Part 2 - Western Ukraine is Hungary & Romania (Putin and Tucker Carlson)

Tucker Carlson interviews President Vladimir Putin.

Feb 10, 2024

“Romania and Hungary had some of their lands taken away and given to the Ukraine, and they still remain part of Ukraine. So in this sense, we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will.” - Putin

Tucker Carlson: You have, I see, encyclopedic knowledge of this region. But why didn’t you make this case for the first 22 years as president, that Ukraine wasn’t a real country?

Vladimir Putin: The Soviet Ukraine was given a great deal of territory that had never belonged to it, including the Black Sea region. At some point, when Russia received them as an outcome of the Russo-Turkish wars, they were called “New Russia” or Novorossiya. But that does not matter. What matters is that Lenin, the founder of the Soviet State, established Ukraine that way. For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic developed as part of the USSR, and for unknown reasons again, the Bolsheviks were engaged in Ukrainianization. It was not merely because the Soviet leadership was composed to a great extent of those originating from Ukraine. Rather, it was explained by the general policy of indigenization pursued by the Soviet Union. Same things were done in other Soviet republics. This involved promoting national languages and national cultures, which is not bad in principle. That is how the Soviet Ukraine was created.

After World War II, Ukraine received, in addition to the lands that had belonged to Poland before the war, part of the lands that had previously belonged to Hungary and Romania (today known as Western Ukraine). So Romania and Hungary had some of their lands taken away and given to the Ukraine and they still remain part of Ukraine. So in this sense, we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will.

Tucker Carlson: Do you believe Hungary has a right to take back its land from Ukraine? And that other nations have a right to go back to their 1654 borders?

Vladimir Putin: I am not sure whether they should go back to the 1654 borders, but given Stalin’s time, so-called Stalin’s regime — which as many claim saw numerous violations of human rights and violations of the rights of other states – one may say that they could claim back those lands of theirs, while having no right to do that, it is at least understandable…

Tucker Carlson: Have you told Viktor Orbán that he can have a part of Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin: Never. I have never told him. Not a single time. We have not even had any conversation on that, but I actually know for sure that Hungarians who live there wanted to get back to their historical land.

Moreover, I would like to share a very interesting story with you, I'll digress, it's a personal one. Somewhere in the early 80's, I went on a road trip on a car from then-Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) across the Soviet Union through Kiev, made a stop in Kiev, and then went to Western Ukraine. I went to the town of Beregovoye, and all the names of towns and villages there were in Russian and in a language I didn't understand – in Hungarian . In Russian and in Hungarian. Not in Ukrainian – in Russian and in Hungarian.

I was driving through some kind of a village and there were men sitting next to the houses and they were wearing black three-piece suits and black cylinder hats. I asked, ”Are they some kind of entertainers?“ I was told, ”No, they're not entertainers. They're Hungarians. ‘I said, ‘What are they doing here?’ — ‘What do you mean? This is their land, they live here.’ This was during the Soviet time, in the 1980’s. They preserve the Hungarian language, Hungarian names, and all their national costumes. They are Hungarians and they feel themselves to be Hungarians. And of course, when now there is an infringement….

Tucker Carlson: And there’s a lot of that though, I think. Many nations feel upset about — there are Transylvanians as well as you, others, you know — but many nations feel frustrated by their re-drawn borders after the wars of the 20th century, and wars going back a thousand years, the ones that you mention, but the fact is that you didn’t make this case in public until two years ago in February, and in the case that you made, which I read today, you explain a great length that you thought a physical threat from the West and NATO, including potentially a nuclear threat, and that’s what got you to move. Is that a fair characterization of what you said?

Vladimir Putin: I understand that my long speeches probably fall outside of the genre of an interview. That is why I asked you at the beginning: ”Are we going to have a serious talk or a show?“ You said — a serious talk. So bear with me please.