Ukraine’s former presidential press secretary sits across from one of America’s most pro-Kremlin broadcasters, spends 90 minutes repeating narratives that Russian state media has spent years trying to establish — and offers not a single piece of verifiable evidence.
On May 11, 2026, Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host whose programme has become a reliable platform for pro-Kremlin narratives, released an interview with Iuliia Mendel, who served as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first press secretary from 2019 to 2021. Carlson titled it “This video just destroyed Zelenskyy’s career.” Within 24 hours, RT, Sputnik, RIA Novosti, TASS, and Pravda.ru had all published their own coverage. Propagandist Vladimir Soloviev named his May 13 broadcast “Zelenskyy on cocaine. Worship of Goebbels. Mendel at Carlson’s. Devastating interview.” Proxy outlets from Prague to Madrid were running translations within hours. The Kremlin’s information machine had not moved that fast on a single piece of content in months.
The interview was not a random outburst by a disgruntled former aide. It was a 90-minute package of unverified allegations, long-standing Russian propaganda narratives, and diplomatic framing that serves Moscow’s aims at one of the most sensitive moments in the war, delivered to an audience of millions on a platform that had previously hosted Vladimir Putin himself.
Who Iuliia Mendel Is — and Who She Has Become
Mendel came to Zelenskyy’s office in 2019 after winning an open competition from among 4,000 candidates, a former journalist from Kherson. She resigned in the summer of 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion, following complaints about her behaviour toward journalists. In 2022, she published a book titled “The Fight of Our Lives: My Time With Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s Battle for Democracy, and What it Means for the World,” in which she described Zelenskyy as “a breath of fresh air” and “a meritocrat by nature and relentless about proving himself”.
Four years later, she sat across from Carlson and called the same man “one of the biggest obstacles towards peace today.”
The transformation did not happen overnight. Since leaving the President’s Office, Mendel had been building a public persona as an internal critic of Zelenskyy, often without supporting evidence. She previously accused Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak of engaging in “magic rituals” involving cemeteries and “dead water,” claiming she feared for her life — again without documentation, as the Kyiv Post noted. In January 2025, she published a column in Time calling on Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire at the cost of territorial concessions. She hinted at the Carlson interview on her Substack as early as February 2026, but it was released on May 11, one day after a three-day Russian ceasefire for Victory Day ended and fighting resumed across the front, as NV Ukraine reported.
That timing was not incidental. The interview arrived at the precise moment when American policy toward Ukraine was under its most intense pressure in four years of war, and when Russia was publicly signalling disinterest in any peace deal that did not result in Ukrainian capitulation.
The Narratives: What Was Said, What Is True, and What Is Not
“He Uses Cocaine” — Unverified, Long-Established Kremlin Claim
When Carlson asked Mendel directly whether Zelenskyy uses drugs, she did not hesitate:
“This is an open secret. I met with many people who confirmed that they had seen him use drugs in different clubs. All these people are talking about cocaine, yes.”
She also described a pattern she said she observed personally during her time in the President’s Office:
“Every time before an important interview he goes to the bathroom. He spends 15 minutes there, and he’s going out energised, full of action, ready to talk about anything.”
She then acknowledged, in the same interview, that she had never personally witnessed him taking drugs.
There is no verified evidence that Zelenskyy uses cocaine. The allegation is a long-running fixture of Russian propaganda: pro-Kremlin accounts have repeatedly claimed substances photographed near his face were cocaine, when in each case they were identified as other materials. Carlson, who did not challenge a single one of Mendel’s claims throughout the 90-minute conversation, asked her directly whether she was “acquainted with Zelenskyy’s drug dealer” — a framing she did not reject, but amplified with suggestions about bathroom visits and unnamed sources.
When NewsGuard, the American media intelligence organisation, contacted Mendel for comment, she wrote: “I underlined that I never saw Zelenskyy taking drugs, however, as an insider, I talk to multiple actors that have known him through dozens of years and, as I have underlined in the interview, it is ‘an open secret.'” She did not address the other false claims identified by NewsGuard in the same fact-check.
“Zelenskyy Is a Dictator and the Main Obstacle to Peace” — Equating Victim and Aggressor
Throughout the interview, Mendel built a portrait of Zelenskyy that went far beyond policy criticism:
“He is emotionally uncontrollable. Often hysterical. He thinks that every person is disposable. He doesn’t have the empathy that he plays. He’s an absolutely, insanely great actor, and that brought us a lot of support in 2022, but his acting doesn’t have any substance. In front of the camera, he plays the role of a teddy bear, but when the lights go off, he’s a grizzly bear and he destroys people.”
She called him “one of the biggest obstacles towards peace today” and stated that ending the war would be “political suicide” for him.
Strategic communications expert Volodymyr Anfimov, commenting for NV Ukraine, noted that Mendel had “effectively placed an equal sign between Zelenskyy and Putin” and promoted the narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, was obstructing peace. He called it “openly harmful rhetoric for the country.” Danylo Romanchuk, editor-in-chief of Fakty ICTV, described it as the most “low and pathetic” content he had encountered in years of journalism.
Disinformation researcher Alyona Hurkivska, speaking to the Kyiv Independent, was more precise:“This interview does not just echo Russian narratives — it is intertextual propaganda, repeating them ‘within.’ Mendel offers a picture where Ukraine is depicted as a weak, zero-agency, corrupt, and hopeless country.”
The framing mirrors what Kremlin messaging has attempted to achieve for years: not the defence of Russia’s invasion, but the delegitimisation of Zelenskyy as a leader, making any settlement on Moscow’s terms appear not as capitulation but as a rational response to an illegitimate government.
“Slavs Killing Slavs” — Casting Putin as Ukraine’s Best Hope
The most striking moment came at the close of the interview. Mendel switched from English to Russian and addressed Putin directly on camera:
“Vladimir Vladimirovich, I do not have your life experience. I do not understand how you see this world. But I am not a representative of NATO, I am not a representative of the West, I do not work for Zelenskyy. I am not your political opponent. I am no threat to you at all. I am a Ukrainian woman from the Ukrainian provincial city of Kherson. You say that you are a man of God. Peace is the only possible thing that will make both Ukraine and Russia winners. There is no winner in this war, none. Both countries are losing, Slavs are killing Slavs.”
She then added: “Simply saying Putin is a monster. Well, maybe he is. His army does terrible things. But simply continuing to insult Putin will get you nowhere.”
The phrase “Slavs killing Slavs” is not a neutral humanitarian appeal. It is a direct reference to the “brotherly nations” narrative that Russia has promoted since before the 2022 invasion, framing the Russian-Ukrainian war as a tragic internal conflict among related peoples rather than a military aggression by one state against another. As the Kyiv Independent noted, the appeal “essentially cast the very man who started it as Ukraine’s best hope for peace.”
Anfimov described this as sending a signal to the external audience that “it is precisely Ukraine, in the person of President Zelenskyy, that does not want to end the war” — directly reinforcing pressure on Kyiv to accept negotiations on unfavourable terms, as NV Ukraine reported.
“Zelenskyy Agreed to Give Up Donbas in Istanbul” — No Access, No Evidence
Mendel claimed that participants in the Istanbul negotiations in spring 2022 had given her a detailed account of what happened behind closed doors:
“I spoke with people who represented Ukraine at the negotiations in Istanbul in 2022. They explained to me in detail that they agreed to everything. Moreover — and this is very important — they said that Zelenskyy personally agreed to give up Donbas. And I was shocked at that moment.”
She went further, presenting Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv as the moment that derailed an almost-complete peace deal: “Zelenskyy was promised weapons, influence, fame — he would fight with Russia and become a great hero. And that’s all he wants. He doesn’t care about people.”
She offered no documentation. She named none of her sources. She did not participate in the negotiations herself.
Ukraine’s Presidential Office responded the same day. Communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn stated that Mendel “did not participate in the negotiations, did not participate in decision-making, has long lost touch with reality, and whether any of this happened at all is not something serious to comment on,” UA News reported. The Centre for Countering Disinformation added: “The question of abandoning territories has never been on the table and never will be. There are facts, and there are words.”
The Istanbul narrative simultaneously suggests Ukraine was willing to capitulate early, that the West manipulated Kyiv into prolonging the war, and that Russia’s current position is not an obstacle to peace but a return to a deal already agreed. Mendel’s version — delivered without evidence by a person who was not present — provided the appearance of insider confirmation for all three claims at once.
“No Freedom, Closed Borders, Ukraine in Ruins” — False or Distorted
Mendel painted a sweeping picture of Ukraine as a country in collapse:
“There is no freedom of speech. The borders are closed now for four years — it’s illegally closed. People are afraid to say one crooked word about the authorities, because they will immediately be sent to the front or to prison. Ukraine is degrading. Fourth-graders can’t read now. We are on the verge of extinction.”
She also described the daily minute of silence observed across Ukraine at 9 a.m. as something altogether more sinister:
“All the cars need to stop at 9 a.m. on the roads to listen to the hymn. It looks surreal. It’s a really strange agenda.”
In the most recent Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, Ukraine ranks 55th out of 180 countries — above the United States, Italy, and Greece. The organisation describes Ukraine’s media landscape as “diverse and resilient.” Russia ranks 172nd.
Ukraine’s borders are not closed. Under martial law, men aged 18 to 60 face restrictions on leaving, but women, children, and men outside that age range travel freely, as NewsGuard documented. Mendel’s claim about cars stopping for the national anthem referred to the daily voluntary minute of silence at 9 a.m. to honour those killed by Russia. A law signed this spring requires only that the silence be announced; there are no penalties for not participating, as the Kyiv Independent reported.
How the Kremlin Machine Used It
Russian state media did not simply report the interview. They structured their coverage to maximise each individual claim while stripping away the qualifications Mendel herself had included — most notably her acknowledgement that she had never personally witnessed Zelenskyy using drugs, and her repeated statements that she was not justifying Russia’s invasion.
RT ran multiple articles treating Mendel’s allegations as credible testimony. RIA Novosti focused on the mental disorder framing, running the headline “Mendel suggests Zelenskyy suffers from a mental disorder.” TASS covered the sanctions and governance claims. Sputnik published versions across multiple regional editions. InoSMI, the Rossiya Segodnya translation platform, ran a full Russian-language transcript under the headline “Former press secretary of Zelenskyy opens all cards.” Pravda.ru produced at least four separate pieces across three days, including one that brought in a named Russian academic to characterise the interview as signalling “the collapse of the system.” News.ru combined all the explosive claims into a single headline: “Drug addict, dictator and admirer of Goebbels: Mendel’s interview about Zelenskyy.”
Vladimir Soloviev, the state television propagandist, named his May 13 broadcast after the interview’s three most explosive claims simultaneously: “Zelenskyy on cocaine. Worship of Goebbels. Mendel at Carlson’s. Devastating interview.” Olga Skabeeva, whose programme is among the most-watched on Russian state television, posted clips across her platforms and, according to coverage of her broadcast, “applauded standing” for the content.
The proxy network amplified the material into Central and Western Europe within hours. Czech outlet infokuryr.cz published multiple articles — one of which added a fabricated detail not present in Mendel’s original interview, claiming Zelenskyy’s drug dealer “comes to him with supplies directly into the Presidential Office.” Slovak outlets oral.sk and pravdive.eu ran translations with commentary. Hungarian outlets oroszhirek.hu and magyarnemzet.hu covered the cocaine narrative specifically. Spanish outlet diario-octubre.com published three separate articles on the same day, across the peace narrative, the corruption angle, and the drug use claim. French proxy reseauinternational.net and The European Conservative carried versions for Western European audiences.
The pattern across all of them was identical: present Mendel’s allegations as credible insider disclosure, strip out her own qualifications, and connect the claims to existing Kremlin narratives about Western responsibility for the war. This is what disinformation researchers call information laundering — unverified claims move from a less credible source into a more credible-seeming context, accumulating the appearance of legitimacy with each step of republication. The infokuryr.cz case illustrates the mechanism precisely: it took Mendel’s “open secret” claim, which she herself walked back in the same interview, and republished it as confirmed fact with an invented operational detail.
Russian state media sources:
- rt.com/russia/639874-zelensky-prolong-thrives-war/
- rt.com/russia/639891-yermak-indictment-zelensky-warning/
- ria.ru/20260511/zelenskij-2091866754.html
- tass.com/world/2129491
- russian.rt.com/ussr/news/1630754-mendel-zelenskiy-narkotiki
- nsn.fm/ukraine/byvshaya-press-sekretar-zelenskogo-zayavila-chto-on-upotreblyaet-narkotiki
- ru.sputnik.kg/20260512/zelenskiy-press-sekretar-intervyu-klyuchevye-zayavleniya-1101255322.html
- inosmi.ru/20260512/zelenskiy-278379490.html
- news.ru/europe/narkoman-diktator-i-poklonnik-gebbelsa-intervyu-mendel-o-zelenskom
- pravda.ru/world/2351298-menzel-zelenskyy-korruptsiya-nato/
- pravda.ru/world/2351481-mendel-interview-zelensky-collapse/
- pravda.ru/world/2351792-mendel-interview-carlson-eu-panic/
- pravda.ru/news/videochannel/2351685-mendel-zelensky-criticism/
- pravda.ru/world/2351904-mendel-interview-tucker-carlson-analysis/
- vkvideo.ru/@solovievlive/lives
- vk.com/video-52620949_456298545
Proxy outlet sources:
- infokuryr.cz/n/2026/05/13/tucker-carlson-odvysilal-vybusny-rozhovor-s-byvalou-mluvci-zelenskeho-a-padla-slova-o-diktature-kokainu-korupci/
- infokuryr.cz/n/2026/05/12/byvala-mluvci-zelenskeho-uvedla-ze-udajne-uzivani-kokainu-prezidentem-je-verejnym-tajemstvim/
- novarepublika.cz/2026/05/cia-a-gru-uz-24-hodin-vedou-koordinovane-utoky-proti-zelenskemu-a-eurokratum-cil-do-konce-leta-donutit-kyjev-i-brusel-prijmout-vsechny-putinovy-mirove-plany-analyza
- cz24.news/co-sa-to-deje-okolo-zelenskeho/
- oral.sk/tucker-carlson-odvysilal-vybusny-rozhovor-s-byvalou-mluvci-zelenskeho-a-padla-slova-o-diktature-kokainu-korupci-i-propagande-podle-goebbelse-julia-mendel-se-okamzite-po-odvysilani-dostala-na-lukl-s/
- pravdive.eu/news/150854/byvala-tlacova-tajomnicka-doslova-znicila-zelenskeho-v-rozhovore-s-tuckerom-carlsonom
- skspravy.sk/svet/odhalenie/toto-je-impeachment-odhalenie-tazkej-pravdy-o-zelenskeho-stave/
- oroszhirek.hu/volt-szovivoje-szerint-nyilt-titok-zelenszkij-kokainfogyasztasa/
- magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2026/05/zelenszkij-ukran-elnok-pletyka
- reseauinternational.net/paix-manquee-corruption-mensonges-linterview-choc-de-lancienne-porte-parole-de-zelensky-a-tucker-carlson/
- europeanconservative.com/articles/news/mendel-carlson-interview-zelensky-war-corruption-western-propaganda/
- diario-octubre.com/2026/05/12/zelenski-envia-a-sus-criticos-al-frente-como-castigo-dice-su-exvocera/
- diario-octubre.com/2026/05/12/terminar-la-guerra-es-para-el-un-suicidio-politico-exportavoz-de-zelenski-sobre-su-renuencia-a-la-paz/
- diario-octubre.com/2026/05/12/buen-trabajo-y-un-bolso-de-dinero-sobre-la-mesa-exportavoz-da-testimonio-de-la-corrupcion-de-zelenski/
- geoestrategia.eu/noticia/46235/seguridad/el-regimen-corrupto-y-criminal-al-que-damos-nuestro-dinero-solo-la-inmunidad-presidencial-impide-imputar-separa-penalmente-a-zelensky.html
A Recognisable Pattern
Mendel is not the first former Ukrainian official to take this route. In December 2024, Oleksiy Arestovych, a former adviser to the President’s Office, appeared on a right-wing American podcast and made structurally identical claims: that he had to leave Ukraine to avoid persecution, that Zelenskyy was a dictator, that Putin was more trustworthy than Zelenskyy, and that peace deals had been deliberately sabotaged by Ukraine. The Kyiv Independent noted that Arestovych’s and Mendel’s talking points now “almost mirror” those of figures like Diana Panchenko, a former journalist for a media outlet owned by Viktor Medvedchuk — Putin’s closest Ukrainian ally before the full-scale invasion — who now resides in Russia.
The pattern is a recognisable one in hybrid warfare: former insiders, often with genuine grievances and genuine knowledge of internal dysfunction, are given large platforms by actors hostile to Ukraine, where the credible parts of their testimony are used to validate the fabricated or distorted parts, and where the overall effect, regardless of personal motivation, serves the strategic communication goals of the aggressor.
Disinformation researcher Hurkivska assessed the consequences directly, speaking to the Kyiv Independent: “Unfortunately, this interview may impact the discourse in the US, affecting the reality of future uncertainty among Americans to support Ukraine, who would believe the image promoted by Mendel. It serves to justify any peace solution that Trump or anyone would offer, regardless of the sacrifices it entails for Ukraine.Tucker Carlson is a smart choice for this matter, having created a complementary environment where Mendel’s claims go unchallenged as long as they align with Trump’s negotiation strategy.”
The Mirotvorets website added Mendel to its listings on May 12, citing her dissemination of “Russian narratives.” RT then covered the listing as a story in its own right, framing it as Ukraine targeting a whistleblower — a secondary information operation built directly on top of the first.
Ukraine faces real governance challenges. Independent Ukrainian media document corruption scandals involving Zelenskyy’s inner circle, and legitimate criticism of his leadership is published inside Ukraine every day. The problem with Mendel’s interview is not that it contained criticism. The problem is that it delivered unverified allegations, stripped of context and evidence, to an audience of millions on a platform designed to deepen Western fatigue with Ukraine — at precisely the moment when that fatigue poses the greatest strategic risk to Ukraine’s survival.
When unverifiable personal accusations replace documented evidence, when the aggressor and the victim are placed on the same moral plane, and when the platform is chosen precisely because no claim will be challenged, the result is not an act of conscience. It is, as Hurkivska described it, intertextual propaganda — regardless of the intentions of the person delivering it.
