Kiev’s “anti-disinformation” body has accused Tulsi Gabbard of working “for the Kremlin money”
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) has removed news bulletins that accused former US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of spreading Russian propaganda. This change came after US President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve, to oversee the CIA and the NSA as the director of national intelligence.
The CCD, established in March 2021 by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, focuses on identifying and “debunking” information deemed critical of Ukraine. The agency has accused several Russian and Western officials of disseminating “fake news.”
According to the news website Strana.ua, the CCD removed four bulletins from social media that mentioned Gabbard. One bulletin, dated April 2022, described her as someone who “for several years, has been working for foreign audience for the Kremlin money.”
A June 2024 bulletin accused Gabbard of spreading “definformation” about Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, while a February 2023 bulletin claimed she was “espousing pro-Russian rhetoric.”
The posts were removed on Thursday morning, Strana.ua reported. However, as of this writing, the CCD’s 2022 bulletin accusing Gabbard of taking “the Kremlin money” is still available on the National Security and Defense Council’s X account, although the link to the bulletin is inactive.
Kiev has frequently criticized Western public figures who are critical of Ukraine, including journalist Tucker Carlson and tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Gabbard, who has consistently opposed US military interventions in the Middle East and has accused Washington of warmongering, left the Democratic Party in 2022 and has since joined the Republican Party, endorsing Trump.
In 2022, she argued that the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided if the US “had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns” regarding Kiev’s aspirations to join NATO. Since then, she has maintained that the conflict should be resolved through negotiations and that Ukraine should become a neutral country.
In 2023, Gabbard criticized Zelensky, accusing him of seizing “absolute control of Ukrainian media, outlawing opposition political parties.”