What did Lira start with?
Gonzalo Lira
In 1995, Lira graduated from Dartmouth College
Gonzalo Lira in 2007.
In 2010, he unexpectedly became a popular economic columnist in several thematic blogs
In the same year 2010, Lira founded the company Strategic Planning Group, which did not have a physical office, only a website. The company offered paid economic forecasts about future crises in the markets and how to make money from them. The site has been inactive since 2016 — and since then it has been offering porn in Japanese rather than economic analytics.
The career of a pickup coach
In 2017, Lira again changed the field of activity. He started a menʼs blog and rebranded as a seduction coach under the moniker Coach Red Pill
Lira positioned himself as an experienced man with a lot of sexual experience, which he was ready to share with young people. He regularly filmed video lectures and conducted online seminars where he gave dating and relationship advice. Lira has monetized his popularity—as recently as two years ago, he had 3,200 Patreon followers
Liraʼs lectures are a mixture of stereotypes and hatred towards women, particularly regarding their age and appearance. He claimed that young women have no principles, and men, on the contrary, "evolved to be faithful." Lira coined the concept of the "unregulated sex market," which explains how relationships between the sexes are arranged. According to him, a man can "have fun" with a woman who likes him, but is also free to "choose another" if she is better. A woman has no such right. And he spoke hatefully about women older than 35 or those who are overweight.
"This is biology. Women age badly. Men are like wine," explained the seduction coach.
Gonzalo Lira in 2022.
How Lira became an "expert on Ukraine"
He came to Kharkiv back in 2012
"Women in Ukraine want to find a husband to start a family. Therefore, it is reasonable to learn Russian and come to Ukraine or Belarus. Itʼs terribly cheap here," said Lira. He got married in Kharkiv and stayed there to live.
In November 2021, Lira deleted almost all of his relationship advice videos and began appearing more and more often under his real name rather than a pseudonym. At that time, the Western media wrote a lot about the preparation of the Russian invasion. Lira denied these reports on Twitter and Telegram. Later, he changed his mind and claimed that Russia would capture the left bank of Ukraine in two weeks, and that "Donetsk and Luhansk rebels"
Post in Liraʼs Telegram channel on November 21, 2021. In it, he claims that there is no build-up of Russian troops near the Ukrainian borders. At the same time, Lira believes that under this pretext the USA will place NATO bases in Ukraine and then the Russians will preemptively invade Ukraine.
The Daily Beast wrote that there is nothing surprising in Liraʼs transition from a blogger in the "menʼs community" to a far-right and pro-Russian speaker. In his videos, he regularly interspersed anti-Western and anti-globalist rhetoric, as well as conspiracy theories about biological weapons or vaccination
What did Lyra do after the invasion
He said that on February 23 he came to Kyiv "on business". The next day, he began to regularly publish videos about the war from the five-star Premier Palace hotel in Kyiv. In them, Lira repeated almost all the fakes of Russian propaganda. In the first days of the war, he published maps of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation — on them, Russia controlled almost half of Ukraine. He assured that the Russians do not hit civilians and this is "obvious".
In March 2022, Lira returned to Kharkiv, from where he continued to write blogs. All of them were of the same type — the blogger criticized the "Zelensky regime", claimed that Ukraine is ruled by neo-Nazis and neo-fascists, who shelled Donbas and killed 16,000 people
"The Armed Forces used civilians as human shields in many places, especially in Mariupol. The armed forces fired at the city residents who tried to escape from their clutches. The ZSU tortured and killed prisoners of war, journalists and Ukrainian politicians. There is no evidence that the Russian army did any of this," Lira wrote.
His video was repeatedly used by the Russian mass media, and he gave interviews to them. In an interview with "Izvestia"
For what and when he was imprisoned
The SBU detained Lira in Kharkiv on May 1, 2023
Lira in July 2023, when he was detained by the SBU.
Since then, Lira rarely appears on the air. In his last video from August 1, he said that he spent more than two months behind bars, and in July he was released on bail — he was released under house arrest. In order not to go to prison, at the end of July, Lira decided to flee Kharkiv and go abroad. He tried to get to Hungary on a motorcycle and ask for political asylum there. He was detained at the border in Zakarpattia Oblast and forcibly transported to Kharkiv.
Lira appealed to freedom of speech, which allegedly gave him the right to record such videos. He also complained that law enforcement officers took $70,000 from him, and other prisoners beat him in the pretrial detention center on their instructions. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova defended Lira. She stated that Lira covered the atrocities of the Nazis without a bill and for this they repressed him.
Now Gonzalo Lira is in custody in the Kharkiv detention center, the SBU says. The pre-trial investigation in his case has already been completed. The court will consider the case on December 12 and 21.
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