Fox News Russia Ukraine
Andrea Austria / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

Fox News has pushed pro-Russia talking points every day of the invasion

Written by Zachary Pleat, Mia Gingerich, Gideon Taaffe & Madeleine Davison

Research contributions from Chloe Simon & Cydney Hargis

Published

Since the start of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Fox News personalities have aired or promoted pro-Kremlin talking points or shown deference to Russian aggression every single day, for a total of at least 49 instances.

On February 22, President Joe Biden declared that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sending additional troops into Russian-backed separatist regions of Ukraine amounted to “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Since that day, Fox News and Fox Business hosts, contributors, and guests have defended Putin, aired Russian propaganda justifying the war, made pro-Russian points on the air, criticized America’s strong responses to Russia’s aggression, and blamed the United States and the West for the invasion. At times, Fox’s seemingly Kremlin-approved propaganda has been so effusive that a top Russian government official praised the network, and state-run media have been ordered to air these pro-Russian segments.

Select a date to see the pro-Putin messaging Fox aired that day

  • February 22

    • On his show Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson passionately defended Putin, asking, “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years?” Carlson added that “the answer to all of them is no. Vladimir Putin didn't do any of that. So, why does permanent Washington hate him so much?”
    • Later on in the same episode, Carlson claimed the looming sanctions against Russian oil were really a plot by Democratic donors, saying, “Maybe they're not against rising oil and gas prices. Maybe they’re for them. Maybe expensive energy would be good for the many renewable deals their friends and donors are invested in.”
    • On The Five, Fox News host Pete Hegseth blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on U.S. policy, saying Americans are “running around talking about genders and reparations” and “as a result, [Putin] thinks this is his moment to make an aggressive move.”

  • February 23

    • On her show The Ingraham Angle, Fox host Laura Ingraham called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plea to Putin to avoid war a “pathetic display” and said the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations looked “like a defeated man.”
    • Carlson said Ukraine is “not a democracy,” calling it “a pure client state of the United States State Department.”

  • February 24

    • Fox News guest retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis appeared on Fox News @ Night and blamed Russia’s aggression on NATO expansion, claiming, “There is a chance that this could have been averted a long time ago by just acknowledging reality: that Ukraine is never coming in NATO.”
    • Davis also appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, saying Zelensky “needs to declare neutrality. He needs to say, ‘We’re not even going to seek NATO membership.’”
    • On Fox & Friends, Hegseth invoked anti-immigrant rhetoric while downplaying the crisis in Ukraine, saying he was “frustrated by the fact that our southern border is wide open here in the United States of America. Yet we're obsessing over a border half a world away.”

  • February 25

    • Davis also appeared on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo where he suggested Zelensky was to blame for Russia’s invasion, saying he “subject[ed] his country to an invasion that he knows he can’t defend against.”
    • On his show, Carlson blamed Russia’s invasion on Biden, saying that “the invasion of Ukraine is a humiliating defeat” for him and saying Biden shouldn’t “make threats [he] can’t back up.”

  • February 26

    • A segment on Fox & Friends Weekend was centered around the question of whether Putin was “playing” Biden. Co-host Will Cain brought on conservative author Rebekah Koffler, asking her, “Did Vladimir Putin play Joe Biden?” Koffler responded, “He absolutely did.”

  • February 27

    • Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor appeared on Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy and argued the U.S. should let Putin take Ukraine without any sanctions on Russia or aid for Ukrainians, saying, “I see no reason why we should fight with the Russians over something that they have been talking about for years.” 
    • Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy said, “We also have to look at things from the perspective of Russia,” saying “maybe all [Russia] wanted from NATO was for us to say, ‘Ukraine won't enter into NATO.’”

  • February 28

    • On his Fox show Hannity, host Sean Hannity played a clip of former President Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) calling Putin “smart” and saying he was “playing Biden like a drum.” Afterward, Hannity complimented Trump and repeated Trump’s criticism of NATO. 
    • Davis again appeared on the network, saying on Fox News Live that the onus was on Ukraine to cater to Russian demands, stating, “I think the absolute best play for Zelensky right now is to negotiate a situation where Ukraine becomes a neutral state. Just say that -- declare it's not going to join NATO, it's going to be neutral, and that is the one thing that could probably end the war right now without Kyiv having ever come under attack.”

  • March 1

    • Macgregor also appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, claiming that at the start of the invasion Putin wanted to “minimize damage to property and he wanted to minimize the loss of life, particularly upon -- in the population that he was trying to bring into, effectively, a new Ukraine that is Russian.”

  • March 2

    • On The Five, Jesse Watters and his co-hosts advocated for appeasing Putin to avoid escalating the war in Ukraine. Watters said, “Maybe carve out the eastern provinces, recognize Crimea, something.”

  • March 3

    • On her show, Ingraham defended Russian oligarchs from asset seizures, calling U.S. sanctions part of the same “ruse” as “cloth masks on a cross-country flight” and pleading for the U.S. government to operate under what she called “established and fair legal criteria.”

  • March 4

    • On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Davis fearmongered about “NATO fighters that are ‘on their own’” fighting as international volunteers in Ukraine could “start killing Russians” and further escalate the war.

  • March 5

    • On Fox & Friends Weekend, Cain asked whether Ukraine was “maximalist as well” in negotiations with Russia, describing the maximalist position as demanding “nothing short of full Russian withdrawal.”

  • March 6

    • Appearing on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, former Trump administration ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley blamed the U.S. and the Biden administration for Russia’s invasion, saying, “This all happened because of us.”
    • On Fox & Friends Weekend, conservative economic commentator Stephen Moore blamed Putin's invasion of Ukraine on “a radical green energy policy by the Biden administration.”

  • March 7

    • On his show, Watters said the U.S. had been “dangling NATO membership over Ukraine's head, actively flirting with them to join our alliance," claiming that the U.S. State Department “directly taunted Putin" by supporting Ukrainian sovereignty.
    • Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) suggested on Watters’ show that either the Biden administration didn’t think the current Ukraine situation through or “a more cynical view was that they did think it through and what is playing out is exactly what they had aimed for.”

  • March 8

    • The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld claimed images of Ukraine were being repeatedly played and sensationalized “to create some kind of emotional response,” adding that “just because the news is pushing these videos at you doesn’t mean you’ve got to do something.”

  • March 9

    • On The Five, Gutfeld argued that world leaders needed to give Putin a “small victory” in Ukraine and to give Putin “proper deference, because he feels that he never got that from the West or from Europe.”
    • On his show, Carlson pushed the discredited biolab conspiracy theory and accused the U.S. of using “a classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they are planning to do themselves” on the funding of “secret biolabs.” 
    • Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway said on Special Report that the current situation in Ukraine was “brought on in part” by lack of a “coherent strategy” and the “confusing messaging of the Biden administration.” 
    • Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said Biden was using Putin as a “fall guy” to cover for higher gas prices.

  • March 10

    • Carlson devoted a 10-minute opening monologue to attacking the U.S. government’s explanation of and involvement in securing Soviet-era biolabs in Ukraine and insinuating that the U.S. is working on biological weapons there, saying, “Apparently, there's a lot of this going on in Ukraine, funded by the United States. Did you know that? Why Ukraine? We don't know. We can only guess. We do know that in 2010, the U.S. government helped fund construction of a brand-new level three biolab in Odessa, Ukraine. The purpose of that lab was not to eliminate or secure aging Soviet weapons, no. That lab was designed for research on new and quote, ‘especially dangerous pathogens’ in Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe. Again, not a hotbed of biomedical research. Why Ukraine? We don't know. Someone should find out.”

  • March 11

    • On his show, Carlson called the U.S. ban on Russian oil “the single most damaging thing any American president has ever done to this country and to the world.”
    • On The Ingraham Angle, RealClearInvestigation’s Paul Sperry said the administration of former President Barack Obama had in 2014 “engineered a regime change in Kyiv, and they installed essentially a client state for Democrats there.” He added, “Putin took that U.S. meddling as a threat.”

  • March 12

    • On Fox & Friends Weekend, after guest Kurt Volker, former U.S. envoy to Ukraine, explained the inaccuracy of the biolab conspiracy theory, host Will Cain pushed back, pointedly questioning Volker and pushing him to say the U.S. was in Ukraine “experimenting on biological pathogens.”

  • March 13

    • On Sunday Morning Futures, former Trump administration official Stephen Miller suggested actions by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris contributed to Putin’s aggression and said it was “worth considering” proposing a settlement “that includes Ukrainian neutrality,” referencing Ukraine’s interest in joining NATO. He then shifted blame for the Ukraine crisis onto the U.S., saying America had “put Ukraine in the worst position imaginable” by advocating for its membership in NATO.

  • March 14

    • On his show, Carlson pushed already-discredited Russian propaganda, claiming that “the U.S. government says they have biolabs” in Ukraine. He also repeatedly attacked the government’s explanation debunking the biolabs myth, which originated from Russian propaganda.

  • March 15

    • On Fox & Friends, Campos-Duffy said the U.S. “provoked” Putin’s invasion by violating Russia’s “red line” on Ukrainian neutrality, a Kremlin talking point that is ultimately proven false by Russia’s own actions.
    • On his prime-time show, Watters asked a guest whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “engineered” as a “distraction” from the federal investigation into Biden’s son Hunter Biden and his finances.
    • On his show, Carlson said that the U.S. could be hurting Ukrainian civilians by providing their country with weapons to defend against Russia.

  • March 16

    • Fox & Friends First host Todd Piro encouraged Georgia congressional candidate and retired Marine Col. Mitchell Swan, who made a political ad blaming Russia’s invasion on supposed social justice policies in the U.S. military that Swan implied weaken the force, to continue pushing that unfounded allegation. Piro asked, “Do our enemies — like Russia — see us focus on wokeness in the military and feel they can get away with stuff they couldn't before?” Piro continued this line of questioning, later asking, “Do you feel that our military is under prepared because of the intense focus on what I am going to call quite frankly, Colonel, a distraction?” Swan agreed, demanding, “Can we teach a fighting ethos again instead of trying to push along an agenda that makes people more focused on accepting things … like sodomy, sinful behavior? Let’s have that talk.”
    • On her show, Ingraham claimed Zelensky’s stance was “shifting” by “being realistic on NATO membership” and that there was “clearly a deal here for the making” between Russia and Ukraine. Ingraham also criticized American media for not showing “urgency” on making such a deal and went on to claim Democrats were not bothered by “the prospect of the war dragging on … mostly for political reasons.”

  • March 17

    • On America’s Newsroom, former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr blamed Biden for Russia’s invasion, saying that Putin “viewed Biden as weak” because of U.S. energy policies and removing troops from Afghanistan.
    • Macgregor argued on Tucker Carlson Tonight that “the war is really over for the Ukrainians, they have been ground into bits — there is no question about that, despite what we report on our mainstream media,” and now the conflict was a U.S. attempt to push “regime change” in Russia, “dressed up as a Ukrainian war.” Carlson then accused U.S. lawmakers of wanting to prolong the war seemingly because “we want more Ukrainians to be killed.”

  • March 18

    • On The Ingraham Angle, the Hoover Institution’s Niall Ferguson said that Putin’s demands for Ukraine to renounce potential NATO membership and declare neutrality “makes a lot of sense,” saying “the problem that really is going to slow things down has to do with territory. The thing is the Ukrainians are doing well enough to feel that they don’t need to give any territory. … This is in fact the interesting thing, it’s the Russians who’ve been giving concessions in the negotiations more than the Ukrainians.”

  • March 19

    • On Fox News @ Night, Fred Fleitz, vice chairman of the America First Policy Institute Center for American Security, said it “disturbs” him that Biden characterized Putin as “a war criminal,” adding, “We have to find a way to get a negotiated settlement, and name-calling is not going to get us there.” 
    • Fleitz continued to berate Biden in the next hour of the program, saying, “I fault President Biden for calling [Putin] a war criminal. You and I can do that, but the president of the United States needs to be able to negotiate with the president of Russia.”

  • March 20

    • While appearing on Life, Liberty, & Levin, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) preemptively blamed Biden for any future escalation by Putin, saying the administration’s policies are fear-based, and “Biden refuses to lay out consequences of what will happen” if Putin uses biological or chemical weapons. Host Mark Levin said Waltz was “exactly right” before launching into criticism of U.S. leadership, saying Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley “doesn’t have the foggiest idea, in my humble opinion, of what is going on.”

  • March 21

    • Carlson called the Ukrainian government a “growing dictatorship” and claimed “Zelensky has been solidifying complete control over Ukraine for a long time, since long before the Russian invasion and the war.” The host then said the U.S. should “[admit] this is authoritarianism, it's not democracy.”

  • March 22

    • On Tucker Carlson Tonight, conservative journalist Michael Tracey claimed that the U.S. was engaged in a “proxy war” with Russia in Ukraine. This echoed talking points from Putin in early February that the U.S. was trying to draw Russia into war, and shifted blame off of Putin for starting the war.
    • During the next segment, right-wing activist Candace Owens -- who has been the beneficiary of Russian disinformation operations in the past -- doubled down on claims echoing Russian talking points of corruption in Ukraine and biolabs in the country.