> Are you saying the OP's observation is not true?

Yes, I'm absolutely saying that. Change the query string to

- pepe escobar => 3rd hit

- pepe escobar ukraine war => 1st hit

This is just slightly unfortunate search results projected to fake victimhood advertising. Calling this censorship is absolutely absurd and insulting to every people who are actually being censored right now. Those people live in countries that are antithetical to USA, which makes all this even more absurd and insulting given how rabidly anti-west this particular youtube channel is.