Tucker Carlson interview: Fact-checking Putin's 'nonsense' history

US talk show host Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin began with a rambling half-hour lecture on the history of Russia and Ukraine.

Mr Carlson, frequently appearing bemused, listened as Mr Putin expounded at length about the origins of Russian statehood in the ninth century, Ukraine as an artificial state and Polish collaboration with Hitler.

It is familiar ground for Mr Putin, who infamously penned a 5000-word essay entitled "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" in 2021, which foreshadowed the intellectual justification the Kremlin offered for its invasion of Ukraine less than a year later.

Historians say the litany of claims made by Mr Putin are nonsense - representing nothing more than a selective abuse of history to justify the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Regardless of the historical realities, none of Putin's assertions would form a legal justification for his invasion.