Ukrainian state-run agency deletes posts bashing Trump’s intel chief pick

Kiev’s “anti-disinformation” body has accused Tulsi Gabbard of working “for the Kremlin money”

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation has quietly removed its news bulletins accusing former US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of spreading fake news on behalf of Russia.

The change came after US President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel of the US Army Reserve, to oversee the CIA and the NSA as the director of national intelligence.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council set up the CCD in March 2021 with the stated goal of fighting disinformation in news reports and on social media. In practice, the agency focuses on flagging and “debunking” stories that are critical to Ukraine and has accused many Russian and Western officials of spreading “fake news.”

According to the news website Strana.ua, the CCD took down four of its bulletins mentioning Gabbard from social media, including a bulletin from April 2022 that described her as someone who “for several years, has been working for foreign audience for the Kremlin money.”

In a bulletin from June 2024, Gabbard was accused of spreading “definformation” about Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and a bulletin from February 2023 said that the politician was “espousing pro-Russian rhetoric.”

The posts were removed on Thursday morning, Strana.ua said. As at the time of writing, the CCD’s 2022 post accusing Gabbard of taking “the Kremlin money” is still up on the National Security and Defense Council’s account on X. The link to the CCD bulletin is inactive, however.

Kiev has repeatedly lashed out at Western public figures critical of Ukraine, including journalist Tucker Carlson and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

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Gabbard, who has long 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 and backed 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. She has since insisted that the conflict should be resolved through negotiations and that Ukraine should become a neutral country.

In 2023, Gabbard slammed Zelensky, accusing him of seizing “absolute control of Ukrainian media, outlawing opposition political parties.”