The New York Times reports:

As Western leaders introduced sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, said seizing personal property from Russian oligarchs went too far.

“No American government had ever done anything like that before,” he said.

While the segment was aimed at Fox News’s conservative audience, it found another audience in Russia. The argument was parroted beat by beat by RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, which wrote that “the average U.S. citizen is simply horrified by what is happening.”

The narratives advanced by the Kremlin and by parts of conservative American media have converged in recent months, reinforcing and feeding each other. Along the way, Russian media has increasingly seized on Fox News’s prime-time segments, its opinion pieces and even the network’s active online comments section — all of which often find fault with the Biden administration — to paint a critical portrait of the United States and depict America’s foreign policy as a threat to Russia’s interests. Mr. Carlson was a frequent reference for Russian media, but other Fox News personalities — and the occasional news update from the network — were also included.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who has made several false claims about the war — including that Russia never attacked Ukraine — singled out Fox News for praise last month. [Continue reading…]