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Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
@P_Kallioniemi
Dec 18, 2022 • 12 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce three oligarchs who are good friends with Putin. Their names are Arkady, Boris and Roman, and their surname is Rotenberg.

Arkady and Boris are brothers and Roman is Boris' son. 1/11
Their wealth originates from the same source as most oligarchs and Putin's friends-Arkady and Boris made a fortune through state-sponsored constructions projects, especially oil and gas pipelines.Arkady's wealth is estimated to be around 3 billion USD and Boris' 1,2 bil. USD.2/11
Putin and Arkady have been friends since childhood: they were kids when they joined the same sambo club,and in the early 90's they practiced judo several times a week. Later Arkady's judo club was given a state-funded "training facility" with a yacht club, worth 180 mil USD.
3/11
After Putin became the president, he put Arkady in control of a state-owned Rosspirtprom, that controlled 30% of Russia's vodka market. Rotenbergs earned huge sums of money through inflated prices paid to them by Kremlin-controlled companies, such as Gazprom.

4/11
In '08,Rotenbergs formed Stroygazmontazh (SGM) that made them huge profits.They won the bid for building the Kerch bridge between Crimea and Russian mainland.The brothers were named in the Panama Papers,a leak that revealed offshore businesses of rich people around the world.5/11
Arkady and Boris were sanctioned by the US in 2014 and by EU in 2016. Italy has seized 30 million € worth of real estate from Arkady, including four villas and a hotel. Roman was sanctioned by the US in 2015.

6/11
Rotenbergs own several sports clubs, including hockey club Dynamo Moscow, FC Dynamo Moscow and PFC Sochi. Roman is the head coach of hockey team SKA St. Petersburg.

Boris and Roman also have Finnish nationality, and together with Gennady Timchenko they've had various ...

7/11
... business ventures in Finland.

In 2013, Rotenberg family and Timchenko bought 44,98% of Hartwall Arena in Helsinki and 49% of Finnish hockey team Jokerit from Hjallis Harkimo (@hjallisharkimo), that moved to Russian hockey league KHL in 2014.

8/11
In 2019 Jokerit was supposed to be bought back to Finnish investors with Finnish hockey legend Jari Kurri as the main owner, but the money came actually from now-sanctioned Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin who is in good relations with both Rotenbergs and Timchenko.

9/11
Roman has spent a lot of time in Finland partying with various celebrities, including Finnish hockey legend Teemu Selänne (@TeemuSel8nne). They tried to smoke out Harkimo from Jokerit for years, and Selänne was supposed to be his replacement.

10/11
Of course, none of these shady deals driven by greed have been discussed afterwards, and all Finnish celebrities want people to forget their close connections with the Rotenbergs.

11/11
My soup on Gennady Timchenko:

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jun 20
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce a Latvian politician and former MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka. She’s best-known for her history in the Communist Party of Latvia, for her pro-Russian politics in the country, and her connections to Russian intelligence.

1/22 Image
Based on Ždanoka’s speeches and social media posts, she has a deep hatred towards the people of Latvia. The reason for this can only be speculated, but part of it could be due to her paternal family being killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police,…

2/22 Image
…a paramilitary force supported by the Nazis, during the early 1940s. Ždanoka became politically active in the late 80s. She was one of the leaders of Interfront, a political party that supported Latvia remaining part of the USSR.

3/22 Image
Read 23 tweets
Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jun 16
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the main themes of Russian disinformation on TikTok. Each day, there are thousands of new videos promoting pro-Kremlin narratives and propaganda.

It’s worth noting that Russians can only access European TikTok via VPN.

1/10
There is currently a massive TikTok campaign aimed at promoting a positive image of Russia. The videos typically feature relatively attractive young women and focus on themes of nationalism and cultural heritage.

2/10
Ironically, many of these videos from Moscow or St. Petersburg are deceptively edited to portray Ukraine in a false light — claiming there is no war and that international aid is being funneled to corrupt elites.

3/10
Read 11 tweets
Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jun 8
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about Finland and how pro-Kremlin propagandists have become more active in the Finnish political space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time since 2022, they’ve gained some political power in Finland.

1/16 Image
Russia’s political strategy in countries with Russian-speaking minorities (such as Finland and the Baltics) is typically quite similar: it seeks to rally these minorities around issues like language and minority rights, and then frames the situation as oppression.

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At the same time, Russian speakers are extremely wary and skeptical of local media, and instead tend to follow Russian domestic outlets like Russia-1 and NTV, thereby reinforcing an almost impenetrable information bubble.

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Read 17 tweets
Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jun 2
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Ukrainian SBU’s “Spiderweb” operation and the main disinformation narrative vatniks have been spreading during the afterfall. While domestic Russian media stays silent, the vatniks and Russian milbloggers have been extremely loud.

1/20
This operation was probably the most impactful strike since the drowning of the Moskva, massively reducing Russia’s capability to bomb Ukrainian cities (or anyone else’s). It involved smuggling 117 FPV drones hidden in trucks into Russia. Once near airbases,…

2/20 Image
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…the roofs opened remotely, launching drones in synchronized waves to strike targets up to 4,000 km away. The mission took 18 months to plan. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers who transported them had no idea they were delivering weapons deep behind their own lines.

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets
Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
May 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian movie director, propagandist, and former priest: Ivan Okhlobystin. He’s best known for his strong support for the war on Ukraine and for his radical views, which are often used as a testbed for the domestic Russian audience.

1/20 Image
Ivan was born in 1966 from a short-lived marriage between a 62-year-old chief physician and a 19-year-old engineering student. She later remarried, and the family moved from Kaluga province to Moscow. Ivan kept the surname Okhlobystin from his biological father.

2/20 Image
After moving to Moscow, Ivan began studying at VGIK film school. He soon became a playwright for theatre productions and also wrote for Stolitsa magazine, which he later left because, as he put it, “it had become a brothel.”

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets
Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
May 22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.

1/20 Image
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.

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As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets

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