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 front pages of leading newspapers, international wires, 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 outlets 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.

Front pages and world pages: FT, Washington Post, LA Times, Guardian

In London, the Financial Times put Putin and Modi on the front page of both its UK and Asia editions with a large photograph of the two leaders in a limousine, under the headline “Side by side: India renews ties to Russia”. 

In the text, the paper quoted Putin referring to Modi as a friend and closed with the line he “told Indian media group Today in an interview: ‘India is a great power, not a British colony. And everyone will have to accept that.’”

In the United States, The Washington Post carried a prominent world page (A14) under the headline “Oil crackdown hangs over Putin’s visit to India”, using a large image of a Modi–Putin welcome hoarding in New Delhi. 

The story examined how US sanctions and a possible oil crackdown hang over the visit and pointed out that, in an interview with Indian television channel India Today, Putin defended energy cooperation with India even under Western pressure, treating the India Today sit-down as his on-the-record position ahead of the summit.

The Los Angeles Times devoted its A2 World page to the visit under the headline “Putin suggests Ukraine peace deal still a way off”, again using the limousine photograph of Putin and Modi. 

In the body of the story, the paper noted that “speaking to the India Today television channel before he landed Thursday in New Delhi for a state visit”, Putin said parts of the latest US peace proposals on Ukraine were unacceptable, tying his stance on the talks directly back to the Indian interview.

The Guardian used the Donbas quote on its Friday front page in a news panel alongside its main Europe story. 

The copy recounted that Putin had “told India Today that Russia would seize full control of eastern Donbas by force unless Ukrainian troops withdrew”, a demand it said Kyiv has categorically rejected, and then reproduced his sentence, “Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories,” noting that he said this before his visit to Delhi.

Elsewhere 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 spelt out that “the declaration, made in an interview published on Thursday in India Today,” preceded his New Delhi visit, before quoting the “force of arms” line in full.

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 kept the India Today attribution in the central quote, ensuring viewers knew where the remarks first appeared.

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’s 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”.

Global wires: India Today in the first line

Behind these front pages sat the wires that first pushed the quotes out.

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.

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 Financial Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Guardian and Independent front pages and world pages, along with the wires, the Kremlin transcript and state-TV clips, ensured that for Western readers, Russian audiences and foreign embassies scanning 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.