Paul Craig Roberts, who served as the US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in the Ronald Reagan administration, has asked President Vladimir Putin for a Russian passport in a tongue-in-cheek opinion post published in response to a recent article in the Washington Post on so-called Russian propaganda.

"Now that CIA agent Craig Timberg posing as a Washington Post reporter has blown my cover and exposed me as a Russian agent, I was wondering if I might ask you for a Russian passport and a bit of diplomatic cover," he said with irony, referring to the Post's national technology reporter. "I saw that you gave a passport to Steven Seagal, so I am hopeful that being a Russian agent is as important as teaching martial arts to Russians."

Last week, the Washington Post website ran a story titled "Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say." The article, authored by Timberg, alleged that a "sophisticated Russian propaganda machinery" produced and spread misinformation to besmirch Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump win the recent presidential election.

Those who apparently express opinions different from the message spread by the corporate mainstream media were essentially branded as "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda."

This is where Paul Craig Roberts, who has been critical of Washington's increasingly assertive behavior, comes in.

"Don't let the Atlanticist Integrationists convince you that my exposure as a Russian agent is just a CIA ruse to plant an agent on you. My criticism of Washington's policy of raising tensions between nuclear powers and support of your policy of reducing tensions is not spy cover. I really do prefer that the world not be blown up in thermo-nuclear war. This is a suspect view in the US, but I hope it is an acceptable one in Russia," he noted.

The American economist, journalist and blogger also joked that the Washington Post sent the FBI after him.

"They will be very angry at me for deceiving them all those years when I held top secret and higher security clearances while I was a Russian agent," he said. "Any day now the Washington Post might discover that my fellow KGB agent Ronald Reagan and I cut taxes on the rich in order to make capitalism so oppressive that the American people would rise up and overthrow it. Boy did we fool the left-wing!"

Finally, Paul Craig Roberts asked the Russian president for assistance in publishing his fictitious memoirs, aptly titled "My Life As A Putin Stooge." He also did not forget to inquire whether Vladimir Putin could deposit what he has earned as a "Russian agent" in a Russian bank.

The Kremlin has already said that it was ready to consider the matter if Paul Craig Roberts files an application.