Economist Oleh Soskin was once an adviser to two presidents and dreamed of Ukraine joining the EU. And now he is a favorite expert of Russian propaganda and says that Zelensky “carries the factor of death”

Oleh Soskin is an economist, politician and former adviser to Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Leonid Kravchuk. Since the 2000s, he has frequently commented on TV channels, newspapers and online media — and even then he made false predictions and spread crazy conspiracy theories. For example, he said that Kyiv is actually ruled by "Armenian-Caucasian enclaves", and predicted that in February 2009, the "mafia-clan-oligarchic system" would collapse, which would stop almost all industry. Soskin was always a "generalist" — he commented on any scandals and popular events. With the beginning of a full-scale invasion, he "mastered" new topics. Now Oleh Soskin makes military forecasts, tells who is really behind world events, advises the government on how to manage the country, and advises the military on which cities to liberate. On his YouTube channels "Oleh Soskin" and "SoskinNews USA, Europe, World", he publishes 5 to 6 videos every day, but they do not get many views — on average, from 20 to 50 thousand. In 2022, Soskin was regularly invited to the broadcasts of the News Factory and UNIAN, but in 2023 they stopped. It still gets hundreds of thousands of views on various blogs and news channels like Politeca, UKRLIFE.TV and Aleksandr SHELEST. The presenters call Soskin the "father of Ukrainian democracy", although in fact he is the source of numerous manipulative news in the Russian propaganda media. According to InfoLight.UA research, Oleh Soskin is the most quoted Ukrainian figure on Russian websites. Babel journalist Sofiia Korotunenko watched dozens of speeches and interviews of Oleh Soskin and tells who he is and what he says for the views.

Who is Oleh Soskin?

Oleh Soskin is 70 years old. His biography is known mainly from his website. According to Soskin, in 1980 he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Economics of Taras Shevchenko KNU. He completed postgraduate studies there and taught economics since 1983. Subsequently, he became an associate professor of the Department of International Relations at the Higher Party School.

Since 1975, Soskin was a member of the Communist Party, from which he left in August 1991. In 1992-1993, he worked as a senior consultant to the then President Leonid Kravchuk and an adviser to Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma. This is confirmed by another adviser to Kuchma Taras Stetskiv, in an interview with the Khvylia publication. As Soskin himself says, he resigned because he did not agree with the fact that the government was "building state-monopolistic clan capitalism."

In 1994, he founded the analytical center "Institute for the Transformation of Society", where he conducted economic and political research and published it in the Economic Magazine-XXI, which was published together with the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 1998, Oleh Soskin launched the project "My choice is NATO" — a site and forum where you could find various information about the North Atlantic Alliance, as well as arguments why Ukraine should join it.

In 1995, Soskin became the head of the Liberal Party of Ukraine, but a year later he left, in his own words, because of "the cosmopolitan course that was imposed on him." In April 1996, he headed the Ukrainian National Conservative Party. From 1998 to 2000, he was an adviser to President Leonid Kuchma on economic issues.

In 2003, Soskin founded the website Soskin.info with the slogan "God, Nation, State!" [“Boh, Natsia, Derzhava!”]. Its administrators published Soskinʼs analytical materials and news from various cities of Ukraine. In 2021, the siteʼs domain was bought by the “Parimatch” betting company.

Soskin calls himself not only a "political and economic expert", but also "the best expert in the entire Soviet and European space on issues of evolutionary development and its processes." He reinforces his credibility with an internship "for Ukrainian managers at the US Economic Institute in Colorado." We did not find an institute with that name, probably Soskin meant another educational institution. He also says that in 1994 he underwent "scientific and practical training under the program for Ukrainian parliamentarians and persons of the highest level of influence." Whether such training actually existed is difficult to confirm.

As Soskin writes, he is also the author of "more than 350 scientific articles and chapters in monographs," which are used in their work by "legislative and executive authorities of all levels."

Oleh Soskin in the media

In the late 2000s, Oleh Soskin became a well-known economic and political expert — he was called upon by popular media such as Zaxid.net, Day [“Den”] newspaper, Deutsche Welle, Obozrevatel, Gordonʼs Boulevard, and Censor.Net. During the Revolution of Dignity, Soskin actively commented on events, went on the air, for example, on Hromadske.

He criticized the government, opposed oligarchs and any cooperation with Russia, with whom he predicted war. At that time, Soskin defended the idea of European integration of Ukraine and the visa-free regime with the EU. But later he began to drift in another direction.

In 2014, Soskin named the acting head of the President Oleksandr Turchynov as a dictator and "an accomplice of the Yanukovych regime, which covers the departure of bandits." He also accused him of working for the Russian special services. In the same year, Radio Svoboda [“Radio Liberty”] wrote that Soskin "outrageously comments on all possible events in the country", and videos with him are gaining considerable popularity in social networks.

Soskin does not like Ukrainian presidents at all and has a nickname for each of them. For example, he calls Kravchuk a "communist burp", Kuchma — a "thief", Yushchenko — a "blatant liar", Yanukovych — "mentally ill", Poroshenko — a "shapeshifter-traitor", and Zelensky — a "black joker".

In 2017, he said that the explosion in the center of Kyiv was staged by criminal gangs led by Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko — a "racketeer who wants to take over Volodymyrska Street." In 2020, Soskin said that there is an international group promoting LGBT in Ukraine. According to him, it is managed by the "Servant of the People" party, but "this line was also pro-Poroshenko."

"I think the Ministry of Culture has a lobby that made it possible to create such an ʼOverton windowʼ in Ukraine," Soskin explained.

Soskin about the revolution

Soskin has long and regularly predicted revolutions, uprisings and "collapses of the system." According to his forecasts, in February 2009, the entire industry was to finally stop, and in May 2011, a popular uprising was to begin. He then explained that "Ukraine is pregnant with an rebellion," and if it does not happen, "a new period of Ruin awaits the Ukrainian people." When the revolution did not happen in 2011, Soskin explained that the "big explosion" would definitely happen, but it was accumulating in Ukraine slowly.

When the Maidan protests began in 2014, Soskin said his prediction had come true. But since then he has not been so lucky. After a full-scale invasion, Soskin predicts a revolution every six months. In the summer of 2023, he still did not name the exact dates — he only said that the revolution would begin "soon" due to the failure of joining NATO. In the fall of 2023, he expected that the rebellion against Zelensky would take place in the winter of 2024. At the end of February, Soskin moved the "anarchic revolution" to April-May. In July 2024, he said that on August 1, 2024, default would begin and Ukraine would be governed by "London and Paris groups". We didnʼt have to wait long.

Soskin about the war

Soskin predictably knows when the war will end and makes war predictions. In 2014, he said that the war would last 10 years. In 2022, he clarified the forecast: from 2014 to 2024 there should have been "the first stage of the war", but he was "slightly mistaken" — the second stage — a full-scale invasion — began a little earlier. Like the previous phase, the invasion will continue for at least another ten years — until the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) reaches Moscow.

After the de-occupation of Kherson, Soskin predicted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would easily liberate the left bank of the Kherson region "within a week" and "break into Crimea" by the end of November. In July 2023, he said that "a ring of fire is closing" around Bakhmut and "in 2 or 3 days all ʼMoscowiansʼ will die in it." Soskin said that there was "a lot of mysticism and some kind of wave was" in the city. Subsequently, he did not explain why the deoccupation did not happen.

In 2024, Soskin stopped predicting the success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — now everything is the other way around. In June and July 2024, his video contains many panicky predictions of the quick defeat of Ukraine. Soskin claims that Oleksandr Syrskyi is "recede from the cities" as the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

He also comments on the state of the power system and promises a total blackout — in winter there will be "no electricity, no heat, no gas," because "all thermal power plants (TPPs) and nuclear plants will be completely broken and cut off from high-voltage systems."

Soskin about Zelensky

In a long interview with the Lviv publication Leopolis, Soskin said that Zelensky is allegedly controlled by a "Kremlin syndicate." Previously, it included "the families of Yeltsin and Gorbachev ", " international lowballers serving mammon ", "a military group of generals with Vladimir Putin" and "the KGB-FSB in various formats and guises". And according to Soskin, the general director of this entire syndicate was the last head of the State Security Committee of the Ukrainian SSR Mykola Halushko.

According to the "expert", after February 24, 2022, the syndicate changed a lot — Yeltsinʼs "family" was thrown out of the group, and Gorbachev died, and therefore his "family" fell apart.

Soskin says that "the bets of Putin and the military group" have fallen because he was unable to take over Ukraine — other groups now have more influence in the syndicate. That is why Putin agreed to the "grain corridors" — he was allegedly pressured by the President of Turkey Recep Erdogan, who is part of the "group of international lowballers" and may be an agent of the KGB.

However, Soskin has not finally decided who exactly manages Zelensky. According to another of his versions, the president is Kolomoiskyiʼs project, which he created "to destroy Ukraine and millions of Ukrainians."

But now the president is controlled by the Americans — "the overlords want slaughter" and send Zelensky to exterminate all Ukrainians. For what? To take all minerals from Ukrainian lands.

"There is no need to buy land from anyone anymore. There is a cemetery there anyway. There is no one there," Soskin explains.

Soskin considers Zelensky a dictator and spreads theses of Russian propaganda. According to him, the president is building a "communist-fascist Hitler-Stalin camp" and restricting freedom of speech in the country. And this is all in the era of the "7th technical-cosmic order".

In one of the videos, Soskin says that Zelensky is committing ethnocide and destroying Ukrainian families because he forbade men from going abroad. He is doing this at the behest of the West: there "they are afraid of the arrival of Ukrainian men", because then foreigners will no longer be able to take children from Ukrainian women and sell them for organs or sexual slavery. Paradoxically, at the end of the same speech, Soskin advises Ukrainian women to go abroad to escape from Zelensky.

In addition, according to Soskin, Zelensky is an illegitimate president who is not accepted by other politicians. He illegally introduced martial law because "he did not hold a single referendum." In addition, according to Soskin, Zelensky carries the "death factor" — he "attracts" missiles to all the cities he visits and also to Kryvyi Rih, where he comes from.

But there is no need to worry, says Soskin — by 2032, the military will depose him. And the "collapse phase" of the Zelensky regime will begin in July 2024. As says Soskin, "anarchic enclaves" in Transcarpathia are already forming that will resist mobilization. That is why Zelensky ordered the arrest of the mayor of Mukachevo Andrii Baloha to suppress these groups.

Soskin about Biden and Putin

Soskin also comments on international politics. For example, he says that US President Joe Biden supports the war with Russia and uses Ukraine as a battering ram for the war. And his main opponent Donald Trump has actually developed "the perfect plan to end the slaughter", but no one is listening to him.

He also believes that now Putin has a "black card" in his life — a difficult period. Soskin advises him to "give up about Ukraine" and move to the "Fat West".

"He has to destroy European rotten royal houses — Illuminati freemasonry," says the expert.

Soskin in Russian propaganda

Almost every video of Soskin is quoted by the Russian propaganda media. According to the research of the analytical group InfoLight.UA, Oleh Soskin topped the rating of Ukrainian figures cited by Russians. Phrases from his video are put in the headlines, and Soskin himself is called "ex-adviser of the president", "Ukrainian political scientist" and "Kuchmaʼs adviser".

There are typical headlines like: "Former adviser to Kuchma Soskin: there was a coup dʼétat in Ukraine", "Ex-adviser of Kuchma Soskin: Ukraine will never get back the borders of 1991", "Ex-adviser of Kuchma believes that Zelensky should have listened to Putin".

Fikret Shabanov against Oleh Soskin

Fikret Shabanov sharply criticizes Oleh Soskinʼs analysis. Babel has already written about him — Shabanov pretends to be a Canadian political expert, but in reality he is retelling conspiracy theories. Despite the similar statements and the similarity of the conspiracy theories they spread, the "experts" do not like each other.

Shabanov says, "Oleh Soskin is a fascist and a Nazi prone to Islamophobia," and calls him "a freak of nature with a suggestive last name." On March 23, 2024, Shabanov informed that he would refuse all channels on which Soskin appears. Since then, he has not given an interview, for example, to the "Oleksandr SHELEST" blog.

Babel wrote to Oleh Soskin on Facebook and in the comments under the post on his Telegram channel to learn more about his statements. Soskin has not yet responded to the request.

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