Olaf Koens cannot believe that Derk Sauer’s son was in Eva Jinek’s talk show last Friday to express his disgust about the Ukraine war. “He worked for a dictator.”
Derk Sauer started building a media empire in Russia thirty years ago, but has now fled to the Netherlands, just like his sons Tom and Pjotr. Here the Sauer family is continuously in the picture to talk about the Russian aggression. For example, Tom Sauer was in Eva Jinek’s talk show last Friday.
Olaf Koens critical
After Eva switched live with RTL Nieuws correspondent Olaf Koens, an interview with Tom was on the menu. Astonishing, Olaf thinks. He tweeted today: “Last week at Jinek. To my surprise in the studio Tom Sauer, who was allowed to tell how bad it is for all Ukrainians.”
A hypocritical act, Olaf believes. “Maybe he should transfer all the money he got from Ramzan Kadyrov (yes, that one) to Giro 555 before joining a talk show.”
Brutal dictator
Who is Ramzan Kadyrov? “Ramzan Kadyrov is the brutal dictator of Chechnya, who is now slaughtering Ukrainian civilians with thousands of soldiers. Tom Sauer (right here) (see photo below, ed.) worked for Kadyrov as an interpreter with – yes – Ruud Gullit in Chechnya in 2011.”
He continues: “I have a good indication of how much blood money Sauer, Gullit and others have managed to get out of this. Curious if they buy it off, or if they also sleep well with a bad conscience.”
hypocritical
Former Russia correspondent Pieter Waterdrinker responds: “The entire in-crowd knows, the entire in-crowd is silent. For twenty years the hypocritical Sauers dealt with, did business with, attended birthdays of, sat on private jets with now sanctioned Russian Putin oligarchs. And yes, my son took money from murderer Kadyrov.”
Arjen Erkel, the former Doctors Without Borders collaborator who rose to fame in 2002 when he was kidnapped in Dagestan, says: “One of the most hypocritical families. Have been doing business for years with almost everyone who is now on the sanctions list. Pockets well filled by good entrepreneurship that is. Now the crocodile tears.”
Eve under fire
Olaf’s tweet also leads to criticism of Jinek. For example, journalist Zamire Willems says: “Shocking. Is there really not a single editorial team that works journalism and checks guests? You can’t know everything, but you can expect journalists trained to look beyond ‘the son of’ (which there is also a lot to say).”
And the well-known twitterer Mies cynically: “The Sauer family. The benefactors. Celebrated talk show guests.”
thread
Olaf’s Twitter thread: