In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group. I have written about the topic before, but now that it's been designated as a Transnational Criminal Organization by the US, we should reiterate some key points and update the latest news about them.

1/16
Wagner is a Russian paramilitary organization that consists of network of mercenaries, and many consider it to be the private army of Putin. Private military companies are actually illegal in Russia, so basically the group operates beyond the law.

2/16
Despite of its illegality, Wagner trains its personnel in a Russian MoD facility, Molkino. This camp is masked as a "children's vacation camp". New Lines magazine concluded that Wagner members come from fifteen different countries, but most of them are Russian.

3/16
The group doesn't have any central ideology, but many of its members and leaders have ties to various neo-nazi movements in Russia. For example, Wagner leader Dmitry Utkin has several Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. Neo-nazi group Rusich also fights as part of Wagner.

4/16
Wagner has been utilized in many conflicts around the world, but they came to global prominence during the war in Donbas in 2014-2015.Wagnerites helped the Donbas separatists fight against the Ukrainians during the conflict, which helped Putin to "outsource" the insurrection.5/16
Wherever Wagner goes, war crimes follows: Prigozhin's troops have raped women in Mali, killed and tortured civilians in Ukraine and tortured soldiers in Syria. In Russia, they are famous for hiring prisoners and then send them to the Ukrainian meat grinders like Bakhmut.

6/16
The total number of prisoners hired by Wagner from the Russia's prison system is around 38 000. At the beginning of Jan, 2023, almost 30 000 of them were either killed, wounded, missing or taken as a prisoner. A whopping 106 people, or 0,28%, have been amnestied.

7/16
Recently an official Russian TV channel showed an interview of Mikhail Popok, a Russian serial killer, rapist and a necrophile who wants to join the Russian war effort in Ukraine. He said that he'd probably do it "during the Spring" since it's much warmer then.

8/16
In Jan, 2023, Wagner organized a "hero's funeral" for a man who beat his mother to death in a drunken frenzy. They also put up a plaque for Denis Kovyrzin, a convicted murderer, in a grade school in Saratov.

9/16
But Russia is not the only where they do the recruiting - two senior military officers from the Central African Republic reported that Wagner is hiring criminals in Africa and sending them overseas to fight.

10/16
These criminals, many of them held in custody for hard crimes such as rape and murder, are called "Black Russians" and now fight in the front lines in East of Ukraine. Some of them complained about the lack of payments after a few months of fighting.

11/16
Before Ukraine, Wagner mostly consisted of experienced ex-military people, but after Russia's failed mobilization and dramatic losses on the battlefield, they started hiring anyone willing to hold a rifle (or just run and die) for money.

12/16
They've allegedly employed cannibals and serial killers, many of them carrying infectious diseases including hepatitis and HIV. These cannon fodder are marked with appropriate bracelets.

13/16
Even though almost 80% of the Wagner's finest die in the meat grinder, hiring murderers and rapists to fight in Ukraine increases the prevalence of war crimes in Ukraine drastically. The group's monthly salary is estimated to be something between 700 and 2100 USD.

14/16
But for the convicts there is another prize: survive in the meat grinder for 6 months, and you can go free: In Jan, 2023, Prigozhin released a tiny batch of convicts, telling them to "don't rape women" while in Russia. This release was probably done for PR purposes.

15/16
Wagner has promoted the group by producing three movies: Tourist (2021), Hotsunlight (2021) and Luchshiye v adu (2022). I watched the first two so you don't have to: they're both shit.

16/16

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jan 23
In today's #vatnik soup I'll be introducing a Russian money launderer, convicted criminal and Prigozhin's personal propagandist, Oksana Vovk, also known as Mira Terada.

1/13 Image
While living in the US, Oksana was pled guilty to money laundering and she was convicted to 30 months behind bars. She did plea in order to avoid a harsher conviction for drug trafficking.

2/13 Image
Vovk was captured at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Finland in 2018, and she was extradited into the US in 2019. After being released from prison, Vovk returned to Russia in 2021 where she started her new career as a state propagandist.

3/13 Image
Read 14 tweets
Jan 21
In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce a Dutch "independent journalist", a columnist and a conspiracy theorist, Sonja van den Ende (@SonjaEnde). Sonja was recruited to report on Ukraine by Alexander Dugin through his Euroasia organization in March, 2022.

1/12
Before the invasion, she was reporting from Syria, and even claimed to be related to the al-Assad family through her now-ex husband. She has accused the US and Israel of mass murder in Syria, and has praised Putin for his help in "defending the Syrian people".

2/12
Van den Ende has spread conspiracy theories about the Syrian volunteer group the White Helmets, and she was also (naturally) involved in various COVID-19 and WEF related conspiracies.

3/12
Read 13 tweets
Jan 20
In today's #vatnik soup I'll be introducing an Australian propagandist and ex-news reporter, Mary Kostakidis (@MaryKostakidis). She's best known for her storming out from the SBS newsroom in 2007, after which she's been mostly doing hot takes on the US & NATO, Russia & China.1/11
Mary was setting up the SBS Television in the early 80s, and presented World News on the channel until 2007. In Aug, 2007, she stormed out of the SBS newsroom, protesting the increase in advertising time during the program and never looked back.

2/11
She's a former Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation, a non-profit that's associated with the University of Sydney. They present the annual "Sydney Peace Prize", and some of the winners of this trophy include John Pilger and Noam Chomsky.

3/11
Read 12 tweets
Jan 19
In today's #vatnik soup and the newest edition of "You pronounced this nonsense, not me", I'll talk about the NATO expansion and how - according to Russia - NATO and the West are actually at fault for the war in Ukraine.

1/13
In 2007, around the same time when Russia started their "economic war" against Europe, Putin held a fiery speech at a Munich Security Conference in which he accused the West of expanding NATO, thus breaking a "solemn pledge" given by a US secretary ...

2/13
... of state James A. Baker to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. According to some, Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not expand to the east if Russia accepted Germany's unification.

But this was never agreed. What Baker actually promised was that NATO would expand ...

3/13
Read 14 tweets
Jan 18
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce an American propagandist & a Youtuber, Patrick Lancaster.He's a former sailor turned pro-Russian disinfo spreader. Ironically,his videos from the Russia-occupied areas have exposed Russian war crimes and sensitive military information.
1/13 Image
In June 2001 he joined the US Navy, working on the USS Kitty Hawk as a cryptologic technician. He apparently also held a top-secret clearance. After leaving the Navy, he worked as a real-estate agent until he moved to Berlin and started working as a journalist around 2011.

2/13 Image
Patrick calls himself a "independent, crowd-funded journalist", which means that he's mostly paid for by the Kremlin. He's usually the only English-speaking reporter in Russia-controlled territories, and often travels around with Russian troops.

3/13 Image
Read 13 tweets
Jan 17
In today's #vatnik soup I'll be introducing a British reality TV star and a propagandist, George Galloway (@georgegalloway). He's best known for his appearance on Big Brother, affiliation with Russia state-media & his love for various authoritarian regimes around the globe.

1/15
Galloway has been a MP in 1987-2010 and in 2012-2015. He's currently leading the Workers Party of Britain, a party which has never held any elected presentation at any level of government.

George also doesn't like it when he's connected to Russia-state affiliated medias.

2/15
George has been a fan boy of several totalitarian leaders since the 90's. In 1994, during his unauthorized trip to Iraq, he met with Saddam Hussein and ended up his speech with a famous statement: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."

3/15
Read 19 tweets

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