Last Ditch Effort to Revive Ukraine Story? Why Murdoch Rushed to Meet Zelensky in Kiev

Lachlan Murdoch, who took the reins of Fox Corp. and News Corp. last week, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev over the weekend. So what exactly prompted this trip?

Lachlan, 52, is the eldest son of now-retired Rupert Murdoch, an Australian-born American media mogul, who announced his retirement in September. Last week, Lachlan Murdoch officially became the sole chair of News Corp and the executive chair and chief executive of Fox.

Remarkably, the first foreign leader the new head of the media empire hastened to meet was none other than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to Axios, Lachlan Murdoch traveled to the Ukrainian capital over the weekend, accompanied by two reporters – Benjamin Hall from Fox News and Jerome Starkey from the Sun.

Hall conducted an interview with Zelensky that is expected to be aired on Tuesday night's episode of "Special Report with Bret Baier," according to the media outlet.

The report suggested that Lachlan Murdoch's visit with Zelensky is of importance given that the media he now owns remains "the most powerful source of information for Republicans," a majority of whom have recently become highly skeptical on continuing to fund the Ukrainian military.

Indeed, a new survey by Gallup has indicated that 62% of Republicans believe that the US is "doing too much" to help Kiev, a surge from 50% in June. Likewise, the Ukraine aid issue is losing GOP support in the US Congress. The trend is apparently driven by Ukraine fatigue, Kiev's failure to succeed in its counteroffensive attempt, and, most notably, Israel's war against Hamas, declared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the Islamist surprise attack on October 7.

Zelensky mentioned his meeting with Lachlan Murdoch in a Facebook* post on Monday, while the newly appointed media chairman declined to comment on his Kiev tour via his spokesperson, as per Axios.

Meanwhile, it is known that Lachlan used to talk to Zelensky previously. According to the US mainstream press, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his son reportedly held a telephone conversation with the Ukrainian president in March, weeks before they ousted Tucker Carlson, the American political commentator and writer who hosted the eponymous nightly talk show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Fox from 2016 to 2023.

According to the Semafor website, it's unclear whether the phone call had anything to do with Tucker's sacking. Still, it is said that Ukrainian government officials repeatedly raised issues with Carlson's coverage of the Ukraine conflict. The host's approach to Washington's proxy war in Ukraine has differed much from the US mainstream narrative about Kiev's "imminent victory" and Zelensky's "Churchill-style" governing.

The tone of the Western press has significantly changed since then. Time Magazine has recently depicted the Ukrainian president as losing the battle and his entourage as deeply corrupt. Furthermore, the Economist featured Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, who clarified that the world should not hold its breath waiting for a "deep and beautiful breakthrough."

What deserves to be considered is whether Murdoch would choose to emulate the approaches of prominent American and British media outlets, or if he would endeavor to resuscitate Zelensky's tarnished reputation and inject fresh vitality into the Ukraine conflict narrative.

*Meta’s Facebook is banned in Russia for extremism.