In March 2023, the Russian government imprisoned an American journalist, Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, on charges of espionage.

[7] The Kremlin Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said Carlson had been allowed an interview because "his position is different," saying, "It's not pro-Russian, not pro-Ukrainian, it's pro-American.

[22] He also portrayed Russia as a victim of Western betrayals and blamed the United States and the West for the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and prolongation of the war, respectively.

[13] At the end of the interview, Carlson asked whether Putin would release Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist detained in Russia on charges of espionage, into his custody as an act of goodwill.

This seemed to confirm that Russia was demanding a prisoner swap with Vadim Krasikov, a suspected Russian intelligence agent who assassinated a Chechen separatist in Berlin in 2019.

[24] Various media outlets reported that Putin made many false claims and misleading statements during the interview and that Carlson failed to challenge him properly.

It rejected that the 2014 revolution was a "coup," saying that Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych was not overthrown by the military but instead "abandoned his post and fled to Russia amid mass protests."

It also said, "Russia started the war on Ukraine in 2014" when it occupied Crimea and secretly sent military units to seize government buildings in Donbas.

[25] The New York Times's Peter Baker compared the interview to the objections over monetary assistance to Ukraine in the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act by some U.S. Republican Party politicians.

Rejecting Putin's statement that Ukraine is "artificial," the historian Sergey Radchenko said: "Countries are created as a result of a historical process ...

"[12] The historian Robert D. English said the interview "showed that it wasn't Russian insecurity, but Putin's personal imperialism, that motivated the war.

"[28] Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University, a historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, said: "[m]ost of what Putin says about the past is ludicrous.

"[26] Some American and European journalists disputed this and said that they had repeatedly been denied interviews with Putin and that some had been expelled or banned from Russia.

[7] Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney described Carlson as a "useful idiot," a phrase that is frequently erroneously attributed to Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union.

"[40][41] Guy Verhofstadt, the prime minister of Belgium from 1999 to 2008, wrote that the European Union (EU) ought to consider issuing Carlson with a travel restriction should he amplify Putin's message.

Peter Stano, a spokesperson for the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, stated that the EU was not considering sanctions against Carlson, despite rumors from Elon Musk and others.

[42] Tsakhia Elbegdorj, the former president of Mongolia, posted on X a map of the Mongol Empire, which included and encompassed all of Russia, saying: "After Putin's talk.