Tucker Carlson Duped By Fake Military Documents on Ukraine War Shared By Russian Propagandist
Fox News’s top-rated host, Tucker Carlson, accused the media and U.S. government of lying about the war in Ukraine, reportedly on the basis of altered versions of leaked military documents shared by a well-known pro-Russian propagandist.
Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov interviewed the woman behind the social media channel, from which Carlson appeared to get a critical piece of information he used to attack the Biden administration in a searing screed last Thursday.
Trofimov spoke with Sarah Bils, who runs the Donbass Devushka (Girl) network, after she was unmasked by users on Twitter and Reddit. Bils told the Journal she is one of 15 people “all over the world” who post to the network which has tens of thousands of followers on Telegram, Twitter, YouTube, and even Spotify – where she hosted a podcast in a fake accent as Donbass Devushka.
Bils, a former U.S. Navy noncommissioned officer and whose online persona claimed to be born in Luhansk, Ukraine, had a security clearance while in the Navy, but told the Journal she was not involved in leaking any information, just posting online.
“On April 5, the Donbass Devushka Telegram account posted four of the allegedly leaked classified documents to its 65,000 followers, according to a screenshot seen by The Wall Street Journal. That led several large Russian social-media accounts to pick up on the documents, after which the Pentagon launched an investigation. Ms. Bils says another administrator posted the four files,” the Journal reported on Sunday.
“I obviously know the gravity of top-secret classified materials. We didn’t leak them,” Bils said during the interview. The accounts Bils ran, however, described themselves as engaging in “Russian–style information warfare” and sold merchandise related to the notorious mercenary Wagner group and the Russian military – claiming proceeds would go to “our men on the front.”
On April 5, the Donbass Devushka Telegram posted the four files that appeared to be leaked from Airman Jack Teixeira, writing, “Some very interesting potential intel.”
“The authenticity cannot be confirmed but looks to be very damning nato information,” the post added. Trofimov reported that the post “remained online for several days” and that Bils told him “another administrator had posted these images, and that she was the one who later deleted them.”
“I don’t even know the authenticity of the documents or what they say. I am not very well versed in reading documents like that,” Bils added.
Trofimov explains that “some of the slides reposted on the Telegram account overseen by Ms. Bils had been altered from the otherwise identical photographs allegedly posted by Airman Teixeira on Discord—changed to inflate Ukrainian losses and play down Russian casualties.”
A week later a post appeared on the Donbass Devushka Telegram claiming, “We would never edit content for our viewers.”
The Eastern European news source Nexta reported on Sunday how some of the claims from Donbass Devushka’s slides appeared to make their way to Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Malcontent News first reported on Sunday that Tucker Carlson used the “edited version” of the documents posted by Donbass Devushka’s Telegram channel to “claim Ukraine was suffering a 7-1 troop loss ratio and was ‘losing the war.'”
Indeed, last Thursday in an angry rant in which Carlson accused both President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of committing “crimes” related to supporting Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion, Carlson cited that statistic.
“The second thing we learned from these slides is that despite direct U.S. involvement, Ukraine is in fact losing the war. Seven Ukrainians are being killed for every Russian. Ukrainian air defenses have been utterly degraded. Ukraine is losing. The Biden administration is perfectly aware of this,” Carlson declared. Carlson has long claimed Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is going far better than the media has reported, all while remaining a fierce critic of Ukraine’s leadership.
Renowned investigative journalist Michael Weiss detailed the whole episode on Twitter, writing, “Tucker Carlson pushed a fake version of a U.S. intelligence document about Ukrainian war casualties. It was doctored by a fraud podcaster who claimed to be a Russian woman from Luhansk. In reality, Sarah Bils is a former U.S. Navy clerk from New Jersey—and she pocketed all the money she claimed to raise for Russian causes.”
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the source of Carlson’s claims related to Ukrainian troop losses.
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
