Anti-Ukraine rhetoric has saturated right-wing media. Now it is helping to deliver actual war victories to Putin

Vladimir Putin’s information war in U.S. media paid off this weekend with a key victory halfway around the world.

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here. Vladimir Putin’s information war in U.S. media paid off this weekend with a key victory halfway around the world. Some 5,000 miles away from a paralyzed Washington, Ukraine was forced to surrender the city of Avdiivka to Russian forces, handing Putin one of his most monumental triumphs in months. As The NYT’s Julian E. Barnes, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt noted, it is a “sign of the battlefield impact of the failure of the U.S. Congress, so far, to approve more military assistance as dwindling supplies of artillery shells make it even harder to hold the line.” CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh added, “It is a pivotal moment, where both Russian advances and Western atrophy threaten to transform the biggest land war in Europe since the 1940s.” That atrophy has taken form in Congress where U.S. funding to continue aid for Ukraine has stalled, threatening even more devastating defeats for the Eastern European nation as it struggles to defend its borders from the brutal Russian invasion launched by Putin two years ago this week. But it’s not clear whether an aid package with real teeth will be approved by Congress, with the House under GOP control. House Speaker Mike Johnson has already indicated that the $60 billion in funding passed by the Senate can’t clear the lower chamber. And he has privately told Republicans there is “no rush” to tackle the issue. As a Republican, Johnson is in a tough spot, politically speaking. While the Republican Party was once vehemently hawkish toward Russia, viewing the post-Soviet country as its chief adversary on the international stage, it has softened considerably in recent years and much of the party actively opposes sending additional dollars to Ukraine to continue fighting Russia.