Our team in the project InfoLight.UA project investigated a Russian information operation to spread the “news” that Tucker Carlson’s show was coming to Russian TV. It turned out that the show has been broadcasting since September 2023, and as of May, several dozen episodes have already been released in Russian. In other words, there was no news, no event worth writing about.
In addition, a few hours after our rebuttal, Tucker Carlson’s team issued an explanation, stating that they had “no cooperation with state media.” This was a reaction to the article in the popular American publication Newsweek.
Nevertheless, the show goes on. After the scandal, a new episode was published in which the founder of Blackwater, Eric Prince, claims that Russia had the right to attack Ukraine because “the West was pumping Ukraine with weapons.” However, Tucker Carlson has no complaints about the apparently unlicensed use of his content.
So what was it?
It’s easy to assume that one of the goals of the information campaign, to widely inform about the availability of the Russian-language version of the content produced by Tucker Carlson, has been achieved. First and foremost, in Ukraine, where anyone with a VPN and no knowledge of English can comfortably listen to a rather selective selection of this show. For example, the original video with Eric Prince lasts almost two hours, while the Russian version is 20 minutes long. They contain the narratives Russia needs in a very concentrated way: that it is impossible to defeat Russia, that the war could have been stopped, and even that American weapons are weaker than Russian ones.
However, it was not possible to completely edit the picture Russia wanted. Although the most important thing, one might say the key thing, was removed. And that’s what Russia is all about. Although both Tucker and Prince speak complimentarily enough about Russia and its power, it obviously cannot be their ideal, because
- Prince criticizes the intrusion into privacy and the proliferation of street cameras, surveillance of people, and promotes a return to cash. And he cites China with its total control as an anti-example. But is there less of this in Russia? Isn’t Moscow covered with so many cameras that no city in the United States can match? What about public services and even online subpoenas? Didn’t Tucker Carlson notice this surveillance while he was in Moscow?
- Prince names Telegram as one of the secure messengers. And it’s frankly shocking that the founder of the largest private military company and certainly a security expert could not know that this messenger is neither secure nor private. And that its connection with the FSB is known to the whole world.
Is the Republican Party dead?
One of the key theses of this interview is Prince’s statement that the modern Republican Party has been hijacked by corporations and that Trump must destroy it to save it.
So, yes, perhaps a completely new political movement. That’s why Trump is transformative. Because he went beyond the Republican Party, yes, and he did that.
He says.
This is a very important signal. Because it is obvious that under the slogans of conservative ideology, part of this party is planning, in fact, an anarcho-capitalist revolution.. If you believe that Tucker Carlson is close to the real core of the Trumpists, and this is obviously the case, and that Eric Prince is quite influential in it (and how could it be otherwise if he was the one who was instructed in 2016 to establish a secret channel for contacts between Trump and Putin?), then this paints a very clear picture: the Republican Party and American conservatism are under threat of destruction from within.
At the same time, it is not known whether Trump himself really wants this or whether he is being manipulated very successfully by people like Prince. However, we must clearly understand that a rather dangerous trend is taking place in the United States that could bring the country to the brink of open confrontation: on the one hand, the ultra-liberal extremes in the Democratic Party are driving away many moderate democrats. On the other hand, the radicalism, populism, and conspiracy theorizing of the Trumpists and their desire to destroy the Republican Party deprive the most powerful country in the democratic camp and the Euro-Atlantic community of at least some alternative.
And what about Ukraine?
In fact, our place in this story may be key. Not so long ago, Ukrainian Protestant pastors managed to convince Mike Johnson to introduce and push through a bill to help Ukraine. And no matter how much Prince and Carlson convince their viewers that Russia will win this war, even they admit that we are very good at learning, and in terms of engineering, we are now the world’s leaders in weapons.
Of course, we lack the resources and time to scale, test, and produce these developments. But this resource is available in the United States. Moreover, they desperately need it, even based on Prince’s words. And the task of Ukrainians is to reach the American information field, those who can lobby for our military-technical cooperation and convince them that support for Ukraine is the only alternative for the conservative American voter.
Ukraine is not asking for anything for nothing. Although we are giving up the most valuable thing in this battle – the lives of our soldiers – we can and should speak two languages with the United States at the same time: Christian values and benefits.
We are currently the only ones who are restraining the rapid advance of radical Islam of the terrorist variety (because the moderate Islam of the Caucasus is with us), the depraved nepotism of the elite crypto-monarchy, which behaves very much like the times of Caligula in the Roman Empire and communist China, which uses Russia as a battering ram against the United States. Instead, everything that is healthy in Russia has long been fighting alongside the Ukrainian armed forces. And we are certainly not talking about the collective Navalny and other pseudo-position, but about fighters like Denis Kapustin and his RDC. Who could be closer in spirit to the American right than he or the Azovites? Is there anyone like him on the other side of the front line?
On the other hand, we are indeed the greatest technological and military innovators in the world. We adapted all military strategies to extremely limited resources, we survived for six months without American assistance and almost did not lose any territory. We drove one of the largest powerful fleets in the world away from our shores with our own drones. Our own drones are hitting further and further into the enemy’s rear. Our power supply is being cut off, but we still have electricity. Yes, it is extremely difficult for us. But before the war started, Ukraine was ruled by the team of the traitor Yanukovych, who was preparing the country for surrender. And having a lot of agents at all levels, we resisted.
What is this if not a manifestation of Christian courage and devotion to one’s country, nation, blood, and faith? What is this but the birth of new crusaders whose mission is to repeat the feat of their predecessors? Perhaps we should remember that it is Ukrainian vehicles that have white crosses on them! Is it a coincidence that the enemy was the first to choose dark symbols?
This is a battle between good and evil, and we invite a healthy and strong America to revive and stand by our side!