In today's #vatnik soup I will introduce ๐ท๐บ's most "hawkish hawk" and Putin's old friend,Nikolai Patrushev.He belongs to Putin's siloviki faction & he's considered to be one of his closest advisors.He's also seen as one of the likeliest candidates for continuing Putin's work. 1/6
Patrushev directed FSB 1999-2008, and he's been involved in the espionage business since the 70s. He worked with Putin already during this time at Leningrad KGB. UK public inquiry stated that Patrusev (with Putin) was responsible for the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.2/6
Litvinenko had accused Putin of ordering the assassinations of Berezovsky & Politkovskya, but 2016 UK report suggested that Litvinenko was actually killed for calling Putin a pedophile and stated that at some point FSB had videos of Putin having sex with underaged boys.
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Nikolai's role has also been questioned in the 1999 Russian apartment bombings.Over 300 people died in them & they were used as casus belli in the 2nd Chechen War.Some historians say the bombings were coordinated by ๐ท๐บ security services to help bring Putin into the presidency.4/6
Patrushev is also a big fan of conspiracy theories. He believes that the West is trying to reduce world's population drastically and that the US is trying to destroy Russia completely. He's also stated that marriages between humans and animals are legal
in the West.
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Russian politics expert Mark Galeotti has called Nikolai as the "most dangerous man in Russia" because of his paranoia and conspiracy-driven thinking.
Patrushev was sanctioned by EU in 2014 and by US in 2018 and more so in 2022.
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In today's #vatnik soup I'll continue discussing propaganda and disinformation. During the information age, winning the online propaganda battle can be just as important as gaining the advantage on the traditional battlefields.
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For example, ๐บ๐ฆ is pretty much dependent on the modern weaponry from the West. These weapons will be delivered as long as the people support these efforts. If people either lose interest or start resisting them, the war will be prolonged and ๐ท๐บ's war efforts become stronger.
2/11
Propaganda and disinformation are by no means new phenomena. Textual "fakes" have been around since the invention of writing, and already in Ancient Rome propaganda was spread through poems and texts imprinted on coins.
3/11
How did Putin get so rich? In today's #vatnik soup I'll be introducing one of his money men, oligarch Gennady Timchenko. Timchenko has a special place in Finnish people's hearts, as he also has Finnish citizenship and has been doing a lot of business in ๐ซ๐ฎ.
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Putin and Timchenko go way back. The Pandora papers revealed that already in 1991 Putin gave Timchenko a oil export license. At the time this was a big deal, as exports from Russia were just starting & anyone who could get their hands on them could become incredibly rich.
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For his oil business, Timchenko found Gunvor group which would export Russian oil worth of billions of dollars. He sold his share of the company to other co-founder, Swedish billionaire Torbjรถrn Tรถrnqvist a day before he was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2014.
3/9
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce a man who has worked mostly behind the scenes - Vladislav Surkov. Some of you might not even recognize the name, but he's the main architect of both the polarizing disinformation program and the annexation system of ๐ท๐บ. 1/9
Many perceive Surkov as a key figure behind Putin's power and P. Pomerantsev gave him the nickname "Putin's Rasputin". Vladislav was the key figure in putting Kadyrov to his current position (Kadyrov calls him his "sworn brother" and even has a picture of
him on the wall). 2/9
Surkov's approach to geopolitics comes through theatre - he studied theatre direction for 3 years and he's an excellent dramaturg. He is also closely related to a movement called "political technology", which is often referred as "a industry of political manipulation".
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll discuss propaganda. Why is ๐บ๐ฆ winning the propaganda war? What happened to ๐ท๐บ as a propaganda/disinformation powerhouse?
Here's my take:
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๐ท๐บ established their disinformation machinery a long time ago, and a big part of their modus operandi comes already from the KGB era. Their propaganda focuses on putting a negative spotlight on other actors, for example the political opposition, ๐บ๐ฆ or the West.
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This "bashing of foreign actors" is a very effective propaganda method,and many countries have taken a similar approach after they've seen how well it has worked for ๐ท๐บ. Previously most countries were focusing on praising their own policies, but this method changed the game. 3/12
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce a first female vatnik, ๐ซ๐ฎ Leena Hietanen. She used to be a quite prominent journalist who wrote to some of the most popular newspapers in ๐ซ๐ฎ. This report is also my first attempt at adding subtitles, so please be gentle with feedback.
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At some point Leena's brain circuits went haywire, and she became a berserk ๐ท๐บ apologists. Hietanen HATES ๐ซ๐ฎ and ๐ช๐ช culture and politics. Already back in 2008 she wrote a book called "Estonia's cold war", which criticized Estonian politics regarding ๐ท๐บ minorities.
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She has refused to call the USSR's occupation of ๐ช๐ช an occupation. She has also called the Estonian people "criminally stupid" on ๐ซ๐ฎ national TV and written a pamflet on ๐ช๐ช media where she called ๐ช๐ช a "fasist apartheid country".