In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce a Russian grand propagandist Margarita Simonyan. She's the Editor-in-Chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya.
She is one of the best known Kremlin mouthpieces and controls a large Russian propaganda network.
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Simonyan started her journalism career covering the 2nd Chechen War. Later she was one of the first journalists to report on the Beslan school hostage situation in 2004. After this she moved to Moscow to join the Kremlin propaganda machinery. She was only 25 when she was... 2/10
... appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of RT. Andrei Richter, a journalism professor, stated that she got the job because of her connections. At the beginning, she told a reporter that Kremlin wouldn't dictate any content and there would be no censorship in RT's coverage. 3/10
In 2020, Simonyan defended a overtly racist TV segment where his husband and an actress was wearing blackface posing as Barack Obama. She stated that this kind of shit is okay because her husband is of Armenian background: businessinsider.com/kremlin-tv-sta…
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In regards to Ukraine, Margarita has been echoing the basic Kremlin rhetoric: Ukraine bombed Donbas for several years, Ukraine is full of nazis and that Russia is at war with NATO.
She's also said that the food crisis will force the West to lift all sanctions on Russia. 5/10
She has also said some rancid stuff about the conflict. For example, on Feb 24, 2022 she tweeted that "This is a standard parade rehearsal, It's just that this year we decided to hold the parade in Kyiv". 6/10
She's also said that "considerable portion of the Ukrainian people have turned out to be engulfed in the madness of nazism." On "The Evening with Vladimir Solovyov", Margarita said that she's okay with nuclear war if it goes to that, because "We're all going to die someday." 7/10
She's also encouraged Russia to war crimes, such as disabling Ukrainian nuclear power plants. In April, 2022, she proposed the removal of article on the prohibition of censorship from the Russian constitution, stating that "freedom of speech will lead to collapse of Russia". 8/10
In 2018, Margarita wrote a script for a state-sponsored movie, "The Crimean Bridge. Made with Love!". It was a horrible piece of propaganda and hated by all critics, but based on Navalny's research, Margarita, her husband and her relatives earned ~700 000 USD for making it. 9/10
Margarita has suggested that Russia conquered Kyiv during the first week of the conflict and then simply gave it back:
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a French far-left politician. He’s best known for founding the party La France Insoumise (“Unsubmissive France”), demanding submission from his own movement and advocating global submission to authoritarian dictators.
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Mélenchon received his early political education in the Organisation communiste internationaliste, a Trotskyist-Lambertist communist group known for secrecy, rigid discipline and entryism. Lionel Jospin was also a member, and both later joined the Socialist Party.
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Mélenchon was elected to the Senate and was a junior minister in Jospin’s government. He left the Socialist Party in 2008, co-founded the Left Party, then the Left Front alliance with the Communists & ran as its presidential candidate. He was also an MEP from 2009 to 2017.
In today’s Vatnik Soup and our “Degenerate Russia” series, we’ll discuss what kind of lowlifes sink low enough to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, lie on Russia’s behalf, promote Russian BS, and even gather in Moscow or St. Petersburg to help the Kremlin wage its war.
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For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeting right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying Russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional, family values.
Russia is also normalizing relations with the Taliban, doesn’t recognize Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorist groups, and deepens its military partnership with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime that legalized pedophilia through child marriage.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Vincent Bolloré, a French billionaire and media tycoon. He’s best known for building a powerful media empire and for reshaping editorial lines across French media and publishing, pushing them toward far-right and pro-Kremlin positions.
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Born in 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt to a family of industrialists, Vincent studied law at Paris Nanterre University. He took over the family business and turned it into a sprawling conglomerate spanning logistics, port infrastructure in Africa, advertising, and media.
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Bolloré’s African logistics empire also became the subject of a long-running corruption investigation in France. Legal proceedings against Vincent Bolloré personally are still ongoing, with a trial planned in December, after a judge refused to approve a plea deal.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.