“Charlie Kirk Was An Anti-Ukraine, Pro-Putin Apologist” – Terrell Jermaine Starr
Many thanks to the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU), which advertised a new article by Terrell Jermaine Starr, who is an interesting writer and activist.
Link :
Charlie Kirk was an Anti-Ukraine Pro-Putin Apologist
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s military has raped hundreds of women (that are documented but like its many more), kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children, killed thousands of civilians in cities far from the frontlines, internally displaced millions, and forced millions more to flee their homeland into Europe and other countries during his invasion of Ukraine, which is now approaching its fourth year.
Documentation of war crimes were clearly established in the first few months of the war. But you wont’ know these details is you listened to Charlie Kirk’s statements about Putin and Ukraine.
In February 2023, Kirk said that Putin “has shown and demonstrated some extraordinary restraint” through all of this. Really? Living in Ukraine through nightly air strikes on civilians, I don’t see the restraint.
Few MAGA voices carried Putin’s water more effectively than Kirk. In the same broadcast on his show, he called Putin a “thug” the U.S. should oppose, but also described him as a “soft ally within the broader global picture.”
Long before the full-scale invasion, Kirk spread Russian talking points about Ukraine. In 2019, he tweeted, “Barack Obama asked Ukraine to investigate his political rival’s campaign manager, 3 Democrat senators asked Ukraine to investigate Trump, and the DNC solicited Ukraine’s help to dig up dirt on Trump, and the media was silent about all of it.”
Of course, this was a lie.
Kirk usually devoted his time to spreading lies about people of color, but Ukraine was a key target of his at times. You see, anti-Blackness and xenophobia don’t just harm people of color—it also negatively impacts Ukrainians. As I have tried to explain to Ukrainians, white supremacy is nativist in nature and views anyone that undermines its objectives as adversaries. Kirk, who was killed on September 10, was an avowed racist whose nativist views were anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia in nature.
A few months ago, he said on his show that, “I don’t love the idea of sending arms to Ukraine,” arguing that the U.S. shouldn’t continue financing a “kinetic conflict” with Russia, and that Ukraine is “not our fight.” This is the typical argument conservatives use to argue that the U.S. should care more about its southern border than a “foreign border” like Ukraine.
At the white nationalist CPAC conference in February 2022, as Russia was raping, murdering, and pillaging its way through Ukraine, he said, “The southern border matters a lot more than the Ukrainian border” and “In fact, I want every Republican leader who comes up on stage the next couple days to call what’s happening on the southern border an invasion because two million people waltzed into our country last year.,” which was a false and racist thing to say.
But allow me to translate what he really meant: we can’t help Ukraine because too many brown people are entering the U.S. and will “replace” white people like me and they will make black and brown babies with our white daughters who will grow up to vote racist pieces of shit who look like me out of office and relevance.
Pure nativist talking points.
Kirk is on record saying illegal immigrants (we should be saying undocumented, by the way, because no human is illegal) are “invading” the U.S., while promoting the long-debunked great replacement theory. He argued that birthright citizenship should end, clearly targeting non-white people. This xenophobic logic also underpinned his opposition to critical military aid for Ukraine, which Trump similarly resisted, and which Kirk supported.
For Kirk, Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine was nothing more than a “border dispute,” according to The New York Times. On Crimea, he said Ukraine should give up reclaiming land Russia illegally annexed and occupied, partly because, and I bullshit you not, “it’s where Russian wine is from.” You can’t make this shit up.
Kirk was also a Putin apologist—literally.
In November, he tweeted an apology to the Russian people: “Very few Americans want war with you. Most of us are glad the Cold War ended and want a friendly relationship. The people obsessed with fighting you forever are a minority—and they’re on their way out of power. We want peace. Ignore our current leaders.”
His words were, of course, quoted tweeted by RT.
Even after his death, Russian officials were quick to propagandize his murder before his body was cold. Kirk was a useful idiot for the Kremlin in life and continues to be in death. This shows the shared disregard for human life between white supremacy and Russian supremacist propaganda. Neither the Kremlin nor the White House have the dignity allow the man to rest in peace—even though his words were less than peaceful.
As a journalist who works to help Ukrainians see what they have in common with other oppressed peoples, Kirk’s death is a reminder that white supremacy harms all those outside its narrow worldview. He despised anyone who wasn’t a white, straight, American-born male—including Ukrainians.
His sudden “care” for Iryna Zarutska had nothing to do with her. He opposed anything the U.S. could do to support her country in defending itself from the Russian invasion. Kirk used the tragic murder of Zarutska to gin up anger among his white nationalist base, posting videos and images of her death with no respect for her final moments or her loved ones.
As we review Kirk’s life, it’s clear he was a racist, sexist, and homophobic provocateur whose divisive rhetoric was masked as curiosity. He sought to close U.S. borders out of fear that white Americans would be replaced and denied support to Ukraine, seeing it as a “foreign problem” rather than human suffering. The Kremlin promoted his anti-Ukraine rhetoric because they shared a common enemy: Ukraine.
The silver lining is that his death can unite those he tried to divide: the working poor and middle classes of all races, immigrants, the undocumented, LGBTQ+ people, women, and Ukrainians.
We honor his life by shining a light on his truth, namely his own divisive, untruthful, and propagandistic words. White supremacy and Russian propaganda thrive on fear and lies. Both want us to fight each instead of fighting them. By rejecting their tactics, we can live in peace with one another, in our truth, rather than in the division of lies Charlie Kirk spent his life spreading about us all. That is one thing Black folks and Ukrianians have in common: He didn’t like either of us and didn’t want us to like each other, either. Let’s build from his death by finding commonality in our humanity.
That would make Charlie Kirk turn over in his grave.
About the Author, Terrell Jermaine Starr :
Terrell has written for many leading publications, including, but not limited to The New York Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Mother Jones, Outrider Magazine, Conversationalist, and The Root.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
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