Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Nov 21, 2022 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
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.

1/11
For example, 🇺🇦 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 🇷🇺'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
WW1 was the first war in which mass media played a significant role. Propaganda in mass media had two goals: keep up the morale and keep the people informed about what occured on the battlefield: bl.uk/world-war-one/…

4/11
In WW2 the efforts to demonize the opposite side became a popular thing. Nazi Germany depicted British troops as cowards and Russians as dehumanized beasts. Propaganda leaflets that contained demoralizing messages were dropped to enemy territories from planes.

5/11
Even programs like Lend-Lease required the support from the people, and this required effective propaganda.

In Russo-Ukrainian War, we haven't really seen any technological breakthrough with propaganda and disinformation efforts.

6/11
Photo and video editing are still the most common way to spread disinformation, even though we saw some
creative use of video game material at the early stages of the war. We've seen photoshopped cocaine on Zelenskyy's table, Same Hyde's face on a Russian passport...

7/11
... fake Ukrainian fighter jets in MH17 related satellite images and Argentinian lawyers depicted as the "Ghost of Kyiv". There's also been a lot of images and videos where the context is changed. A video from military exercise in 🇫🇮 was descritbe as an preparation for war. 8/11
Photoshops are easy, fast and cheap to produce and they spread quickly around social media. Videos require much more effort, but we've seen a few. Crude and unbelievable deepfake video of Zelenskyy surrendering surfaced in March, 2022.



9/11
In the near future, most photos and videos will be done by AI. We already have algorithms such as Stable Diffusion and Dreambooth that create realistic looking photographs, and these algorithms become better all the time.

10/11
In near future, we will have interfaces that take commands such as "Ukrainian soldier burying a civilian in a forest" and then go on and create a
realistic depiction from this description.

That will truly be the age of confusion and mistrust.

11/11

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jun 4
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American conspiracy theorist, podcaster & antisemite, Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO). She’s best known for spreading conspiracy theories, attacking Ukraine, promoting pro-Kremlin BS, and becoming a favorite of Russian state media.

1/21 Image
Candace started her career as an intern at Vogue magazine but later moved into political commentary. Her early career focused on criticizing Republicans, calling their antics “bat-shit crazy.” In 2016, her blog even published an article about Trump’s penis size.

2/21 Image
That same year, she launched a doxxing website called SocialAutopsy. In response, people began posting Owens’s personal information online. During the controversy, she gained support from figures such as @Nero and @Cernovich. And just like that, she became a conservative.

3/21 Image
Read 23 tweets
May 27
In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.

1/20 Presidential Office Building, Taipei, Taiwan https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm4GOcdvZbi/
Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.

The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.

2/20 Image
Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.

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Read 20 tweets
May 25
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce Russian propaganda operations around military targets like Starobilsk. For over a decade, the Kremlin has used similar strategies, combining crisis actors, “independent journalists” and fabricated evidence.

1/13 Image
First, let’s go back to 2014. Russia funded separatist groups and sent its mercenaries to Donbas, which led to the creation of two puppet states, Donetsk and Luhansk, governed by Russian propagandists and soldiers like Igor Girkin.

2/13
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The fake genocide was touted as one of the main reasons for Russia’s war during the early stages of the full-scale invasion, and the claim was made even by Putin himself. Before his mutiny, late Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said that all this was fabricated bullshit.

3/13
Read 14 tweets
May 11
In this 9th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss “legitimate military targets”. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, with no declaration of war, hiding behind a “special military operation”. Yet vatniks & useful idiots pretend Russia has any legitimate or lawful targets in Ukraine.

1/8 May 6, 2026, Sumy, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine  Russian drones hit a kindergarten in central Sumy. Two women were killed and seven injured.  Photo: Suspilne Sumy
Russia started the war in 2014 by seizing Crimea with unmarked soldiers, “little green men”. Russians have been waging an undeclared, illegal war with endless war crimes ever since, whether it’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children with genocidal intent…

2/8
… the concentration camps for Ukrainians under occupation, conscripting Ukrainians from occupied territories, or the terrorist, deliberate bombing of civilians, including their infamous “double tap” strikes.

So no, Russia does not have any “legitimate targets” in Ukraine.

3/8
Margarita Simonyan, head of Putin’s state propaganda media RT: “We are bombing everyday.”
Read 8 tweets
May 1
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer and millionaire. He’s best known for his champagne socialism, rabid criticism of the US and Israel, support for the Soviet Union and for Chinese and Russian invasions, and for mistreating his dog.

1/20 Hasan Piker in Havana, Cuba
Born in 1991, Piker grew up in a privileged and well-connected environment. His father held senior roles at big corporations and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, is the founder of The Young Turks media network. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers, a top-tier university in New Jersey.

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His main activity and primary source of income consists of hours-long livestreams on Twitch where he comments on news and yells at videos. He also keeps his dog in place the whole time with a shock collar.

3/20

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Read 21 tweets
Apr 26
What you see happening here is coordinated strategic communication by the Trump cult. Elon’s baby mama and former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair explained this ecosystem in a long video. They have built platforms where people can find narratives to spread and get paid for doing so.

Even though the system technically breaks the platform's ToS, this is perfectly fine for @nikitabier and the rest of the X crew, because Elon pays their salaries and this is part of his election interference machinery.Image
If you wanna know how the system works, read this:

Here’s Ashley’s video, where she explains how the system works. She was immediately attacked by various MAGA actors, which suggests that what she said hit a nerve.
Read 4 tweets

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