In today's #vatnik soup I'll be discussing the "propaganda through architecture and rebuilding" model. Its a very common information operation technique used by the USSR and Russia in the last century or so.
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Russia, USSR and also China love to use fake façades as propaganda. For example, St. Petersburg and Moscow are just big showrooms for Russian success and wealth, but as soon as you leave the city centers you are faced with poverty.
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As well all know, Russia's most common war strategy is complete demolition and destruction of whole cities and towns. This strategy aims to affect the civilian population so that they'd push for peace and negations. Why Russia uses it so often? Because it works.
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What this strategy also offers, is the use of propaganda of "rebuilding" these decimated cities and somehow making them "better". We'll go through some of these examples and I also explain why these "rebuilds into greater glory" are just cheap propaganda tools.
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Let's talk about Grozny. The first image is from 1995 and the second from 2000. During the First Chechen War Grozny was destroyed completely and 80-100 000 civilians were killed and over 500 000 civilians were "displaced".
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During the 2nd War 40-45 000 civilians lost their lives. After the 2nd War, Russia replaced the Chechen leaders with their own puppet leader Akhmad Kadyrov, followed by his son Ramzan and started a great rebuilding and propaganda effort in Grozny.
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Now, on to the propaganda: this is what Grozny looks now through the lens of Russkiy Mir: buzzing metropolis full of life. What these cool photos completely disregard are the lives of thousands and thousands of people that were lost in the most horrible ways.
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Children becoming orphans (or in the case of Ukraine, abducted to Russia), whole families killed. In addition to the civilian casualties, these images also attempt to erase all the war crimes the Russians have conducted: rapes, murders, looting, castrations, tortures, etc.
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So Russians destroy the local people and the culture with it, and replace it with their puppet leaders, oppressive culture, their fake façade and architecture, and claim that they somehow made the place better.
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In addition, this same demolition technique has been used "successfully" by Russia in 2008 in Gori, 2016 in Aleppo and of course 2022 in Mariupol. Gori and Aleppo didn't become Russian territory at some point, so those could be disregarded completely ...
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..., but Mariupol is quickly becoming the new "propaganda through architecture and rebuilding" flagship. These façades were built in just a few months to show that Russia desires to rebuild and make Mariupol better than under the rule of the "Kyiv regime".
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These images and videos will be used so that people would forget all the atrocities Russia did there, including freezing people inside their homes, looting, and bombing of a hospital and a theater full of women and children.
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This propaganda tool works the other way around, too. Russian trolls and propagandists just LOVE to show the aftermath and destruction after (and during) US military interventions.
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One of the images shows Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Without defending the US and these invasions, it's worth mentioning that the only war where US was the main culprit, was Iraq, and that Syria was destroyed by Russia together with al-Assad.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the Wagner Group, its founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, and the mutiny they started on 23 Jun 2023. The event marked the climax of the Wagner Group–Russian MoD conflict, and finally led to the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin.
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Wagner has been used 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.
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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 had several Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. Neo—nazi group Rusich has also fights as part of Wagner.
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In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an Amsterdam-based propaganda channel, Bonanza Media (@bonanzamedia2). It’s best-known for producing & spreading online pro-Kremlin propaganda videos while closely coordinating & collaborating with the Russian intelligence agency GRU.
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Russian intelligence has been extremely active in the Netherlands for a long time. For example in 2018, four GRU agents were caught while trying to hack into OPCW,an organization that monitors the use of chemical weapons. In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
2/19
…and the MH17 investigation have become targets for the Russian intelligence and propaganda operations. These operations are often complemented with “investigative journalism” media outlets, that often echo the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about the recent EU elections and what are their implications for both the Kremlin and Ukraine. Right-wing political parties, some pro-Kremlin, won a lot of seats around Europe, and this result can also change the EU’s stance on Ukraine.
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But before we start, I want to promote a truck fundraiser I'm doing together with the fantastic @ArturRehi and @69thSB.
Our goal is 20 000 USD, and you can contribute to this important fundraiser here:
EU’s support of Ukraine is essential for their survival against genocidal Russia. So far,this support has been delayed mostly by Orban’s Hungary (& to some degree, Fico’s Slovakia). Now, this support will probably be challenged by many new members of the European Parliament.
3/19
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss a specific propaganda/disinformation that the Kremlin likes to use – antisemitism. I also talk about how the Russian society itself has become riddled with antisemitism & how this has led to a decrease in Jewish population in the country.
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Russian antisemitism works on many levels, and their narratives vary depending whether they’re targeting a local audience or people in Europe and the US. For example for the latter, Russia attempts to create a false narrative of Ukraine being an antisemitic “Nazi state”.
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But before diving deeper, let’s look at a survey data of Russians in 2023: Nearly 30 million Russians harbour antisemitic attitudes, and 15% of those surveyed believed that “Jews were responsible for most of the world’s wars.” 38% think that the Jews have...
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian media personality and propagandist, Diana Panchenko (@Panchenko_X). She’s best-known for betraying her own country by peddling anti-Zelenskyy and anti-Ukraine propaganda and disinformation for the Kremlin.
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Panchenko was born in 1988 in the Mykolaev Oblast in Ukrainian SSR in 1988. She studied publishing and editing at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and later graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in law.
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After graduating, Diana worked briefly for the news site . Between 2010 and 2015, Panchenko was a presenter for KyivTV, but she found her true calling as a pro-Kremlin propagandist after she was hired by a national “news channel” called NewsOne.