Douglas Macgregor is a paid employee/contractor for RT News, a news agency wholly owned by the Ruzzian government.
I understand he accepts no money from RT, and instead simply wants to get the truth out.
I don’t know what Putin is thinking. Neither does anyone else other than himself. Mindreading articles about Putin are pretty common, usually from the UK.
The wiki for MacGregor says he is a West Point graduate. The US service academies are harder to qualify than Ivy League. Not many know that. He also has a PhD in International Relations from Univ of Virginia. That’s not a diploma mill.
It also says he appeared on RT and FoxNews. I suspect he is not a paid employee of either. Appearing need not even be paid.
So, he’s not stupid.