By Bharat Gautam and Yana Gaur

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released the first episode of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday, weeks after being taken off the air by the network following a damaging defamation lawsuit over false claims of election fraud.

In a roughly 10-minute video captioned "Ep.1" he claimed without evidence that Ukraine was to blame for the destruction of a massive dam in Russian-occupied territory that caused widespread flooding.

The one-time top-rating talk show host on U.S. cable television said he hoped Twitter would be the "short-wave radio under the blankets" with "no gatekeepers".

"If that turns out to be false, we'll leave," he said.

The show is named "Tucker on Twitter" and Carlson said he would be "back with much more very soon."

Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted after Carlson posted his video that it "would be great to have shows from all parts of the political spectrum on this platform!"

Fox News Media and its top-rated host Carlson agreed to part ways in late April, less than a week after parent company Fox Corp settled the defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million.

Dominion Voting Systems alleged in its lawsuit that Carlson allowed debunked election-fraud claims about its voting-technology firm to air on his show, while casting doubts on the plausibility of those claims in private messages that emerged in legal filings.

Fox News did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

(Reporting by Yana Gaur and Bharat Govind Gautam in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates)