Politics lembit opik Ukraine

Lembit Öpik’s unlikeliest of takes on Putin and the Ukraine War had everyone asking: ‘How the hell did he end up here?’

Poke Reporter. Updated March 7th, 2025

The memory can play tricks on you, of course, but we remember Lembit Öpik back in the day – way back in the day – as being a mostly decent kinda chap, albeit one who was also something of a figure of fun. A bit of a cheeky boy, you might say.

What we didn’t have him down as was someone who would share this take on Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine war today.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Oval Office ambush by Donald Trump and JD Vance resulted in a rarity on social media this past week, where just about everyone, regardless of their political persuasion, has been backing Zelensky and Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Opik? Less so, it turns out.

Note for younger readers – Lembit Öpik used to be a Lib Dem MP.

And here’s precisely what many people – not everyone, just quite a lot – made of that.

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Turns out the clues were there (and here’s just one of them).

This person had a question …

… and just in the interests of balance and all that, here’s how the former Lib Dem MP replied.

And in response to Ricard Bacon’s question with which we started all this, Öpik said this.

You can read a little bit more about his journey here. Guess a spot on Strictly is out of the question?

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Source @lembitopik