The pro-NATO mouthpiece, the Atlantic Council, tried mightily to explain that Tucker Carlson went to Moscow to interview Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in order to bolster Vladimir Putin’s claims of a nuclear war danger which, it insists, is otherwise falling on deaf ears. In a Dec. 4 blog entry, entitled “Tucker Carlson Warns of WWIII, but Russia’s Nuclear Threats Ring Hollow,” author Peter Dickinson argues that Carlson’s interview with Lavrov is intended to “raise the nuclear alarm” and give credence to Putin’s doomsday scenarios.
Carlson seeks to highlight “the prospect of a direct clash between Russia and the United States,” and for Moscow, his message of “impending nuclear apocalypse is fortuitous.” Despite months of “increasingly direct nuclear warnings from Russian officials,” the collective Biden has recently granted Kiev the right to launch U.S.-supplied missiles against targets inside Russia. But “unfortunately for the Kremlin, it would seem that Putin’s nuclear bluff has been called once too often and his threats are now viewed as empty.” So naturally, the Kremlin would welcome Carlson’s visit.
Written before Carlson released his interview with Lavrov, the Atlantic Council blog concludes that while the purpose of Carlson’s mission is unknown, “many have been quick to claim that the main objective of his visit is to amplify Putin’s nuclear blackmail.” It then cites Julia Davis, who created the Daily Beast’s “Russian Media Monitor,” who reports that Russian experts are always complaining on state TV that Americans aren’t afraid of Moscow’s nuclear threats, and wonder “what they can do to scare us in order to dissuade Americans from supporting Ukraine…. That’s why Tucker is in Ukraine.”
