Why is Trump’s pick for national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, on Ukraine’s unofficial ‘enemies’ database?
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he’s chosen Tulsi Gabbard, a former U.S. Representative from Hawaii, as his nominee for the country’s next director of national intelligence. Gabbard, who’s been an outspoken critic of U.S. military support for Ukraine for years, would be the first Hindu and the first person of color to serve in the role if confirmed by Congress. She would also be the first presidential cabinet member whose name appears on Myrotvorets, an unofficial Ukrainian online database of people accused of colluding with Russia or participating in pro-Russian separatist movements. Meduza explains the controversy surrounding this site and what likely landed Gabbard on the list.
What is Myrotvorets?
According to The Times, The Myrotvorets database was created in 2014 by Ukrainian politician Heorhiy Tuka and a former State Security Service (SBU) officer using the pseudonym Roman Zaitsev, the latter of whom still runs the site today. With a name that translates to “Peacemaker,” the project purports to track “enemies of the Ukrainian state.” However, it’s faced frequent criticism — and even criminal investigations — for “doxxing” journalists and activists over alleged anti-Ukrainian statements, posting their names and personal information on the site alongside those of occupation officials, mercenaries, and war criminals.
Myrotvorets is not officially affiliated with the Ukrainian government. Despite Zaitsev’s past SBU experience, he has maintained that the website is not controlled by the agency and does not receive state funding. In January 2022, he told The Times that Myrotvorets was created to solve the problem of “ex-police, ex-military and some political figures, whose beliefs remain pro-Russian”:
As time goes on the mission has changed and in the last three years the number of people getting placed on Myrotvorets for political reasons has increased. Now it lists those who protect the narrative of Russia.
The Times also reported that as of early 2022, Myrotvorets was “widely used to screen individuals at government checkpoints, supplementing official database systems.” Bloomberg has noted that people who have died after being added to the list, such as former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, pro-war propagandist Daria Dugina, and Italian journalist Andrey Rocchelli, are labeled as “liquidated.”
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While conspiracy theorists have referred to the database as a hit list, this is not accurate. According to Emily Channell-Justice, the director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, Myrotvorets does not advocate any specific actions but simply “identifies people who are potentially dangerous to the Ukrainian state and its ability to exist.” At the same time, Human Rights Watch Senior Researcher Yulia Gorbunova told The Times in early 2022 that the list was “very dangerous” and had “serious” implications for press freedom.
Former United States Representative Tulsi Gabbard has been included in the Myrotvorets database since at least 2022. Myrotvorets describes Gabbard as a “victim of psychological violence from Russian-terrorist propaganda” and accuses her of “distributing Russian propaganda” and “attacking Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” among other things. It also claims that she’s “likely an agent of Russian intelligence services.”
A longtime isolationist
Unlike many Republicans who initially supported U.S. aid to Ukraine but have soured on the cause as the full-scale war has dragged on, Gabbard — who joined the Republican party less than a month ago — has opposed Washington’s intervention since the invasion’s first day, blaming the Biden administration for the conflict and expressing sympathy for Russia’s position:
Days later, on February 27, 2022, Gabbard posted a video in which she called on U.S. President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Russian President Vladimir Putin to “embrace the spirit of aloha” by agreeing on Ukraine’s military neutrality:
Eight months later, in October 2022, Gabbard announced she was leaving the Democratic party, saying it had come under the control of an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.” While it would be two more years before she announced she was joining the Republican party, she endorsed Republican U.S. Senatorial candidate (and future Trump vice presidential pick) J.D. Vance, another early critic of Ukraine aid, within weeks of her departure from the Democrats.
In early 2024, Gabbard met with then-presidential nominee Donald Trump to discuss foreign policy, and was later included on his shortlist for running mates. While campaigning for Donald Trump later this year, Gabbard said she was confident that Trump’s “first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war.”
Is Trump on the Myrotvorets list?
In the days following the U.S. presidential election, rumors began to circulate that Donald Trump had previously been included in the Myrotvorets database but was removed after his victory. This claim, sometimes accompanied by purported screenshots of Trump’s profile, was amplified by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, multiple Russian state media outlets, and even Oleksii Arestovych, a former advisor to the Ukrainian President's Office.
According to Provereno Media, which specializes in debunking fake news, there is no evidence that Trump was ever included on Myrotvorets. The project notes that Myrotvorets director Roman Zaitsev published a post on the site on November 8 naming various figures who are not included in the database but have appeared in fake screenshots. In addition to Trump, Zaitsev’s list of fake entries includes another one of the president-elect’s cabinet nominees, Elon Musk, as well as Polish President Andrzej Duda, Queen Elizabeth II, Pope Francis, and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
Explainer by Sam Breazeale