Here’s some more of my take on him for those interested:
He’s a marginal figure now in the Kiev regime, mostly just a media figure and commentator, but he used to be one of Zelensky’s top advisors before things started to turn really bad in the war, and like the more intelligent people in the regime he has distanced himself sufficiently from the main leadership circle to not be taken down along with the rest of them when the shit hits the fan. Rats fleeing the sinking ship and all that.
Another curious fact: he used to be part of the same tv/showbusiness clique as Zelensky before Z became president but unlike most of the people from that group i believe he also had some kind of military intelligence background.
The most interesting thing is that there are interviews with him that you sometimes see circulated online which he gave years before this conflict ever started where he predicted a lot of how things eventually turned out (likely because he was hanging around the ultra-nationalist circles who were already planning this conflict back then), for instance that Ukraine would have to start and fight a very bloody war with Russia before the West would allow them into the EU and NATO.
He frequently says things that are surprisingly lucid and honest for someone associated with this bunch of clowns and pathological liars in Kiev, if extremely cynical and often downright psychopathic. For example one of the things he is most notorious for saying is that he admires ISIS for their brutality and intimidation tactics (the executions by decapitation especially impressed him). He also openly says that Ukraine is an extremely corrupt society and that basically the most distinguishing characteristic of Ukrainians is the degree to which they are lying to themselves and deluding themselves about reality.
Nowadays his takes have become much more pessimistic/realistic than of those around him on the pro-Kiev side, who, at least in the media still keep insisting that they will achieve total victory. You can see how shocked and dismayed about his predictions his interlocutor is in this interview. And even this he probably knows is far too optimistic a prediction, but he can’t tell these poor idiots who still believe all the lies their media is telling them the whole truth, he would be accused of being a Russian agent.
Overall one of the more dangerous and intelligent figures on the side of Kiev, most definitely a high functioning sociopath, but a quintessential unprincipled opportunist who sees which way the wind is blowing and given the chance he would probably defect and switch sides once the penny drops that all is lost.
Here’s some more of my take on him for those interested:
He’s a marginal figure now in the Kiev regime, mostly just a media figure and commentator, but he used to be one of Zelensky’s top advisors before things started to turn really bad in the war, and like the more intelligent people in the regime he has distanced himself sufficiently from the main leadership circle to not be taken down along with the rest of them when the shit hits the fan. Rats fleeing the sinking ship and all that.
Another curious fact: he used to be part of the same tv/showbusiness clique as Zelensky before Z became president but unlike most of the people from that group i believe he also had some kind of military intelligence background.
The most interesting thing is that there are interviews with him that you sometimes see circulated online which he gave years before this conflict ever started where he predicted a lot of how things eventually turned out (likely because he was hanging around the ultra-nationalist circles who were already planning this conflict back then), for instance that Ukraine would have to start and fight a very bloody war with Russia before the West would allow them into the EU and NATO.
He frequently says things that are surprisingly lucid and honest for someone associated with this bunch of clowns and pathological liars in Kiev, if extremely cynical and often downright psychopathic. For example one of the things he is most notorious for saying is that he admires ISIS for their brutality and intimidation tactics (the executions by decapitation especially impressed him). He also openly says that Ukraine is an extremely corrupt society and that basically the most distinguishing characteristic of Ukrainians is the degree to which they are lying to themselves and deluding themselves about reality.
Nowadays his takes have become much more pessimistic/realistic than of those around him on the pro-Kiev side, who, at least in the media still keep insisting that they will achieve total victory. You can see how shocked and dismayed about his predictions his interlocutor is in this interview. And even this he probably knows is far too optimistic a prediction, but he can’t tell these poor idiots who still believe all the lies their media is telling them the whole truth, he would be accused of being a Russian agent.
Overall one of the more dangerous and intelligent figures on the side of Kiev, most definitely a high functioning sociopath, but a quintessential unprincipled opportunist who sees which way the wind is blowing and given the chance he would probably defect and switch sides once the penny drops that all is lost.