How a Kremlin interview put India Today-Aaj Tak at the centre of global Putin coverage

New Delhi: Within hours of India Today and Aaj Tak airing their pre-recorded Kremlin interview with Vladimir Putin at 9 pm on Thursday, the conversation had jumped from an Indian prime-time slot into the global news bloodstream via international wires, Western legacy titles, broadcasters and even the Kremlin’s own official website.

Across platforms, three clusters from the interview dominated coverage – Putin’s demand that Russia must control all of Ukraine’s Donbas region, his defence of India’s right to buy Russian oil, and his description of India as a “great power” rather than a former British colony that can be pushed around.

Different platforms led with different lines, but almost all of them credited India Today/Aaj Tak as the source, effectively lifting the channels’ brand onto a global stage.

Global wires: India Today in the first line

Among international platforms, the newswires moved first and most systematically.

Reuters led with the energy-trade angle. In a pre-air story filed shortly before Putin landed in New Delhi, it highlighted his line that if the United States could buy Russian fuel, “why shouldn’t India have the same privilege?” explicitly noting that the comments came in an interview with India Today TV and that the channel had supplied a transcript in advance.

The copy was syndicated worldwide to business sites, regional outlets and global news pages, where the article ran under the headline “‘Force of arms’: Putin makes strong Donbas threat, adding pressure on peace deal”, while still quoting the India Today line inside.

A second Reuters piece, filed a few hours earlier, zeroed in on Ukraine. This story pulled out the quote that Russia would take all of Ukraine’s Donbas region “by force of arms” unless Ukrainian troops withdrew, explicitly attributing the remark to his interview with India Today ahead of a visit to New Delhi.

That sentence, too, travelled with the Reuters byline into multiple European and Asia-Pacific outlets.

Associated Press (AP) used the India Today interview to frame Putin’s India visit and his messaging to New Delhi.

In its live-update coverage on the Ukraine talks, AP highlighted his description of India as a “great power” that is not a “British colony” and his praise for ties with Narendra Modi, noting that the remarks were made in an interview with Indian broadcaster India Today.

The wire also used the interview to underline Moscow’s attempt to show it still has major partners despite Western sanctions.

Global newspapers and digital outlets

Once the wires moved, major Western newsrooms built out their own takes, largely around the Ukraine threat, while still rooting it in the India Today interview.

In the UK, The Independent ran a straight news piece headlined “Putin declares Russia will take all of Ukraine’s Donbas region by force”.

The story’s second paragraph spells out that “the declaration, made in an interview published on Thursday in India Today,” preceded his New Delhi visit, and then reproduces the quote where Putin said, “Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories.”

In Australia, public broadcaster SBS blended the Reuters copy into its own explainer.
Its world news page led with Putin’s threat on Donbas but included the India Today attribution in the central quote.

In Europe and the US, live blogs and tabloid-style outlets also picked up the India Today-sourced lines.

The Guardian’s Ukraine live update referenced Putin’s comment that Russia would seize Donbas unless Ukrainian troops withdrew, describing it as part of his hard line on peace talks and noting that he made the remark before his Delhi trip.

The Sun in the US edition, covering JD Vance’s promises of a quick peace, used the same quote and explicitly wrote that Putin said it to India Today, framing it as proof he was still ready to “seize Ukraine’s east ‘by force’ unless Kyiv retreats”.

Russian official platforms

The Kremlin’s English-language website published a verbatim text of the conversation under the title “Interview with Aaj Tak and India Today TV channels”, listing anchor Gaurav Sawant and colleagues and presenting the segment as an official presidential communication alongside speeches and decrees.

For diplomatic and media trackers, that placement effectively upgraded a commercial TV interview into a formal record of Putin’s messaging before his India visit.

Russian state television then clipped parts of the conversation, including the “Either we liberate these territories by force of arms…” passage, and aired them domestically, with Reuters noting that the Donbas line was broadcast on Russian state TV and traced back to the India Today interview ahead of the Delhi trip.

Taken together, the Kremlin transcript and state-TV clips ensured that for Russian audiences and foreign embassies reading official feeds, the India Today/Aaj Tak double-billing was visible as the channel through which Putin chose to address Indians and, indirectly, the wider Global South.