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
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
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
First, she organized a theatrical show where she posted a pile of letters of complaints about her stay in Finland. She claimed that Finland extradited her illegally to the US "to be tortured", she was put in a male prison (she was not), ...
4/13
... her medication was confiscated (they were not) and she wouldn't receive an important surgery while in Finland (she never had the surgery in Russia, either). She also declared that she was beat up by eight guards while naked in the US.
5/13
She stated that she'd been tortured for a whole year in a windowless cell, and that the guards played gun sounds 24/7 to "break her mind".
It almost sounds like they want to make the US prison system sound worse than the Russian one...
6/13
After returning to Russia, she was picked up by no other than Yevgeny Prigozhin to run a sham organization called "Foundation to Battle Injustice". At their front page, the first news is Tara Reade's claim that Joe Biden raped her.
7/13
So yeah, it's that kind of an organization. The site also states that Vovk was "wrongfully convicted", even though there was a mountain of evidence for the conviction and she actually plead guilty to it.
8/13
Finnish propagandist Janus Putkonen interviewed Oksana (and vice versa) in St. Petersburg in Jun, 2022. In this interview, Vovk repeated her accusations towards Finnish and US authorities, and said that she's running a foundation "for battling injustice in the world".
9/13
She had her own talk show, "Limits of Freedom" where he interviewed a Finnish pro-Putinist and MP, Ano Turtiainen. During the show, Mr Turtiainen claimed that Finland is "led from the outside" but that "real Finnish people" will not bend to the will of the EU and NATO.
10/13
He also stated that these "real Finnish" people want to keep up the old spirit of Finlandization and Russia-appeasing.
On 20, Jan, 2023, she organized an event called "International press forum Journalists under the scope: ...
11/13
... attacks on freedom of speech and reprisals against reporters" In this propaganda event she read propaganda statements from a paper and interviewed various disinformation and propaganda "journalists" such as Sonja van den Ende, from the West.
12/13
She also stated that the Grayzone blogger Max Blumenthal was persecuted in the US. As most of you know,the modus operandi of Prigozhin is to hire ex-convicts to do his dirty deeds & this is exactly what she did with Vovk.I'm sure we'll be seeing more of her BS in the future.13/13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.
1/24
Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.
2/24
Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.
1/23
Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.
2/23
One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the autocratic concept of “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars”: the idea that the leader is wise and just, but constantly sabotaged by corrupt advisors. This narrative shields the ruler from blame, and it’s used by both Putin and Trump today.
1/20
The phrase “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars” (Царь хороший, бояре плохие), also known as Naïve Monarchism, refers to a long-standing idea in Russian political culture: the ruler is good and benevolent, but his advisors are corrupt, incompetent and responsible for all failures.
2/20
From this perception, any positive action taken by the government is viewed as being an accomplishment of the benevolent leader, whereas any negative one is viewed as being caused by lower-level bureaucrats or “boyars”, without the approval of the leader.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.
1/20
On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.
2/20
What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.
Let me show you how a Pakistani (or Indian, they're usually the same) AI slop farm/scam operates. The account @designbonsay is a prime example: a relatively attractive, AI-generated profile picture and a ChatGPT-style profile description are the first red flags.
1/5
The profile's posts are just generic engagement farming, usually using AI-generated photos of celebrities or relatively attractive women.
These posts are often emotionally loaded and ask the user to interact with them ("like and share if you agree!").
2/5
Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.
1/21
Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.
2/21
Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.