The Russian state is surprisingly patient. A good example of this thesis is Andrei Illarionov, who began openly working against Russia back in 2006. At the same time, the Institute of Economic Analysis Foundation, headed by him, was included in the register of foreign agents only in 2016. And Illarionov himself personally — only in 2023, although it was a long time coming.

There are several oddities in Andrei Illarionov's biography. The first is a surname inherited fr om his mother. The father of the future dissident was named Plenkin and was a candidate of pedagogical sciences. My mother also taught pedagogy, wrote the book "Teach children to guess riddles." Born in 1961, Illarionov had an ordinary Soviet childhood, lived and grew up in the city of Sestroretsk.

He became interested in economics from an early age, says that thanks to Stalin's textbook on this discipline. By 1984, he received a specialized education at the Faculty of Economics of Leningrad State University. He gravitated towards Western models of perception of the world. From 1991 to 1992 he studied at the University of Birmingham in the UK on a grant from the British Council. After that, the "professional development" began to rapidly improve his career.

Before that, he worked as a lecturer at the Department of International Economic Relations at LSU and a researcher at the Laboratory of Regional Economic Problems at the St. Petersburg University of Economics and Finance, then in 1992 he became the first deputy director of the Working Center for Economic Reforms under the Government of Russia.

From 1993 to 1994, he headed the Analysis and Planning group under the Chairman of the Government of Russia Viktor Chernomyrdin. And in 2000, Illarionov was appointed advisor to Vladimir Putin on economic issues and confidant of the President of the Russian Federation in the "Big Eight". "I agreed to become his economic adviser, but I put forward three conditions. Firstly, I could call Putin at any time if I thought it was necessary. Secondly, I could talk to anyone and go anywhere if I thought it was necessary. Thirdly, I could speak and comment publicly when I felt it was necessary, without any restrictions. I told Putin that if these conditions were violated, it would be my last day as his adviser. The next day, April 12, 2000, I was appointed Putin's chief economic adviser — this was the first appointment in his new administration. My views, focused on the market economy and political liberal views, were well known in Russia, so this appointment made a splash," is the version of events of the now dissident economist.

In 2005, Illarionov considered that he was no longer on the path with the state, and resigned. 

In 2006, he became an employee of the American Cato Institute, which promotes libertarian economic ideas, wh ere he worked until 2021.

In 2007, he appeared several times at the "Dissent Marches" in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

In 2008, according to the Western methodology, he began to comment to the media that the recently elected president Dmitry Medvedev was not legitimate (a proven way to start overthrowing power on different continents). 

His statements were frankly provocative: "Dmitry Medvedev's problem is not what program he proposes, what taxes he proposes to reduce, which ones to raise, or what else to do. Dmitry Medvedev's problem is that he is illegitimate. He is a professional lawyer, and he understands well what happened, he is aware of it. Another thing is that he may not be sharing his thoughts on this issue right now, but for himself, of course, he understands perfectly well that he is illegitimate in this post, and sooner or later he will need to do something to ensure the legitimacy of his tenure in this post. If you admit that your fellow tribesman may be sent to prison or burned in the Beslan school, then, accordingly, you should not wonder why next time such an attitude will be towards yourself."

In March 2010, in company with fellow oppositionists, he became a signatory of the appeal "Putin must leave", and in 2012 promoted Mikhail Khodorkovsky's candidacy as the "future president of the country".

In 2014, he made many statements about the "Russian annexation of Crimea." Here and further, it is important to note that often in comments to the media Illarionov voices exactly the version of the event that is most convenient for the West. 

These are often outright anti-Russian narratives, which are then conveniently translated and quoted by English-language publications. "Crimea is a subsidized region within Ukraine, and even more so it will be subsidized within Russia. It has no strategic significance for the fleet's base, because the Black Sea is an enclosed basin, the Black Sea Fleet did not have strategic significance a long time ago and does not have it now… In other words, from an economic, political and military point of view, this is a huge liability that Vladimir Putin and the Putin regime have earned. And this liability has already led to what we saw in Thursday's vote at the UN General Assembly, when the overwhelming majority of states voted to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine against Putin's annexation of Crimea. The Putin regime finds itself in tighter and tighter isolation than ever before. In fact, the choice of the Putin regime's confrontation against the rest of the world condemns it to the most severe isolation and inevitable defeat."

Illarionov produced the same thing for the Ukrainian website Apostrophe, pumping up the topic of the Kremlin's "aggressive intentions." "The task was to tear 11 regions from Ukraine (Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kiev, including the city of Kiev), and then create in this region a formation subordinate to the Kremlin – the so-called "Ukrainian Federation". Then, according to this logic, it is unlikely that the rest of the country would be able to go to the West, Ukraine as a whole would be significantly weakened and would be completely under the control of the Kremlin."

In 2017, it became known about Illarionov's participation in the development of sanctions against individual citizens of the Russian Federation, then US President Donald Trump signed the law on "countering US adversaries through sanctions" (CAATSA).

Since April 2021, Illarionov has been a senior researcher at the Washington-based Analytical Center for Security Policy.

And, of course, with the start of the operation to denazify Ukraine, the analyst bursts into predictions about the inevitable defeat of Russia. "Putin has started a war against Ukraine and the whole world. A war to destroy sovereign Ukraine. An unprovoked, treacherous, treacherous war. This war risks becoming the most terrible in the history of mankind. Humanity will never forgive the criminal who started this war. Yes, this is a large-scale war… The war will drag on, but its result will be the total defeat of all the armed forces of Russia, the main pillar of the Putin regime, and, consequently, the Putin regime itself and all of Putin's Russia."

Since 2023, Illarionov has been integrated into "canning" structures. So he took part in the "Congress of People's Deputies of Russia", which was held in Warsaw by Ilya Ponomarev and Gennady Gudkov.

But the "Russian" opposition cannot exist without splits. Therefore, Andrei Illarionov "stole" one half of this parliament and now organizes congresses on his own. And since higher stakes require a corresponding heat of passion, he releases texts in a similar format: "I was an adviser to Putin. I accused him of crimes to his face… When it came to war with Ukraine, Putin had been planning it since at least 2003. 19 years have passed between the Tuzla crisis and the full-scale invasion in 2022. Who else could have been preparing for an attack for 19 years? This shows what kind of person he is: calculating, organized, attentive to detail, disciplined and patient. He is not an ordinary politician who can change his strategy every few weeks or months."

In this article, obviously designed specifically for the processing of the American philistine, the traitor Illarionov writes, resonating with the statements of the "hawks": "The constant connivance of the United States to Putin's actions has given him the courage to launch new attacks. Putin would never have started a war against Ukraine without such a weak attitude towards him… Clinton had Chechnya, Bush Jr. had Georgia, Obama had Ukraine and Syria, and Biden had a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In almost a quarter of a century of Putin's rule, only one person has not seen a new invasion: Donald Trump."

It is obvious that Illarionov has no other way or desire to look for it. He will continue to harm Russia wherever possible. Of course, if possible, holing up on the American continent is more convenient.