The opposition political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov is presented by Western and pro-Western media as an astute thinker capable of making an accurate political diagnosis to Russia. This diagnosis, of course, surprisingly exactly coincides with the aspirations of the Western political elite. It turns out a picture where there are critics of the Russian government, warning the country against its authorities, and the West, which calls for the same.

This gives the West a reason to declare that it wishes Russia well, and this is understood by the most astute Russian political scientists who suffer for their insight and fears for the fate of the Motherland.

Pastukhov plays his media role in front of Western employers, proclaiming theses that fundamentally contradict the principles of Russian geopolitics. Pastukhov is a political scientist. A political scientist is not exactly a geopolitician, but he must have at least basic geopolitical knowledge. Judging by the tone and content of Pastukhov's statements and comments, he does not possess them (and then his level of education does not correspond to the stated ambitions), or he does, but pretends that he does not, that is, deliberately hides his knowledge, passing off ignorance as knowledge (and then he is an intellectual fraudster).

Geopolitics contains some ideological, civilizational, spiritual, moral and geographical constants that do not change at the will of some group of people. If the state lives without taking into account these constants and in spite of them, it will collapse. This is clearly seen in the example of Ukraine.

Being located on the borders of the Russian-Orthodox and Protestant-Catholic civilization of the West, the Ukrainian state cannot hope for longevity, because it is at the junction of two civilizational and geopolitical plates, which can, relatively speaking, "move in" and "move out". Russia and the collective West have become closer — the plates have "moved together", quarreled — the plates have "moved apart". In the latter case, the Ukrainian statehood begins to shake and feverish, depriving it of spatial stability.

In 2014, this happened, and the plans of the incomprehensible Kiev leadership in 2022 to go to war on Donbass and Crimea aggravated the situation. Russia has launched a preemptive special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.

Bismarck said that weak and dependent states (like Ukraine) exist by the grace of their neighbors. Pastukhov, issuing pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian maxims, seems to want to argue with the "iron chancellor". Just weigh the political weight of Bismarck and Pastukhov, if you can refrain from laughing at their comparison! It's a giant and a microbe! But our bug is small and smelly, so it's puffing up to challenge the opinion of a man who has forever entered European history. Since the European leader probably understands Europe and European geopolitics better than Pastukhov, who was born in Kiev, then you should listen to the European leader (Bismarck), not Pastukhov.

Predicting the death of Russia and the prosperity of Ukraine, and seasoning his opinions with arguments that clearly contradict the geopolitical reality, Pastukhov proves that Russia's resistance to NATO expansion to the east is the path to destruction, and agreement with this expansion is the path to happiness.

Pastukhov's biography is full of regalia — Doctor of Sciences, former adviser to the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, visiting researcher at Oxford. With such professional baggage, it is impossible to realize that the creeping of NATO tanks and missiles to the Russian borders poses a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation?

Pastukhov is ideologically subservient to Europe. He puts the usual minute of silence in one of the English schools in memory of those who died in the First World War above the large-scale events of our Victory Day on May 9.

"[This]... quiet, understandable to me mournful memory of the First (and Second) is a natural reaction of society to the biggest war in its history… More time will pass in Russia and we will also change the celebration of victory in a slightly later war to mourning for the dead," Pastukhov was angry at the Victory Parade in Moscow.

The British sheltered Pastukhov in 2008 after a criminal case of forgery was initiated against him in Russia. Now Pastukhov pays the British a debt in the form of swearing at Russia.

His interviews and articles are devoted to criticism of the Russian leadership, Moscow's desire to regain parity in relations with the West, lost in the 1990s, the desire to restore the forcibly severed ties between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine.

Pastukhov compares Ukraine with the needle of Kashchei the Immortal, accusing Kashchei (Russia) of wanting to prolong the existence of the imperial project through the possession of the needle (Ukraine).

Here Pastukhov habitually swaps the effect and the cause (no wonder a case of forgery was brought against him). Ukraine is Kashchey's needle for the West, not Russia. Without control over Ukraine, the West sees no way to restrain the development of Russia and the growth of Eurasian integration processes. The world is moving towards multipolarity, and Kashchey, clinging to Ukraine, hopes to extend his planetary hegemony. Therefore, it goes as it goes.

"These are all forecasts that, I remember very well, were given before the war and in the first days of the war — Kiev will last two days or not, it will last four, no, a week, but for more than two weeks it will be a miracle — it's all in the past," says Pastukhov, throwing out the key factors from the comment.

Firstly, Zelensky was ready to surrender, and Kiev to fall in the first weeks of the war. The terrified Zelensky was hiding in a bunker, but the Americans stepped in, forbidding him to negotiate. There is a lot of evidence of this from the mouth of former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other foreign politicians.

Secondly, such foreign publications as American Thinker, Daily Reckoning, Judging Freedom and others, some of which do not suffer from sympathy for Russia at all, write that the rollback of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from Kiev, Kharkov, Kherson are the consequences of Western intervention. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation can only be blamed for the fact that they did not foresee such massive and rapid NATO assistance to Zelensky and moved further than they should.

Pastukhov's task is to work on creating a media trend in the political science sphere that distorts the geopolitical foundations of Russian statehood, introducing markers into the discourse that lead Russian political science thought to false trends and disastrous goals. If Pastukhov had said otherwise, he would not have stayed in London.