By Sarah Rainsford
Tucker Carlson laughed, listened – and then listened some more.
During the American’s much-hyped encounter with the Russian president, his fixed, fascinated expression slipped a few times.
Especially when Putin’s promise of a 30-second history lesson became a 30-something minute rant.
But for the most part, Carlson seemed to lap up what Russia’s president was telling him.
Putin was fully in charge of this encounter and for large parts of it his interviewer barely got a word in.
Instead of pushing the Russian leader – indicted as a suspected war criminal – on his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and challenging his false assertions, Carlson swerved off-piste to talk God and the Russian soul.