ON COMPLETING a year in the European Parliament, MEP and TikToker Fidias Panayiotou appears to have gained promotion from the role of entertaining village idiot to that of tedious useful idiot, happily acting as a mouthpiece of Kremlin propaganda in Brussels.

Fidias visited Moscow with a few other useful idiots from the European Parliament during the celebrations of Russia’s Victory Day, although he insisted he had not been at the military parade, drawing the censure of several politicians including Greece’s health minister.

While in Moscow he posted a video, advertising his useful idiocy by criticising the EU for sending money and weapons to Ukraine, instead of seeking an end to the war through diplomacy. His visit, he claimed, was about peace talks rather than prolonging the conflict.

Considering President Trump could not persuade Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine and peace talks what chances was there that a simpleton like Fidias would do so. Why had he not camped outside Putin’s palace (as he had done when he was seeking a meeting with Elon Musk) for days, until the dictator agreed to see him?

“We want to start some kind of diplomacy to end this war and because the European Union doesn’t do it…” Since the deluded Fidias started his diplomacy, Russia has intensified its aggression against Ukraine, which must be the fault of the EU.

PUTIN’S propagandist could not even bring himself to vote in favour of the European Parliament resolution calling for the return of 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted by the Russian troops. He was one of three MEPs that refused to support the resolution.

When he was challenged about his stance, in an interview with journalist Caolan Robertson, he said the abducted children might want to stay in Russia. “How do you know that some children aren’t happy there?” he asked the interviewer, before also asking, “How do you know that out of these 20,000 children all of them want to return?”

Some of the kids who were taken from their homes and moved to Russia, far away from family and friends might be enjoying life as hostages in a foreign country, according to Putin’s mouthpiece at the EU.

This is just a small token of the Kremlin propaganda Fidias repeats on a systematic basis. His propaganda is so crude, and blatant his Moscow advisors could decide that he is too stupid to be a reliable useful idiot.

THE ARRESTS of people for usurping Greek Cypriot properties in the north and developing them has become the driving force of the Cyprob deadlock efforts.

Ersin Tatar has described the arrests as “terrorism” and said that he would not meet Prezniktwo in this climate. “These terrorist activities must stop now,” he said after Monday’s meeting with the UNSG’s personal envoy Maria Angela Holguin, who was back in Kyproulla last week, after a year’s absence, to resume talks that lead nowhere.

Meanwhile our guys seemed very pleased with Tatar’s reaction, as the Prez is not too keen on a meeting with Tatar, because he enjoys the patriotic tough guy image he has acquired by pissing off Tatar. It also endears him to Elam which he has been courting so blatantly, that one of Diko’s head honchos – nerdy deputy Chrysis Pantelides – complained about it in an interview with Kathimerini last weekend.

And he seized the opportunity to market the rule of law in the Republic. He told everyone who brought up the issue that “we do not interfere in the justice.” Those “who commit crimes are prosecuted.”

THIS WAS not entirely accurate and its timing was rather unfortunate, considering that in the week he was making these high-sounding assertions, we were also hearing how the authorities were refusing to prosecute football club directors who committed crimes, like not paying their tax and social insurance debts, because society did not want them to do this.

The head of the tax department, Sotiris Markides told the House finance committee on Monday, that if the authorities imposed the tax laws, the clubs not paying their debts would have been closed, memos would have been placed on their assets and their bank accounts frozen. And, I suspect their directors would also have been prosecuted as they had committed a crime.

And while four football clubs have been taking the authorities for a ride, not even making the minimum payments the state had demanded (they paid about half after missing a couple of deadlines) the rule of law was suspended for them indefinitely, according to a finance ministry decision. The taxpayer will repay their debts as reward for failing to honour the repayment schemes they had agreed with the state.

THE GOVERNMENT was oblivious to the double standards it embraced. Even on Saturday, Mini Me was declaring the government’s commitment to rule of law when he was asked on a radio show about the arrests of those usurping Greek Cypriot properties in the north.

“The Cyprus Republic always acts within the framework of the rule of law. It does not link the protection of human rights with any political motives and we have said many times that the executive authority cannot and does not interfere in justice.”

He had not heard the discussion at the House committee, a couple of days earlier, on how Blue Ocean, the Roman Abramovich Cyprus-based company administering the oligarch’s super-yachts, was dissolved without paying a cent of the €14 million it owed in VAT. Nobody was prosecuted for this crime and the company made no payment even after it lost two court cases (2018 and 2024), and was ordered to pay. Someone was interfering in justice – although this never happens in Kyproulla – to ingratiate himself to Abramovich.

I hear a politician, who had nothing to do with the case, has been calling TV stations urging them not to cover this matter on their news show.   

APART from having Tatar’s incessant moaning to deal with Holguin, reportedly, also angered, Syriza MEP, Nikolas Farantouris, who was outraged after hearing her “referring to the President of the Cyprus Republic Mr Christodoulides as ‘president of the Greek Cypriots’, equating him with the ‘president of the Turkish Cypriots’ Tatar.”

He tweeted his outrage on ‘X’ claiming the “Turkish delegation and Turkish mass media are celebrating.” He demanded “an immediate reaction of the Greek (delegation).” What she said, and Phil described as ‘Holguin’s gaffe’ was even worse than what Farantouris reported. She had referred to our man as “leader of the Greek Cyprus.”

Meanwhile, her statement of boring platitudes about the Cyprob she issued on Saturday infuriated the presenter of a CyBC radio show, who could not believe that she spoke about “building genuine trust.” Did she not know that the Cyprob is an “issue of invasion and occupation” he asked.

PREZNIKTWO was the guest of honour at the launch of the latest book written by the supreme ruler of the Dias media group, the nationalist with a supersized ego, Costis Zeus Hadjicostis.

His book has the inspired title ‘Wake up Greeks: your judges the dead and the unborn – 88 loud wake-up bells.” Someone tweeted the video showing the great man giving the boy president a lesson on what he should do about the Cyprob, madly gesticulating and waving his finger at him. Will not go into his sermon but I have to mention his punch-line.

“Mr Prez you are very likeable to me because I know you do not have the support of the Greek government.” This is not what the prez has been telling us, so one of the two must be lying.

I READ that a Swiss couple were honoured as ‘tourism ambassadors’ of Paralimni-Dherynia by Mayor Giorgos Nikolettos at a ceremony at the municipality. This was in recognition for their loyalty to the area which the couple had visited every year for the last four decades. If I were the mayor I would also pay for them to get some professional help, because visiting Paralimni is more torture than pleasure.