The National Times - Tucker Carlson to air Putin interview Thursday

In a post on his Instagram account on Wednesday, Carlson said the sit-down, which has already been recorded, would be broadcast at 6 pm Eastern (2300 GMT) on his website.

The former Fox News host, a key ally of 2024 election candidate Donald Trump and a vocal opponent to US military aid for Ukraine, traveled to Moscow for Putin's first interview with a Western journalist since Russia's February 2022 invasion.

Carlson's access to Putin is a huge contrast with restraints on other foreign journalists in Russia, where two US citizens -- Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Radio Free Europe's Alsu Kurmasheva -- are currently imprisoned.

The media provocateur has spent years depicting America as a declining nation under assault by Democrats, Black Lives Matter advocates, so-called 'woke' protesters and communism.

But his hit show on Fox came to an end in April, days after the right-wing cable network paid a settlement approaching $800 million to end a defamation case over false allegations that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems had helped steal the 2020 presidential election from Trump.

He has since broadcasted shows on X, formerly Twitter, but his interview with Putin represents his biggest score since his departure from Fox.

Carlson's surprise scoop also comes as US aid to Ukraine has dried up due to Republican opposition in Washington, leaving Ukrainian forces scrambling for ammunition.

Democrats in the US Senate are due to make a fresh attempt Thursday to restore US military funding to Ukraine, after a first vote on a multibillion-dollar aid package failed amid Republican chaos.

But the package's future is unclear in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

- Shrinking free press -

The White House said earlier Wednesday that Putin should not be given an uncritical outlet to justify his war in Ukraine.

"I don't think we need another interview with Vladimir Putin to understand his brutality," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Carlson's interview also comes against the backdrop of the Kremlin's two-decades-long dismantling of the free press in the country.

The Kremlin however has contradicted Carlson's own claim that he was the only Western journalist who had "bothered" to request access to Putin since the invasion of Ukraine.

"We receive many requests for interviews with the president," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked whether Carlson was the only person who asked for a sit-down with Putin.

Peskov added that Carlson's more pro-Russian position contrasts with what he called "the traditional Anglo-Saxon media."

Putin has long been admired by certain strains in the US hard-right, including by Trump, who has a history of praising the Kremlin leader, for example calling him a "genius" and more credible than US intelligence.

A.M.Murray--TNT