So Nicolai Lilin has apparently run away. This can be deduced from a video recorded on August 9th. The conditional is necessary, because at the moment it is impossible to verify. It could even be a great publicity stunt. The Moldovan writer and tattoo artist, in the video, said that he had been searched and his Italian passport had been revoked: “They have opened criminal proceedings against me, they have declared me a secret agent of Putin’s Kremlin”, he stated in the video.

Lilin always bowed to Putin

Beyond the still alleged accusation of being a “secret agent”, certainly his interventions over the last 10 years have translated into de facto support, willingly or not, for Putin and his imperialism. We do not forget that, 10 years ago, in the small Ceriano Laghetto, together with the Northern League mayor Dante Cattaneo, Lilin participated in the ceremony to name a square after the “Martyrs of Odessa”, where it was intentionally not clear whether they were referring to the massacre of Jews during the Second World War or to the deaths in 2014 in the Palazzo dei Sindacati (or both), but certainly together with Lilin and Cattaneo there were the flags of the so-called Donetsk Republic, the rogue and puppet state created by Russian citizens in Donbas, thanks to Russian weapons and Russian military. The beginning of the invasion that no one, or almost no one, wanted to see.

Then, since 24/2/2022, Lilin has been invited on TV several times: in a shrewd way, using moderate and almost critical language towards Putin and the war, he often repeated that it is necessary to “understand the Russians” to understand the reasons behind the military aggression (of course, one might say: it is necessary to understand the imperialism underlying the Dugin-Putin doctrine, the fascism of the Russian state and so on, and deal with this real danger for Europe).

Santoro’s List and the “Ukronazis”

At the same time, however, Lilin on his social channels defined the villages conquered by the Russians as “liberated” and spoke out against the “Ukronazis”. A few months ago he ran for the European elections on Santoro’s “pacifist” list (bringing “as many” as 2,300 votes), demonstrating that “pacifist” speeches imply Ukrainian surrender, not peace. And to think that, in 2021, Europa Verde was about to nominate him for the municipal elections in Milan, complete with a festive welcome from the then national spokesperson of EV Eleonora Evi (now a member of the Democratic Party). The thing did not materialize only because the radical left-wing mayoral candidate, Gabriele Mariani, opponent of EV and Beppe Sala’s coalition, denounced everything with a courageous and suggestive statement starting from the title: “Green Eurasia?”, Mariani asked, recalling that Lilin had the ideas he had and participated in public meetings with the Italian far right, Dughinian and Putinian.

We do not know at the moment where Lilin really is, nor if the Milan prosecutor’s office is really investigating him. We do know, however, that Russian disinformation is a structured and scientific operation against all of us and against the stability of our democracies: defending ourselves is a duty. Exposing propaganda lies is the way to do it. Lilin has certainly spread disinformation about Ukraine and the war since 2014. He is not one of the people to trust to understand Russia, nor Ukraine, nor the war. But, ultimately, it is of little importance to know whether he is really under investigation. The main point is not this or that person, but the mechanism of disinformation: understanding it to dismantle it, this is really important.