Tucker Carlson Interviews Ukrainian-Russian Oligarch Turned Churchman: Russian Propaganda Exposed

Tuck­er Carl­son ‘s inter­view with Vadim Novin­sky rep­re­sents a sophis­ti­cat­ed Russ­ian infor­ma­tion war­fare oper­a­tion designed to nor­mal­ize Krem­lin nar­ra­tives through reli­gious mes­sag­ing. On 29 May 2025, the Lans­ing Insti­tute report­ed that the inter­view with Ukrain­ian-Russ­ian oli­garch-turned-church­man Vadim Novin­sky serves strate­gic Krem­lin inter­ests by posi­tion­ing him as a “spir­i­tu­al” author­i­ty to laun­der polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing through Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian lan­guage. The analy­sis reveals how Rus­sia uses West­ern influ­encers and reli­gious fig­ures to obscure war crimes and influ­ence con­ser­v­a­tive audiences.

The arti­cle begins:

Tuck­er Carl­son’s inter­view with Vadim Novin­sky rep­re­sents a cal­cu­lat­ed piece of Russ­ian infor­ma­tion war­fare, designed to serve Krem­lin inter­ests at a time of height­ened geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sion. Novin­sky, an oli­garch-turned-church­man with dual Ukrain­ian-Russ­ian iden­ti­ty, is posi­tioned as a “spir­i­tu­al” author­i­ty to laun­der polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing through reli­gious lan­guage. The choice of Novinsky—and the plat­form of a West­ern influ­encer like Carlson—signals a strate­gic attempt to nor­mal­ize Russ­ian nar­ra­tives in the West, obscure war crimes under a veil of Ortho­dox Chris­tian­i­ty, and use the Church as a tool of intel­li­gence and influ­ence oper­a­tions abroad. Nar­ra­tive Refram­ing Ahead of U.S. Elec­tions: The inter­view appears amid ris­ing debates in the U.S. about sup­port for Ukraine. By pro­mot­ing a “spir­i­tu­al” voice sym­pa­thet­ic to Moscow, Rus­sia aims to influ­ence iso­la­tion­ist or Chris­t­ian-con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles in the West. Back­lash Against the Ortho­dox Church in Ukraine: The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment recent­ly inten­si­fied pres­sure on the Moscow-linked Ukrain­ian Ortho­dox Church (UOC-MP), ban­ning it from state institutions.

           Read more: https://lansinginstitute.org/2025/05/29/orthodoxy-and-propaganda-analyzing-tucker-carlsons-interview-with-vadim-novinsky/

Key Points

• Novin­sky oper­ates as a Ukrain­ian Ortho­dox Church dea­con while main­tain­ing deep busi­ness and polit­i­cal ties to the Krem­lin, serv­ing as a “non-offi­cial” chan­nel for Russ­ian influence
• The Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church func­tions under FSB super­vi­sion with Patri­arch Kir­ill report­ed­ly oper­at­ing under for­mer KGB code­name “Mikhailov” accord­ing to intel­li­gence assessments
• Novin­sky shares notable sim­i­lar­i­ties with sanc­tioned oli­garch Kon­stan­tin Mal­ofeev, both using Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian nar­ra­tives to fur­ther Russ­ian state objec­tives through finan­cial influ­ence and geopo­lit­i­cal messaging
• The inter­view tim­ing coin­cides with ris­ing US debates about Ukraine sup­port, tar­get­ing Amer­i­can Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tives and iso­la­tion­ist cir­cles to cre­ate moral ambi­gu­i­ty about the conflict

Tucker Carlson, Russia, and the GNCA: Ideological Convergence and Influence Operations

Tuck­er Carl­son’s promi­nent role in the emerg­ing glob­al nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment is exem­pli­fied by his influ­ence over U.S. polit­i­cal appoint­ments and his out­spo­ken sup­port for nation­al­ist lead­ers such as Vik­tor Orbán, which has been ampli­fied by Russ­ian-con­trolled media to fur­ther Krem­lin-aligned nar­ra­tives. At events like CPAC Hun­gary 2023, Carl­son and oth­er Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives have cel­e­brat­ed the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), a transna­tion­al net­work that Rus­sia seeks to lead as part of its broad­er infor­ma­tion war­fare strat­e­gy, despite encoun­ter­ing resis­tance from some Euro­pean far-right factions.

Carlson’s rhetoric, often echoed by Russ­ian-con­trolled media, blames the U.S. for esca­lat­ing the Ukraine con­flict and posi­tions Rus­sia as a bul­wark against glob­al­ism, a nar­ra­tive that dove­tails with the GNCA’s ide­o­log­i­cal rejec­tion of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy and inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions. This align­ment is fur­ther rein­forced by the rise of Chris­t­ian nation­al­ists in the Repub­li­can Par­ty who advo­cate for end­ing sup­port to Ukraine, deep­en­ing the oper­a­tional and ide­o­log­i­cal ties between Amer­i­can and Euro­pean far-right move­ments and the Kremlin.

Exter­nal report­ing con­firms that Carlson’s inter­views and pub­lic state­ments have been used by Russ­ian state media to legit­imize Moscow’s world­view, while Vladimir Putin’s cul­ti­va­tion of far-right alliances is intend­ed to project Rus­sia as the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of a new con­ser­v­a­tive order, lever­ag­ing fig­ures like Carl­son to chal­lenge West­ern uni­ty and demo­c­ra­t­ic norms.

Exter­nal References:

1. Tuck­er Carl­son Returns to Rus­sia for Shame­less Pro­pa­gan­da Tour

2. Tuck­er Carl­son’s inter­view with Vladimir Putin — Wikipedia

3. Con­ser­vatism by decree: Putin as a fig­ure­head for the glob­al far-right

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.