THE OPERATOR.

Soon after Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, Leshchenko held a press conference in Kyiv. Three days before the invasion, Andriy Yermak, Zelensky's chief of staff, had unexpectedly called Leshchenko to ask him to join the government's Disinformation Prevention Center, an agency focused on combatting Russian propaganda. Two nights before our Thai dinner, Leshchenko and Ptushkin had driven east to deliver a caravan of Toyota trucks. Through his partnership with Brian Keith Etheridge, Leshchenko arranged for Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher to join a videoconference with Zelensky, though he failed in his campaign to get the president a virtual cameo at the Academy Awards. [Extracted from the article]