Malcolm Nance, a former MSNBC analyst who frequently claims his political adversaries are either Kremlin collaborators or white supremacists, has left the network to join the foreign volunteers fighting against Russian forces in Ukraine.
“The more I saw of the war going on, the more I thought, I’m done talking,” Nance said on Monday night, in an interview with former MSNBC colleague Joy Reid. “It’s time to take action here. So, about a month ago, I joined the international legion here in Ukraine, and I am here to help this country fight, you know, what essentially is a war of extermination.”
The 61-year-old author and US Navy veteran was billed as a national security analyst during his years working as a commentator for MSNBC. Nance, who worked in counterintelligence and cryptology during his 20-year navy career and later founded an intelligence consulting firm, said he spent “quite a bit of time” in Ukraine during the runup to Russia’s military offensive against Kiev. He added that he had friends in the Ukrainian army who sent messages from Donetsk saying they weren’t going to survive after Moscow’s offensive began.
“This is an existential war, and Russia has brought it to these people, and they are mass murdering civilians,” Nance said. “And there are people here like me who are here to do something about it.”
Nancy has authored books accusing Russia of plotting to “destroy democracy” and getting Donald Trump elected president to “betray America.” During the 2016 campaign, he falsely accused Green Party candidate Jill Stein – then a threat to siphon left-wing votes away from Hillary Clinton – of having hosted a program on RT. He tarred journalist Glenn Greenwald as an “agent of Moscow” who was “deep in the Kremlin pocket.”