A prominent Russian propagandist has claimed that former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson is a "dead man walking" for saying that the U.S. and Russia will go to war with one another in the next year.
The Rossiya-1 talk show host Vladimir Solovyov justified his own prophesizing of an armed conflict between the two nations by referring to Carlson's earlier comments, before implying that Carlson would be assassinated for telling the supposed truth.
He cited the presumed desire of the now-podcast host on X, formerly Twitter, to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin, as something that "they will not forgive him for."
Newsweek approached Carlson via direct message for comment on Friday.
Carlson has often been accused of repeating Russian talking points, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began last year. He questioned whether the perception that Putin—whose war has since cost the lives of an estimated 350,000 people—was justifiably the subject of hatred.
In July, he was criticized by a U.S.-based Orthodox Christian group for "spout[ing] Russian propaganda" about unfounded claims of the persecution of Christians in Ukraine.
Earlier in August, Carlson interviewed a former Pentagon official, who claimed Kyiv's casualties were far higher than believed and that Ukraine was not winning the war, despite the fact that after 18 months of fighting, Russian forces control none of Ukraine's major cities and have had to mobilize hundreds of thousands of reservists.
During a televised discussion on Thursday, Solovyov aired clips from a recent interview of Carlson with podcaster Adam Carolla, in which the former Fox News presenter predicted a "hot war between the U.S. and Russia in the next year," which Carlson added he thought was a war America would likely not win.
According to a translation by the Daily Beast's Russia Media Monitor unit, Solovyov then says: "Who says that? A dead man walking.
"He sincerely believes that the next step after the accusations and the declaration of impeachment will be an assassination of Trump. But this man, who is currently the most popular English-speaking journalist, signed his own death warrant."
It is unclear who Solovyov thought would be willing to assassinate Carlson. In Carlson's interview with Carolla, he argued that both Democrats and Republicans were spoiling for a war with Russia.
Later in the discussion, Solovyov said that "they will not forgive him for the fact that he strives to interview our president and post the footage on a platform that has no censorship," a reference to X under Elon Musk's ownership.
According to top Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan, Carlson has requested to interview Putin.
The editor-in-chief of the Russian state media organization RT said in April: "Tucker is doing a great job. By the way, he's really asking for an interview with Vladimir Putin. It would be great if someone hears this and gets this message to the president." Carlson has not publicly confirmed such a request.
