In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce a politician who loves EU money but also 🇷🇺 energy.His name
is Viktor Orbán and he's been 🇭🇺's PM since 2010.Orbán is the ultimate opportunist,begging for gas from Russia & at the same time hoarding all the money he can get from the EU. 1/11
Because of his limitations on press freedom, judicial system, and multiparty democracy, and attacks against immigrants and marginal groups, Hungary's democracy has been described as being in deep decline. 2/11
Due to this 🇭🇺dropped 11 places in the EIU's Democracy Index and Freedom House downgraded their rating from "Free" to "Partly free". The Economist went as far as calling Orbán's Hungary an "authoritarian kleptocracy". 3/11
Orbán has been in the politics for a long time,and he's been part of his current party, Fidesz, since 1993.His authoritarian position was cemented in 2010, when Fidesz won 53% of the popular vote and gained 2/3 majority of seats, allowing Orbán to make constitutional changes.4/11
And of course Viktor seized this opportunity: In 2011, he added support for traditional values and nationalism to the constitution, and also made it easier for him and Fidesz to stay on the throne by reducing total parliamentary seats by 187. 5/11
In 2020, at the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hungarian parliament passed legislation that allows them to create states of emergency without time limits, postpone by-elections, and provide the PM the ability to rule by decree. 6/11
They also introduced prison sentences for spreading of fake news (we all know who decides what is fake and what's not). By doing all this, they are following the authoritarian 101 rulebook. 7/11
Orbán has also seized control of several universities & funneled money into their favorite university, Mathias Corvinus Collegium, that'll raise more "future conservative intellectuals". A total of 1% of Hungary's GDP was spent on this little brainwashing program. 8/11
Orbán's policies are anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-LGBT, Euroskepticist and conservatist. Political Capital Institute's director, Péter Krekó has stated that many of Orbáns views were inspired by Putin. 9/11
Orbán's policies are anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-LGBT, Euroskepticist and conservatist. Political Capital Institute's director, Péter Krekó has stated that many of Orbán's views were inspired by Putin. 🇭🇺threatened to veto the EU's 6th sanction package on Russia...10/11
...just to have KGB agent Patriarch Kirill removed from the sanction list:
In addition to Turkey's Erdoğan, Orbán has been stalling Finland's and Sweden's NATO membership - these two are the last countries that haven't ratified the contract.
11/11
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Russian shadow fleet: a network of ships that operate in secret, dodge sanctions, smuggle oil, and undermine the security of Europe’s seas while keeping Putin’s war machine running.
1/15
To understand the shadow fleet, let’s rewind to 2022. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the West responded with economic shockwaves. Sanctions were imposed, Russian oil was banned, and a price cap was introduced. For Russia, this was a disaster.
2/15
But Putin is well-familiar with economic warfare. Russia quickly created a “shadow fleet” – an armada of rusting oil tankers with false identities and forged paperwork,and illegal trade routes designed to dodge Western sanctions and keep the rubles flowing.
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce the American-British social media personalities, Tristan and Andrew Tate (@tatethetalisman and @cobratate).
They’re best-known for their social media grifts and allegations of human trafficking and rape.
1/22
The history of the Tate brothers was introduced thoroughly in my original Vatnik Soup thread, but since then so much has happened that this pathetic duo needs another review. The soup will go through a lot of the evidence and videos in which the Tates incriminate themselves.
2/22
The Tates became (relatively) rich through their webcam (pimping?) businesses and self-help courses targeted at young, desperate (incel?) men. At some point, they had up to 75 women working for them, and the brothers later admitted that the business was a “total scam”.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce Russia’s main narratives and explain how they are being spread online by Russian operatives and MAGA Republicans. After three years of war, Russia still relies on old narratives, now amplified by the Trump administration.
1/25
Throughout the years – or even decades – Russia’s narratives against the West have remained largely the same. Many of them date back to the Cold War era, when the KGB and CIA were bitter enemies. But since then, the media landscape has drastically changed.
2/25
Russian propaganda and disinformation revolves around four main themes:
1) Russia is the victim, 2) Historical revisionism, 3) The “decadent West” is collapsing, 4) The CIA and/or “evil Anglo-Saxons” are behind every revolution & anti-Kremlin activity.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a former Ukrainian politician and president, Viktor Yanukovych. He’s best known for selling his country to Russia, trying to turn it into an authoritarian state, and eventually fleeing to Moscow once his plan failed.
1/22
Now that Russia and the US are planning to replace president Zelenskyy with someone who’s more willing to sell the country to them (most probably Viktor Medvedchuk or one of his cronies), it’s a good time to remind people how Yanukovych and Putin almost took over Ukraine.
2/22
Yanukovych’s first attempt at power came in 2004, when he “won” the Ukrainian presidential election through massive fraud. The rigged vote sparked the Orange Revolution, a wave of protests that forced the election to be re-run. His opponent, pro-Western candidate…
Russia uses Tucker Carlson as a vessel for its propaganda. Many of the most popular narratives originate from his misinformation-filled show, which is funded by Elon. Some of these lies include:
- Bioweapons labs
- Gonzalo Lira being a "journalist"
-Zelenskyy being a dictator
- The banning of the Russian Orthodox Church
- The banning of Viktor Medvedchuk's pro-Kremlin propaganda network
- Putin's interview and revisionism
- That ridiculous St. Petersburg propaganda piece
Bob Amsterdam, who Tucker has interviewed a few times is paid by a Russian oligarch, Vadym Novynskyi.
We now know from the Tenet Media case that Russian state media wants to spread Tucker's verbal diarrhea everywhere. These fake stories have finally made their way to Trump.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll take out my crystal ball and predict what the alliance between the US and Russia could mean for Ukraine, Europe and geopolitics in general. These recent changes could be a real risk for the whole of Europe, and need to be addressed quickly.
1/23
Some of us have been reporting on Trump’s pro-Kremlin tendencies for years now. His Moscow connections go back all the way to the late 80s, and the 2016 US presidential elections raised a lot of red flags about the close connections of his associates to Russian operatives.
2/23
The recent Rubio-Lavrov meeting in Saudi Arabia was an eye-opening event for many who were still optimistic about Trump and Ukraine – the outcome was that Putin got absolutely everything he’s ever wanted from the war, and at the same time it seems that the US got nothing.