First of all let me clarify, i'm not American or Russian so I don't have a dog in this race, so I can better come up with an unbiased opinion than people who would be rooting for their country no matter what.
I have to say I think Putin handled this interview very well, and after watching it, it showed me that the negative image that the media tries to paint about Russia is clearly not accurate.
He exposed the great hypocrisy of america , from wanting China to stop their nuclear weapons development (while america has the most nuclear weapons). If you were really sincere about denuclearisation then make an example for the world and get rid of your nukes. Otherwise where do you get off telling others to not do it? How hypocritical is that?
Naturally, other countries need protection since america has so many nukes. And if a war breaks out countries without nuclear weapons are ripe persimmons ready for the taking, while countries with nuclear weapons are less likely to be invaded, since if you push them too far you could end up with mutual distruction.
Another point, America loves to meddle in other countries national affairs, but can't bare the thought of Russia possibly interfering in their national affairs like the election for example.
America will directly assassinate leaders in other countries, (e.g. Libya) causing chaos that continues to this day. You forget this ever happened because the media is too busy with sensationalism, but they're still fighting over the power vacuum caused by American interference.
To hear America complain about Russian interference is really beyond ironic. And libya is just 1 of many places America has meddled in their private affairs.
The interviewer criticised putin for supporting assad , but putin said something to the effect of 'if america had its way Syria would become the next libya' which I can't help but agree with.
Btw i'm not saying that gaddafi or assad were good presidents i'm aware that there's compelling arguments to remove them. The problem is that this is a delicate situation, and killing the dictator will cause more problems than it fixes as we see in libya which is still in chaos 10 years later. Who knows if libya will ever regain peace.
Later in the interview we saw the interviewer criticise putin for arresting protesters, but putin counters with talking about the congress riots, saying that they were imprisoned for coming to congress with political demands and yet were arrested with some facing 15-25 years , does that sound like a democracy to you?
Then the interviewer complained that putin was doing a 'what aboutism' where instead of answering questions, he points out america's hypocrisy.
All in all, I thought putin did a great job with this interview. He's even better than obama when it comes to being an articulate persuasive talker. He made alot of good points and came out the winner in this interview imo.
As jordan peterson would say "clean your room before you criticise the world" , America could do with some JP wisdom before they go around creating power vacuums in other countries. Otherwise you up with situations where the criticism america has for other countries is either nothing but hypocrisy or a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Discuss.