GenZedong

I mean he could have done that but as Putin said in the interview: it's pointless to try to engage in the propaganda war against the West's narrative on their own media turf. In essence with this interview Putin showed that he refuses to play the West's game. The reaction this interview got from the anti-Russia crowd shows just how much this strategy rattles and confuses them: half of them are screaming about how this was a big propaganda win for Putin and how Carlson needs to be sanctioned and banned, while the other half are busy gloating over how badly Putin failed at delivering effective propaganda to a western audience which has little interest or patience for this kind of long winded history-heavy lecture about a part of the world they already know and care very little about (though i'm sure going forward we're gonna see plenty short and snappily edited clips pop up of the parts of this interview that actually do appeal to western audiences).

Liberals would have been much more comfortable if Putin had simply repeated typical western reactionary talking points, they know how to respond to those and how to discredit anyone using them. Instead they have to go out of their way to twist what he said into anything threatening, we did have a few headlines claiming "Putin threatens WW3 in interview" but those are so far removed from what he actually said that they can't credibly back it up and most people who aren't completely brainwashed by the liberal media can see it, they can listen to his own words.