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.

1/10
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…
4/10
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:

Simonyan has been sanctioned by Ukraine in 2016 and by the EU in 2022.

10/10

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Dec 9
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll continue discussing about info ops, disinfo & propaganda. Today's focus will be on troll farms and "useful idiots".

As usual, I'll focus on Russia and its activities because of its topicality and the previous research available.

1/13 Image
Troll farms are government-coordinated groups or private companies consisting of internet trolls that attempt to affect the public opinion and behavior inside a society or a community.

They're main job is to augment propaganda, and harass and ridicule the opposition.

2/13 Image
In 2017 think tank Freedom House's report stated that at least 30 countries have their own paid keyboard armies to spread propaganda and disrupt the flow of factual information. Same study suggested that elections in 18 countries were influenced by these troll farms.

3/13 Image
Read 13 tweets
Dec 8
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll start an introduction about the Russian information operations (an activity that tries to affect the public opinion and behavior of a society), disinformation and propaganda.

This topic is a broad issue and I'll do it over several threads.

1/10 Image
The Russian model of disinformation dates back to KGB days. KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov explained already in 1985 the idea of "ideological subversion" or "active measures" as an overt and open operation of manipulation of public opinion.

2/10
Bezmenov said that Russian "active measures" can be divided into 4 stages: 1) demoralization, 2) destabilization, 3) crisis, and finally 4) normalization.

I can highly recommend watching this interview of Bezmenov as it's still very topical:

3/10
Read 10 tweets
Dec 6
I'm a postdoctoral researcher from Tampere University and I'm conducting actual research on #NAFO and #NAFOfellas. For this, I have created a short, confidential survey: forms.gle/oaPANteUNcBBRd…
I would appreciate if you'd fill it out (this'll take ~5-10 min) and spread the word!
All data will be anonymized and handled according to GDPR. This data will be the basis for a scientific paper "#NAFO Disruption of Russian Disinformation and Propaganda on Social Media".

Pinging the key actors: @Kama_Kamilia @Official_NAFO
There are already over 100 responses, thank you so much fellas!
Read 5 tweets
Dec 5
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 Image
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 Image
... 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 Image
Read 9 tweets
Dec 4
In today's #vatnik soup we'll do a retrospect on two previous editions. In my first soup I introduced a quisling called Janus Putkonen:

Later on I told the story of Fennotravels, a story about love and deception in two acts:

1/5
After the unfortunate divorce of two main actors of Fennotravels, Janus Putkonen decided to do one final trip with "Finnish patriots" to Russian Murmansk. The trip is taking place during 2.-4. Dec, 2022.

2/5
Janus has previously been at Murmansk creating casus belli against Finland by "criticizing Finland's treatment of indigenous people". Mr. Putkonen even "talked" with an imaginary UN official, Rashid Aluashi, about the situation.

3/5
Read 5 tweets
Dec 3
In today's #vatnik soup I'll discuss the power of photography & portraits. Using specific photos, propagandists can create powerful image of a person. Putin's marketing crew has been exceptionally good at this by often using old photographs of Vlad that reek of testosterone.
1/6
For example, this video of Putin is used in many occasions, even on the Western media. It is from 2015, and it's the image of Putin Kremlin wants to present. It's been used in news excerpts and propaganda clips throughout the years.

2/6
Another image that is spread around a lot is the one where Putin is horseback riding shirtless. This particular image is from 2009.

3/6
Read 6 tweets

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