Putin's invasion a 'special military operation', insists GB News host

GB News has long tended towards the Putin-friendly in its coverage of the dictator’s invasion of Ukraine – but now Donald Trump has embraced the Russian leader the channel isn’t even pretending.

In an interview with the former security minister Tom Tugendhat today, presenter Bev Turner insisted on using the phrase “special military operation” – the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for its unprovoked invasion – and doubling down when challenged.

Turner – previously best known for opposing Covid vaccines, denying climate change and defending Russell Brand – asked the Conservative: “What do you think Vladimir Putin went into that special military operation in 2022 for, in the east of Ukraine?”

When Tugendhat responded: “Sorry, it’s only the Russians who call it a special military operation, everybody else calls it what it is…”, Turner interrupted, telling him: “No, it’s not actually. Some of Trump’s government now also call it a special military operation, because they will say if he deliberately wanted to go in and take over Ukraine, he wouldn’t have sent over so few troops. If he wanted ambition [sic] to take over the whole of Ukraine he could have done that, and he didn’t do that, he was trying to force a negotiation to the table, surely?”

Told by Tugendhat she was rewriting history, Turner responded that “half a million young Ukrainian men, and now also going on to women, have been killed in this war and there have been very little efforts [sic] to come to peace”. The actual figures for Ukrainians killed since Putin’s 2022 invasion are thought to be closer to 80,000 (forces) and 12,000 (civilians)

And when the ex-minister drew comparisons to an alternative history in which Hitler’s troops landed on the Kent coast, the presenter harrumphed: “I don’t think that the comparison is fair at all.”

So how did GB News distance itself from its errant presenter? They… er, proudly clipped her words up and posted them on its X account, billing Turner’s spouting of Kremlin talking points as a “clash over Vladimir Putin’s intentions”, as if both views might be equally valid.

It’s now getting on for 18 months since Boris Johnson announced he was joining the channel, boasting he would be “offering my frank opinions on world affairs”. He’s still yet to clock in for her first shift. Could he really face his pal Volodymyr Zelensky while working for a station that acts as a cheerleader for the brutal invasion of his country?

A GB News spokesman said: “The claim that GB News is ‘Putin-friendly’ is totally erroneous. As the interview between Bev Turner and Tom Tugendhat demonstrates, GB News is a forum for respectful debate where people are allowed to strongly disagree, and where they can have challenging and robust conversations.”