Gleb Kuznetsov: “The Russian propaganda system works brilliantly”

“Do you know where the city of Portalegre is in Portugal? That’s right, you don’t know. And no one needs to know this. In the middle of nowhere this city exists.

So, next to Portalegre there is a farm. Quinta in Portuguese. Her owner is a Dutch downshifter with her husband, a Dutch lover of healthy lifestyle, a vegan and a Tibetan massage therapist. They are 60 years old. Good people. They bought the ruins for next to nothing, hired Ukrainians to repair them and build plywood houses. And now they trade in “village tourism”. “Whoever lacks peace and tranquility, come to our forests.”

The difficult fate of an international journalist brought me there to spend the night. And a Dutch woman, treating my wife and I to breakfast, reports: “They say in Europe that Putin is bad. And how bad is he? He is doing a good job in Syria.”