‘Playing Into Putin’s Hands’ – War in Ukraine Update for Feb 7

Overview:

• Trump mouth-piece, fired right-wing ex-TV host Tucker Carlson promotes his upcoming chat with Putin
• US President says “clock is ticking” on supplemental aid to Ukraine
• AFP interviews with Ukraine’s troops show that Zaluzhny is favored over Zelensky
• As Russia boosts artillery strikes, AFU scrambles for more ammo
• Ukraine scrapes back land around Avdiivka as the situation reaches a “critical” stage

Fired by Fox News, US right-wing provocateur now hitches his wagon to Putin interview

Dismissed former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday he will interview Russian President Vladimir Putin for a self-produced interview to be aired on social media. The right-wing pundit, once-TV personality was seen exiting the Kremlin this week, swirling rumors of a potential sit-down with the Russian dictator, now confirmed by Carlson.

“We’re here to interview the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We’ll be doing that soon,” Carlson said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.

A closely followed purveyor of conspiracy theories about Covid and the Jan. 6, 2020, insurrection in Washington, the once-cable-news pundit was fired by the Rupert Murdoch-owned, right-wing media outlet Fox News in April 2023, at about the same time that Fox was court-ordered to pay a voting-machine company $787.5 million in damages for lying about supposed election irregularities in Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential defeat.

Carlson, who regularly consulted for the former Republican president on media strategy while employed at Fox, was found to have sent several texts to a producer during the affair, writing, “You keep telling our viewers that millions of votes were changed by the software… If you don’t have conclusive evidence of fraud at that scale, it’s a cruel and reckless thing to keep saying.”

Other Topics of Interest

IMF Approves $1.1 Billion Loan Disbursement to Ukraine Before Trump Inauguration

The IMF’s latest funding approval brings its total loan disbursement to Ukraine up to $9.8 billion out of the total loan amount of $15.5 billion approved in 2023.

Now attempting to re-boot his career on social media, Carlson would become the first major American media personality to interview Putin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Carlson, who has long been promoting Putin’s agenda and has vociferously argued against aid to Kyiv, said: “There are risks to conducting an interview like this, obviously. So we’ve thought about it carefully over many months.”

AFP reported that Russian state media has “feverishly covered Carlson's visit to Moscow, publishing photographs of the controversial presenter at the airport as well as at the famous Bolshoi Theatre, where he attended the ballet.”

Biden says the “clock is ticking” on aid to Kyiv

In the latest outtake on the excruciating political stalemate in Washington over aid to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Congress will be following the Kremlin’s playbook if it rejects proposed funding for Kyiv, saying “the clock is ticking.”  He blamed former president Donald Trump for playing politics with national security.

This week, Republicans in the House of Representatives loyal only to Trump threatened to shoot down a Senate-sponsored bipartisan bill that makes deep, Republican-ordered reforms on US border security in exchange for $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

“We can’t walk away now. That’s what Putin’s betting on,” Biden said. “Supporting this bill is standing up to Putin. Opposing this bill is playing into his hands.” In terms of the concessions made on immigration policy, he said that the bipartisan Senate bill included the “toughest set of reforms to secure the border ever.”

Troops fret about speculations that their commander will be replaced

Ukrainian troops on the front lines interviewed by AFP this week expressed worry and frustration that the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny will be replaced, per rumors from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.

“Replacing the commander during the fighting, especially when they are so intense in our area, is not appropriate,” an army medic with the callsign “Beria” deployed in the Donetsk region told AFP. “I would sooner replace the president,” the 25-year-old said.

Another soldier, “Kit,” said the rumors of Zaluzhny’s firing irritated him because there has not been complete transparency about the motivation behind the AFU chief’s firing. Zaluzhny “incarnates our invincibility, our victory,” the 50-year-old "Kit" told AFP. "He is already an icon.”

As for the common person on the streets of Ukraine, the decision seems to be much less contentious.

As Moscow’s forces up their artillery attacks, AFU scrapes for counterbattery ammo

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said this week that Russian forces intensified their rate of artillery strikes by “nearly 25 percent over the last week and shelled Ukraine over 1,500 times, targeting over 570 settlements,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported.

On the other side of the trenches, the AFU along fronts such as Avdiivka, are increasingly rationing shells and “can therefore only target masses of advancing Russian soldiers, [and] Russian forces have apparently adapted and are now advancing in smaller groups that are harder for Ukrainian artillery to strike,” ISW analysts noted.

“A lack of artillery ammunition thus severely degrades counterbattery systems: AN/TPQ, COBRA, and other Western counterbattery systems are only as effective as the number of shells that Ukrainian forces have at their disposal to pursue the targets that counterbattery radars identify,” ISW reported.

As Russians continue to close in on Avdiivka, AFU makes marginal gains

As the city’s military administrative head warned that Russians were closing in on Avdiivka and reaching a “critical” point, Ukrainian forces, geolocated footage published this week indicates, recently advanced northeast of Nevelske, in the heavily contested southwestern front around the city.

Meanwhile, Russian sources claimed that Moscow’s forces advanced in southeastern Pervomaiske (also southwest of Avdiivka) and up to one kilometer deep in northern Avdiivka, although ISW reported it has not seen any visual confirmation of these claims.