In today's #vatnik soup and 3rd edition of "You pronounced this nonsense, not me", I'll explain why 🇷🇺 is definitely NOT fighting NATO as they say. 1st of all, why are they claiming this without showing any proof? There are two reasons: 1) 🇷🇺 always lies, & 2) they're losing. 1/9
In August, Putin's deputy chief-of-staff, Sergey Kiriyenko declared that "Ukraine’s leadership has sold out its own people to fight on behalf of NATO against Russia." He continued: "We understand very well that we are not fighting against Ukraine in the Ukrainian territory,...2/9
... and we are certainly not against the Ukrainian people. The entire NATO bloc is at war with Russia in Ukraine with Ukrainians' hands"
This "news" was quickly spread by far-right blogs such as Europe Renaissance.
3/9
It was then amplified with fake propaganda videos such as "Putin is stuck: 10 thousand NATO Troops entered the territory of Ukraine!" - a clip that "proved" the presence of NATO and that was seen by over 120 000 people before it was deleted.
4/9
On September 21, 2022, Putin picked this narrative for his own speech, when he suggested that "The Kyiv regime has launched new gangs of foreign mercenaries and nationalists, military units trained to Nato standards and under the de-facto command of Western advisers."
5/9
RIA Novosti joined the claim by stating that "Our intelligence agencies revealed the arrival of regular Nato officers in the Kharkiv region."
All this was said after the humiliating losses at Kharkiv Oblast & further amplified after the drone strike vs. the Black Sea fleet.
6/9
As a "proof" Russia has shown tweets by American soldiers fighting in Ukraine. These people are not currently serving in the US military but have joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Of course, no ACTUAL proof of NATO involvement has been presented.
7/9
To conclude, I would like to share one of my "favorite" stories from the Syrian civil war: the Battle of Khasham. It is the only modern example of combat between US and Russia-affiliated (PMC Wagner) elite troops. This battle showed the huge skill gap between the two.
8/9
It was roughly 4-hour battle in which a group of Wagner's finest were obliterated by a much smaller US force, without taking any losses. Read the story here: coffeeordie.com/wagner-group-s…
IF Russia was fighting NATO in Ukraine by traditional means, the war would already be over.
9/9
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In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist and politician. He’s best known for rising to power at the height of the Greek debt crisis, not solving anything but endearing himself to the left, and using his fame to promote Russian imperialism.
1/20
Born in 1961 in Athens, Varoufakis studied economics in the UK and built an academic career in Australia, the US, and Europe. His early work focused on game theory, political economy, and critiques of capitalism.
2/20
Presenting himself as the fearless, unorthodox economist willing to confront the EU’s “neoliberal” elites, he rose to prominence during Greece’s debt crisis. At its height in 2015, he was appointed finance minister under the left-wing Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras.
In this 8th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss complaints about US financing of NATO, in particular how the US allegedly pays for European defense, leading to calls for a US withdrawal from the Alliance — which would only make it easier for Putin to invade more countries.
1/7
NATO by itself costs peanuts. In fact, the core of NATO is a principle, an agreement, that ideally costs nothing. The main cost is defense spending, which the US is eagerly doing anyway: Trump has just announced a 50% increase in military spending for his “Department of War”. 2/7
To sow division and thereby weaken the Alliance, vatniks deliberately mix up different figures, such as contributions to the NATO common budget, with defense spending. And US military spending has been huge by the sheer fact that the US is the world’s largest economy.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll talk about why we’re doing this: why we think Ukraine is so important and why we believe that souping vatniks and debunking their propaganda narratives is so crucial to counter Russia’s & their allies’ wars of aggression and achieve real peace.
1/20
War is expensive, and Russia is not a rich country that could afford this: Hospitals? Roads? Plumbing? No: everything into terror and destruction.
But not only that. There is a 2nd item in the Russian state budget that remains strong no matter what:
Manufacturing support for that terror and destruction. Propaganda. Vatniks. “Innocent” travel bloggers. “Independent” journalists. “Patriotic” politicians. Russia spends hundreds of billions of rubles a year ($5 billion) on this, and that kind of money buys you A LOT of BS.
In this second (and possibly last) Basiji Soup, we’ll explore how the Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared for a conflict with the US and Israel. We won’t cover the military aspects, but another kind of war — information warfare.
1/20
In the 1st Basiji Soup, we souped the Islamic Republic, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, its support of terrorism including Russia’s, its (one-sided?) relationship with Putin, and the mass protests against it that started two months ago:
The Internet blackout has been crucial in allowing the regime to cover up its massacre of the protesters and especially the scope of it, making it difficult to assess the number of victims. They went to great lengths to jam Starlink, after having made its use illegal.
In this 7th Debunk of the Day, we’ll expose the “Chickenhawk” fallacy. The chickenhawk accusation or the “go to the front!” imperative is a dishonest attempt to silence anyone supporting Ukraine by pushing them to go fight. A barely hidden death wish, as it’s always uttered… 1/5
…with zero regard for who you are or what your personal circumstances might be — you could already be there, on your way there, a veteran, or unable to fight. More broadly, not everyone can or should be a soldier, just as not everyone can or should be a policeman or a nurse. 2/5
Yet a society still needs those things to be done, and the fact that not everyone can go to medical school or fight crime does not mean that we have to surrender to invaders and criminals, nor that we cannot all have an opinion on healthcare. 3/5
In this 6th Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about a complex and controversial topic: conscription. It is used by vatniks to attack Ukraine for drafting men to fight, while conveniently ignoring the alternative, including the horrors of conscription into the Russian army. 1/8
Military obligations are a reality in many countries, from the most peaceful democracies to the most tyrannical dictatorships — unless you have “bone spurs”. Some argue it is a necessity for defense against invading armies, especially for small countries. 2/8
Others point out that it goes against individual rights or that a professional army is better. And Zelenskyy might agree: he did in fact end conscription. But then a full-scale invasion happened: exactly why many nations, including the US, still keep some form of draft. 3/8