“Across social media, Kremlin sources have moved quickly to take advantage of Tucker Carlson’s interview as an opportunity to amplify propaganda aimed at building support for Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine,” Ben Scott, director at Reset, a London-based nonprofit that tracks disinformation campaigns, tells WIRED.

This blanket protection was repeated throughout Russia’s state-run media. Newsroom homepages are crammed with a number of tales concerning the interview, and lots of of them spotlight how profitable Putin has been at getting his message to a Western viewers.

In one in all a dozen articles revealed by state-run information company RIA Novosti, the writer claimed the interview was “aimed at a Western audience that knows nothing about Russian history so that it realizes that Russians and Ukrainians are one people,” referencing Putin’s 30-minute introduction to Russian historical past that went again to 862.

Even earlier than the interview was revealed, Russian state-run TV channels had been monitoring Carlson’s each transfer whereas in Moscow, together with his journey to the Bolshoi ballet and the fact that he was charging his phone and using Wi-Fi.

The interview was additionally broadly disseminated on Telegram, together with on channels created or renamed particularly for the event, in accordance with analysis shared with WIRED by Reset. These channels shortly collected massive followings: One newly-created Telegram channel referred to as “Tucker Carlson in Russian” gained over 18,000 new subscribers within the interview. Another channel, renamed “Tucker Carlson’s Interview with Putin,” has over 200,000 subscribers. Some pro-Kremlin Telegram channels revealed dashboards alleging through-the-roof statistics about how the interview carried out on-line, whereas others posted screenshots of charts claiming to indicate curiosity within the interview on Google over time.

On Russia Today’s official Telegram channel, the information station celebrated how Western media reacted, writing: “Mainstream media’s Putin–Carlson meltdown reveals the Western narrative’s weak hand.” Other Telegram channels additionally posted clips of Western media reactions to the interview.

“Much of the Russian audience believes [the interview] was conducted with the sole vision of educating the West,” Kyle Walter, director of analysis at Logically, an organization that makes use of AI to trace disinformation, tells WIRED. “Many channels are focusing on just how much attention the interview got, as well as the articulated lengthy history associated with Russia that ‘America does not have.’”

In the aftermath of the interview, Vladislav Davankov, the vice speaker of the State Duma and presidential candidate from the New People political occasion, suggested that the Russian telecommunications company Roskomnadzor ought to unblock X as a result of the platform internet hosting the Putin interview had proven “it is neutral in disseminating information” and had “deleted more than 90 percent of the content prohibited in Russia” since Musk took management.

Many Russian Telegram customers additionally celebrated Elon Musk’s position in disseminating the interview: On his X profile, Musk pinned the interview and inspired followers to look at.