Carlson’s top expert on the war, retired colonel Douglas MacGregor, told viewers of the right-wing Fox News show that “this war may end soon:” “Right now things are going very, very badly,” he said of Ukraine on Friday night’s show, calling them “desperate.” And Colonel MacGregor, a former adviser to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, even added that “they are losing once again just south of Kharkiv.” Reports from Ukraine indicate that the country’s armed forces have pushed back Russian forces from an area in the country’s northeast around Kharkiv. The Ukrainian push began late last week and picked up speed over the weekend, with Russia reportedly abandoning military vehicles and equipment in its haste to retreat. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted a video of such vehicles on Twitter on Sunday. “Russia is trying to maintain its status as the largest supplier of military equipment to the Ukrainian army and even improve its situation, knowing that lend-lease will soon come into force. The #UAarmy loves trophy ammo,” the tweet read. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Carlson has been repeatedly accused of taking pro-Vladimir Putin and pro-Moscow positions on his show. In March, the Kremlin told Russian state media that it should feature Carlson’s commentary on the war, according to Mother Jones. Carlson himself has denied being pro-Russian, telling a conference in July that he “doesn’t really care one way or the other” what Putin does in Ukraine. “I’m not a Putin defender, despite what you may have heard,” Carlson said at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. “I don’t really care one way or the other because he’s not my president, he’s not president of my country.” He added: “What he’s doing in Ukraine, while I think it’s historically important, certainly important to Ukrainians, is no more important to me than the cost of natural gas. In fact, they’re not even in the same universe.”
