Russian President Vladimir Putin relies on a deep knowledge of history and often works with archive documents, so he used primary sources to back up his stance on Ukraine in the interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.
"The president relies on a very deep knowledge of history, and he forms his judgment about history on the basis of primary sources. He works very often and extensively with archive documents ... And it was such primary sources that he picked up to support his statements on Ukraine," Peskov told Rossiya 1 reporter Pavel Zarubin.
At the beginning of the interview, Putin gave Carlson a folder with copies of archive documents concerning Russian and Ukrainian history, including letters from Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a nobleman and military commander who historically controlled areas of what is now Ukraine, the spokesman recalled, saying that the idea of handing over the documents belonged to the Russian president himself.
The interview was intended to make Putin's position and his ideology known to ordinary Americans, Peskov explained.
"He [Carlson] is a mirror of American public opinion … He was sincerely trying to understand, and he gave his listeners the opportunity to continue those endeavors," the Kremlin spokesman added.