(NewsNation) — “I believe (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is deliberately ratcheting up his game. If anybody thinks he’s crazy, he’s crazy like a fox.”

Jack Barsky, a former KGB agent who later became a resource for U.S. counterintelligence agencies, told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas that despite Putin’s seemingly chaotic moves of the last few years, the head of state knows exactly what he’s doing.

“If you had the opportunity to watch the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin. He (Putin) was clearly in total command of his brain,” said Barsky. “He manipulated, so willing, and that’s what he does. He’s the greatest manipulator in modern history, I believe.”

Barsky didn’t have to dig too deeply into American history to find an example.

On Thursday, a former FBI informant accused of lying about bribery allegations against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter and purportedly having links to Russian intelligence was again taken into custody.

Prosecutors say Alexander Smirnov falsely told his handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.

“I guarantee you (Putin) loves this because ultimately what he’s after here is not necessarily all the intelligence but the fact that Americans are getting scared,” Barsky said.

He said nearly everything Putin does is meant to be interpreted one way or another in Moscow or the rest of the world.

“This is all meant to communicate that he is in charge to the rest of the world, and then, he is a danger to reckoned with,” said Barsky. “It’s also to give the message to the folks at home: the ones that support him and the ones that don’t support him. He’s still clearly in the saddle.”