In today's #vatnik soup and in the 2nd edition of "You pronounced this nonsense, not me", I'll introduce some of the outlandish lies and disinformation regarding Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and how he has managed to counter these smear campaigns.
1/13
Since day one of the invasion he's been the #1 target for Russian propaganda - why? Because Russia lost their own man, Viktor Yanukovych, during the Euromaidan uprising. Yanukovych fled Kyiv and is now living in exile in Russia.
2/13
At the beginning of the war, 🇷🇺 assumed that Zelenskyy, a man mostly known for his acting career, would quickly fold and leave Ukraine. Immediately after 🇷🇺's full-scale invasion begun, Kreml started spreading disinfo that Zelenskyy had already fled from Ukraine to Poland.
3/13
Soon after these accusations, Ukrainian leadership, including Zelenskyy, published a video from the streets of Kyiv to fight this propaganda campaign. This video quickly became one of the biggest morale boosters for Ukraine.
4/13
Soon after one of the worst deepfake videos ever produced was published. In this video, "Zelenskyy" called for his soldiers to lay down their arms. Hackers managed to send this video on Ukrainian national TV, too and the news spread quickly on social network VKontakte.
5/13
In July, 2022, hackers hacked into a Ukrainian radio station and sent a message that Zelenskyy was hospitalized and was in intensive care. Again, Zelenskyy published a rebuttal and said that he was well.
6/13
After the Russians realized that none of these approaches wouldn't work, they started the drug addict accusations: a fake video of Zelenskyy having cocaine on his desk surfaced and spread like a wildfire.
7/13
This claim was supported by another edited video of Zelenskyy "praising cocaine" (he was actually talking about coffee & exercise). The outlet that did the original interview has denied these claims, too: pravda.com.ua/news/2019/04/8…
8/13
Fringe pro-Putin bloggers such as Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) are still desperately trying to push this silly narrative from time to time:
Forbes Ukraine has estimated his fortune to be ~20 million USD and name his company Kvartal 95 as his main source of income.11/13
Pandora Papers revealed that Zelenskyy has offshore companies abroad, but so does many others: over 200 Finns were named in these leaks. And of course Putin and Timchenko were also there:
Zelenskyy has been quick and effective at countering any disinformation Russia tries to spread about him.
He does this by effectively using various social media channels, but I'm sure that we will see even more Kreml-related bullshit coming in the following months.
13/13
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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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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…
… 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.
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
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.
2/20
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.
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.
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.