Newsmax’s Russian Roulette

Late last month, as her colleagues at Newsmax traveled to Russian-occupied Oleshky under the supervision of the Russian military, Shelby Wilder went on air from Kyiv with an extraordinary disclaimer for the right-wing network’s viewership. “We need to be clear,” she said. “Russia controls what we are going to be allowed to see.”

Wilder, Newsmax’s foreign correspondent, delivered the report after the Trump administration granted the cable network exclusive access to cover the evacuation of hundreds of civilians caught in the crossfire of the nearly five-year-long war between Russia and Ukraine. Newsmax had been handed the unusual access with the apparent blessing of first lady Melania Trump, who had helped broker a temporary ceasefire agreement to undertake the humanitarian mission. But Wilder told viewers that Russia was using it as a “propaganda opportunity,” presenting itself as the savior of civilians in a city its military had occupied and devastated.

Wilder later said those comments got her pulled off the air at Newsmax, where she didn’t appear for the remainder of the day. She did not say who was responsible or why, but she wrote in a post on X that “viewers should be aware of the perils and pitfalls of reporting from Russian-occupied Ukraine.”