Tucker Carlson claims Ukraine's democratically-elected president is a dictator and again asks why the US isn't on Russia's side

• Tucker Carlson has repeatedly questioned US support for Ukraine in the Russia military crisis.
• On Monday he claimed Ukraine's democratically-elected president was a dictator.

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson called Ukraine's democratically-elected president Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, and again questioned why the US isn't on Russia's side.

On his Monday show, Carlson claimed Democrats in the US were wrongly framing the Russia-Ukraine military crisis as good-versus-evil story because, he claimed, Ukraine was not a democracy.

Carlson has previously sought to directly compare Russia to Ukraine despite their different political systems — Russia is an authoritarian regime while Ukraine is considered a democracy.

"It's run by a dictator who's friends with everyone in Washington," Carlson said of Ukraine, before attacking GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for defending Kyiv. (Kinzinger and Cheney are not the only Republicans who have expressed support for Ukraine, but many conservatives have singled out the duo for taking part in the House committee investigating the Capitol riot.)

As an example, Carlson said Ukraine's opposition leader "is now under arrest" and "the opposition media, the TV stations, have been shut down by the government."

Carlson was referring to Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of Ukraine's Opposition Platform for Life party, whom Ukrainian prosecutors charged with treason in May. Ukraine also banned three of Medvedchuk's pro-Russia TV channels two months earlier.

"That's how a dictatorship operates," Carlson said.

"It should make you very nervous that Joe Biden, [Director of the US Domestic Policy Council] Susan Rice, and the National Security Advisor kid, they're all telling us with a straight face … it's a democracy," he added, apparently referring to Jake Sullivan.

Ukraine is widely considered a transitioning democracy, including by the US.

Zelensky won the 2019 presidential election with more than 70% of the vote and a number of independent election observers, including the National Democratic Institute, assessed that the election was conducted fairly.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that Russia had "systematically sought to undermine and divide Ukraine's democracy."

Carlson, who has on several occasions said it makes sense for the US to side with Russia, went on to suggest without evidence the Biden administration was cowing to pressure from Ukrainian lobbyists.

"Why Ukraine?" Carlson said. "Because the president's son was paid $1 million a year by Ukraine and they have a massive lobbying effort in Washington."

Biden's son, Hunter, served on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma between 2014 and 2019 and Joe Biden's opponents have claimed that Hunter offered access to his father in exchange for favors.

However, a September 2020 report by GOP senators concluded there was no wrongdoing on Joe Biden's part, but said Hunter Biden "cashed in" on his father's name abroad.

Russia amassed more than 130,000 troops near Ukraine's borders in recent months, with the US repeatedly warning that Moscow could soon launch an invasion. Russia said on Tuesday it was withdrawing some of those troops, but did not say how many.