Satya Das (Sergey Yakovlev) is a philosopher, popular lecturer, family relationship consultant, traveler, and author of books on psychology. Born in 1975 in Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro), Ukraine. He has lived in Russia since 1993 and holds Russian citizenship.
Satya Das's stance on the war in Ukraine
Family psychologist Satya has avoided speaking out directly about the Russo-Ukrainian war, despite his Ukrainian origins and his past popularity among Ukrainian audiences.
In March 2022, a video emerged online in which Yakovlev discusses his attitude toward Vladimir Putin. With his typical sarcasm, he offers an overt justification of dictatorship, placing personal financial gain above democracy and asserting that the common people are unfit to determine their own destiny:
I respect Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, our president. Life is very good for me under Putin, I honestly don't even know what to do about it. I lived under Brezhnev and it was sh**ty, and then came Chernenko and Andropov, they died and left nothing good behind. Then came Yeltsin, and I was almost imprisoned, almost shot... And then he croaked... Then along came the bloody KGB agent Putin — and my life came together... And I'm doing fine... But I have never voted for anyone, and do you know why? I have a serious stance, I'll reveal my political credo: I believe our country can only be governed by a man who cannot depend on such a banality as voting. If strange, sick, idiotic, insane, uneducated, brainless, unhinged people — who make up the majority — can vote, then I am against having my good life depend on strange people. That's why I don't go; I know that if a person is powerful, strong, and capable of governing a large country, he will arrange to be in power somehow, and if he can't, then to hell with him...
In April 2022, during an interview with Ksenia Sobchak, he compared the war to a domestic quarrel between "mom and dad". To him, "mom" is Ukraine, and she herself is to blame for the war starting.
Advice to wives of "SMO" participants: sympathy for the aggressor, not the victim
According to Gazeta RB, in April 2024, during a speaking event in Ulan-Ude, a local woman asked him a question regarding relationships during the so-called SMO, to which he replied:
Miss him and talk about it... And most importantly, wait. There are statistics confirming that soldiers whose wives and children are waiting for them at home have significantly higher chances of returning alive. A woman gives meaning to a man's life; she instills the thought that he is needed, valued, and important
During one of his lecture sessions, wearing a T-shirt that read "God is with us", Satya answered the question "How should one react if a man decides to go fight in the SMO?":
Well logically, you don't want him to go, but he has to go. A man may have his own motives for leaving. It's important not to escalate the drama, as this is his decision... Surely he has some motives, he wants to earn money. Well, what can you do.
In June 2025, he gave an interview to pro-Kremlin propagandist Luka Yabko, discussing what wives of SMO participants and the soldiers themselves should do if their spouses do not wait for them, as well as psychological rehabilitation for combatants suffering from PTSD:
He is not there; he is fulfilling his duty somewhere, somehow. He is separated from you, well, that's how the world works... If you want to wait, wait; if you don't, don't — that is your decision. It's up to you to decide. Who will judge you? .. But I'm not calling on anyone to abandon anyone; that's not what I'm saying. It's your choice: how you were raised, what your moral norms are, what films and books you were raised on
In his public appearances, Satya Das normalizes participation in the so-called "SMO", providing psychological justifications for the actions of Russian military personnel and their families. He is not merely a psychologist, but an individual who, under the guise of an "apolitical sage", actively rationalizes the war and reinforces Russian state propaganda narratives.
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