Addendum-

Look, brilliant, even accurate about some aspects of events and prognostication, people can AND OFTEN DO lose the thread when they get too deep into the rabbithole. Often accompanied by an absolute certainty in their beliefs.

My father was one. He researched and wrote on RFK and expanded from that; excellent, well documented, and expose level work.

Then... then he lost the thread.

First was the belief he could somehow flee being known or tracked by his govt and agencies by... living in smaller communities outside larger metro areas, not having a direct mailing address, and communicating mostly through third parties and... using his landline telephone. While, apparently, also getting full VA care, disability benefits, and State aid in housing and food.

Do I really need to explain how illogical and useless in disappearing from the govt such a life is? No.

This was actually prefaced by his absolute certainty in the following: He was convinced convinced that Japan was the place to not just survive fpr generations, but the example of perfect economic and social survival in the near and long future.

This was just simple delusions, imo at the time, and predictable events since has very much proven that to be so.

Orlov appears to have come to some strong and accurate future conclusions about the US as well as some not so correct quite some time back, but has then applied the USSR collapse against it as if a parallel match.

This is illogical when the active interference of the US and Germany in the rapid collapse and the collusion of primarily just one subset in Russian society in seizing govt resources and industry for themselves came before the Russian Mafia even manifested... a mafia strongly of a separate group in society itself.

But his perceptions are clearly colored by his own internal views rather than acknowledging the real players involved, and appears to have not addressed events in Russia post 1999 defanging them in stages.

Returning to Russia with his wife in later midlife, via a bizarre sailboat capsule escape journey akin to my father's whack Japan goal for his descendents, is both showing commitment to abandoning the US sphere of influence and counter to believing this claim in the title here.

Is he controlled opposition? Probably not.

Is this propaganda? Maybe. Perhaps he is just losing the thread further though.

Is he liberashka without the pro West obsession? Very likely he is. Which makes his internal conflict between agreeing with Putin on things like Ukr and that clashing with his internal values formed growing up and living in the US intelligentsia communities particularly difficult.

Is he a typical disassociated due to fears intellectual now living in a remote location after returning to his former homeland? Yep.

Can he still write well, persuasively, and with conviction? Yes. Which makes it all the more imperative that readers and sharers of his writings stay alert to the illogic underlying some key statements and building blocks embedded.