Beyond the numbers, Lyubovny’s VLAD TV has cultural cachet — its name has been dropped by 2 Chainz (the song “VLAD TV” appears on his latest album, “Dope Don’t Sell Itself”); on Lil Durk’s “Golden Child” (he raps, “I don’t fuck with Vlad”); and Pusha T is said to reference VLAD on his forthcoming project. But it’s his news-making interviews that have drawn the most exposure. For instance, comedian D.L. Hughley ’ s most recent VLAD TV interview, which prompted Kanye West to post on Instagram: “D.L. Hughley is a pawn, but I address everything and find addresses, D.L. So, don’t speak on me or my children. I can afford to hurt you.” With VLAD TV, Lyubovny has earned the respect of musicians and public figures, but he’s also invited criticism. “The bigger you get, the bigger the hate,” he says. Variety spoke with Lyubovny (pictured below) at the THC Design facility in Los Angeles. Tell us about your youth in the Ukraine. I was a little kid at the time. We were a Jewish family living in the U.S.S.R., which was antisemitic. Even though I was too young to remember, my parents would tell me how they couldn’t get into certain universities or get certain jobs. Society as a whole didn’t really like Jewish people. I was about four years old at the time, and my parents felt I’d have more of a future in the United States than in Russia. Now when you look at what’s happening — literally I was born in Kiev, which is the capital of the Ukraine and where they’re all bombing. There’s a reasonable chance that I’d be in Kiev right now, had my parents not moved away, and that I’d be caught in that. I’m even probably military age right now. I could be in a war had my family not made certain decisions, it’s weird when you think about it. What are your thoughts on the war? It’s fucked up. Because when I was born, Ukraine was part of Russia. Then it became independent, and now they’re trying to make it part of Russia again. Here we go again, the same bullshit I was in, with the same sort of oppression that’s been going on there. I do remember as a kid saying something, and my parents were like “shhh.” They’d point to the ceiling because everyone was scared of the KGB and the walls being bugged. And that’s still happening. You look at Russia today under Putin: if you refer to the Ukraine war as a war instead of a “special military mission,” you could go to jail for 15 years — for speaking the truth or saying something against the war.