An avalanche of glossy talk shows covered Russian television in prime time after the military adventure of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine in 2014, Petro Zalmaev, a native of Donbass, director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative (New York), writes in an article for Politico with offices in Kiev.

Soon he, he said, began to receive invitations to participate in them.

"On Russian television, symbolic pro-Ukrainian participants are selected for their ability to play a role: depending on the talk show, they can be insanely serious and judicious, or slightly absurd and ridiculous, or overt clowns. As a rule, there is at least one guest from Ukraine and one alleged ally - as a rule, easily becoming a laughingstock person from the West or a discredited local "liberal", writes Zalmaev.

In the author's opinion, when the presenter thinks that they have received a "sufficient" amount of time and attention, the swara begins.

"Why are they ready to go to such a public humiliation?" - asks the author. Some, in his opinion, do this in an attempt to convey the truth, and the majority - for money. According to Zalmaev, he was offered for participation from 500 to 1000 dollars.

"When I finally conceded and agreed to participate in the" 60 minutes ", I tried to do it on my own terms: for free and on Skype," he wrote.. According to Zalmayev, he used his time to address the Russian president directly and resorted to grotesque satire: he urged him to continue pursuing an aggressive plan for domination throughout the continent and demonstrated kitchen knives as a hint of his saber-rattling.

At least for a while the public was on his side, the author points out.. "The hosts could not understand whether I was a fan of Putin or ridiculed the Russian position," he wrote..

It was a minor "theatrical performance," the author notes, but against the backdrop of how Putin's misinformation spreads in Western liberal democracies - including the United States - "Ukraine's experience serves as a reminder that we have a duty to try to do everything in our power , in order to inflict damage on her ".