Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson attacked the Joe Biden administration while parroting Russian propaganda on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Calling the peninsula the “Russian port of Crimea”, the host suggested the US government’s goal has changed to taking the port back from Moscow.
“The world is laughing, the adults are laughing. and in this country it's a measure of our media’s total corruption that no one ever asks anyone in the Biden administration what the United States is hoping to accomplish in Ukraine,” he said.
“Now, the original answer was, well, to push Russia back to where it was a year ago before it invaded Ukraine and that seemed like a reasonable and measurable objective. The public seemed behind that.
“Then, without fanfare or even official notice, the goal changed and became taking the Russian port of Crimea just because it would be nice to have that. Always, wanted it. Why not take it now.”
Carlson, earlier in January, had called suggestions of Ukraine retaking Crimea “truly crazy”, while calling the peninsula “Russian Crimea”.
Moscow illegally annexed the contested land in 2014 and, over the past year amid the war, Kyiv has remained adamant on taking back the peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea and said it was crucial for Ukraine’s victory.
The New York Times reported last month that the Joe Biden administration was paying attention to Ukraine’s demands about possibly striking Russian assets in Crimea after it initially refused to provide Kyiv weapons to target the region.
The White House insists Crimea belongs to Ukraine.
“We have said throughout the war that Crimea is Ukraine, and Ukraine has the right to defend themselves and their sovereign territory in their internationally recognized borders,” Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, was quoted as saying by The Times.
Meanwhile, Carlson continued to rue that Washington’s goal has shifted to “overthrowing Putin and putting American tanks in Red Square because, sure, we could manage Russia once we overthrow the dictator”.
More than 100,000 Ukrainian civilians are believed to have been killed since Mr Putin announced what he called a “special operation” in Ukraine on 24 February last year.
The toll is more than 10 times the current official number, according to the country’s leading war crimes prosecutor.
