Post

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
Click again on or Share Via icon
Click on Copy Link to Tweet
Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
More info at Twitter Help

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

Jan 7, 2023 • 13 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X

Scrolly

In today's #vatnik soup I'll discuss Russia's disinformation and propaganda campaigning in more detail, and go through four of the main "big" themes around which most of their propaganda is based on.

1/13

The first theme is historical revisionism. Russia LOVES to distort historical narratives so that they favor themselves. They have conveniently "forgotten" the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 between the USSR and Nazi Germany,and Putin even published a refurbished version... 2/13

...which blamed other countries for WW2. Even though the US reinforcements played a huge part in the downfall of Hitler, Russians love to portray themselves as the heroes who beat the evil Nazis. They even have another name for WW2 (during 1941-1945): The Great Patriotic War.3/13

They also tend to forget the Gulags and Holodomor when asked about these events. Russia also likes to perform brainwashing around the newly invaded areas: in Ukraine, they paid big money for Russian school teachers to teach the "real" history to the Ukrainians.

4/13

The 2nd theme is "Russia is the victim". In Russian propaganda, they never are at fault or make mistakes. especially when talking about "Tsar" Putin. When Russia invades another country, they are actually "defending" a Russian minority inside that country.

5/13

When the West is aiding Ukraine or ordering sanctions on Russian kleptocrats, they are "waging war" against Russia because they are "Russophobes". After 2014, they've accused anyone criticizing Russian actions of russophobia, ...

6/13

... a made up propaganda word that's been spread through their disinformation channels. The word is mostly used in Russia and in Serbia, Russia's close ally.

7/13

The 3rd theme is "the decadent West". Russian propaganda loves to talk about the collapse of the West due to their straying away from "traditional values" such as family, religion and monoculture. It's an old trope, going back to 19th century, but it's still
utilized a lot.

8/13

Ironically, Russia's "religious leader" patriarch Kirill is actually an old KGB agent, their divorce rates are one of the highest in the world and they're at the top of the charts in prevalence of AIDS, alcohol consumption and drug use statistics.

9/13

The 4th theme is the "CIA/US sponsors revolutions around the world". This is a very complex one, and it's mostly spread by the "intellectual type". If there's a democratic movement somewhere around the world and it's not in Russia's geopolitical interests, they claim that...10/13

... it's being funded by the US.They often accuse civil society & human rights organizations such as the White Helmets being corrupt. It's an imperialistic attitude where the folk in these countries don't have any agency or independent aspirations to advocate for themselves.11/13

@TheGrayzoneNews

They also blame anyone who debunks their criminal activities as funded by foreign actors. For example, Kremlin mouthpiece and propaganda mill Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) often blames investigative journalism group Bellingcat (@bellingcat) ...

12/13

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1600752100966662144

... for being funded by the CIA, trying to undermine all the great work they've done.

Russian info ops:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1600752100966662144

The Grayzone:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1609560497384308736

13/13

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

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

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.

2/16

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.

3/16

Read 17 tweets

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

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

…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

Read 21 tweets

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

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

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

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

Read 21 tweets

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

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

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.

2/20

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

Read 21 tweets

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

May 15

In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.

1/23

Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”

2/23

After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.

3/23

Read 24 tweets

Pekka Kallioniemi

@P_Kallioniemi

May 13

In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.

1/20

Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.

2/20

Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.

3/20