Putin's two hours of propaganda and paranoia

President Putin spent two hours in his interview with the American journalist Carlson Tucker underlining to the world how paranoid he is and how his interpretation of history is unlike anyone else's. Because he wasn't asked a single tough question by the former Fox News presenter, Putin sat there very comfortably smiling and joking and waffling on about the West plotting against him. I assume that Putin agreed to the interview on the basis that he was never asked any challenging questions. After the interview I can just imagine Tucker and Putin going off arm-in-arm to have a libation courtesy of the Kremlin. All very cosy. Poor Steve Rosenberg, the excellent Moscow correspondent of the BBC, couldn't resst saying in his report from the Russian capital that he had tried on numerous occasions to interview Putin but had always been turned down. But that's because Rosenberg would have had the temerity to ask a pointed question and not just let Putin ramble on. The impression I got from the Tucker intervew was that Putin is currently supremely pleased with himself because he sees everything going his way. His troops are well dug in in Ukraine and are not going to move, he says it's all Nato's fault for arming Kyiv and that all they have to do to bring the war to an end is to stop providing weapons. Well, that's sort of happening anyway because US Congress, or at least the Republicans, are blocking any more aid to Ukraine until Joe Biden agrees a comprehensive border policy to stop illegal immigration. So, yes, Putin is very pleased with himself and the way his strategy is working pretty damn well.