Russian Government Advises Russian Media to Amplify Statements by FOX News Anchor Tucker Carlson

US media is report­ing that the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has advised Russ­ian media to ampli­fy pro-Russ­ian state­ments by FOX News Anchor Tuck­er Carl­son. A leaked memo by a gov­ern­ment agency sent to Russ­ian out­lets says they should “use as much as pos­si­ble frag­ments of broad­casts” of the pop­u­lar US Fox News host regard­ing the Ukraine con­flict. Accord­ing to a Moth­er Jones report:

March 13, 2022 On March 3, as Russ­ian mil­i­tary forces bombed Ukrain­ian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s ille­gal inva­sion of his neigh­bor, the Krem­lin sent out talk­ing points to state-friend­ly media out­lets with a request: Use more Tuck­er Carl­son.  “It is essen­tial to use as much as pos­si­ble frag­ments of broad­casts of the pop­u­lar Fox News host Tuck­er Carl­son, who sharply crit­i­cizes the actions of the Unit­ed States [and] NATO, their neg­a­tive role in unleash­ing the con­flict in Ukraine, [and] the defi­ant­ly provoca­tive behav­ior from the lead­er­ship of the West­ern coun­tries and NATO towards the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and towards Pres­i­dent Putin, per­son­al­ly,” advis­es the 12-page doc­u­ment writ­ten in Russ­ian. It sums up Carlson’s posi­tion: “Rus­sia is only pro­tect­ing its inter­ests and secu­ri­ty.” The memo includes a quote from Carl­son: “And how would the US behave if such a sit­u­a­tion devel­oped in neigh­bor­ing Mex­i­co or Cana­da?” The document—titled “For Media and Com­men­ta­tors (rec­om­men­da­tions for cov­er­age of events as of 03.03)”—was pro­duced, accord­ing to its meta­da­ta, at a Russ­ian gov­ern­ment agency called the Depart­ment of Infor­ma­tion and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Sup­port, which is part of the Russ­ian secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus. It was pro­vid­ed to Moth­er Jones by a con­trib­u­tor to a nation­al Russ­ian media out­let who asked not to be iden­ti­fied. The source said mem­os like this one have been reg­u­lar­ly sent by Putin’s admin­is­tra­tion to media orga­ni­za­tions dur­ing the war. Inde­pen­dent media out­lets in Rus­sia have been forced to shut down since the start of the conflict.

Read the rest here.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report has exten­sive­ly cov­ered Tuck­er Carlson’s con­tin­u­ing efforts to blame the US and the Biden admin­is­tra­tion for the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine while echo­ing Russ­ian talk­ing points on the caus­es of the con­flict. Recent GIOR cov­er­age on Tuck­er Carl­son has included:

• We report­ed ear­li­er this week that Carl­son was con­tin­u­ing his efforts to blame the US and the Biden admin­is­tra­tion for the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine while echo­ing Russ­ian talk­ing points on the caus­es of the conflict.

• We report­ed last month on Tuck­er Carlson’s role in Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da efforts dur­ing the inva­sion of Ukraine, includ­ing one Carl­son broad­cast where his com­ments were sub­ti­tled and re-broad­cast by RT, the Russ­ian state-backed media outlet.

• A recent­ly pub­lished Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report doc­u­ments Tuck­er Carlson’s role in a new and devel­op­ing alliance between US con­ser­v­a­tives and Euro­pean nation­al­ists, seen as a poten­tial vehi­cle for Russ­ian influ­ence operations.