use history in an age of nation states.

@anderspuck @HenrikBruunDK @edupont_clearly @liztai the problem is also that Putin uses an undercomplex and deterministic approach towards history (like many others do though): russia is. So therefore everything that happened before inevitably (in his opinion) led to russia.

@anderspuck @liztai and let's not forget the many countries that don't exist anymore...

@liztai

This was just a platform for Putin to repeat his propaganda to a sympathetic lightweight interviewer like Carlson.

It would have been a lot more instructive if he had been interviewed by Stephen Sakur from BBC's Hardtalk.

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver Tucker was prob chosen cos of the audience he has access to. And yes, cos he's not an expert on Russian history.

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver i mean its only fair he has this platform since most of the world endures US propaganda on a daily basis and their narrative is all we hear. It is good to have the other side for once.

@liztai

It would be difficult to argue that there's monolithic "US propaganda". The point of view on MSNBC is very different from Fox News or NPR/PBS.

There is only one point of view coming out of Russia, and it's Putin's.

@liztai Possibly also relevant: Fox News dodged a libel suit by testifying in court that Carlson was an entertainer, not a journalist, so he has no obligation to transmit the truth.