In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce an American lobbyist and political consultant Paul Manafort. Manafort was a long-time Republican Party campaign consultant, but is best known for his connections to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska & for leading the 2016 Trump campaign.
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Paul has participated and campaigned for several prominent American Republicans, including Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bob Dole and of course Donald Trump.
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But he's also been involved in lobbying various other shady figures throughout his career. It seems that he would accept almost anyone as a client, as long as they were paying enough.
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In 1980, Manafort founded a DC-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort & Stone (BMSK) together with Charles R. Black Jr. and Roger Stone. The latter is well-known for his flirting with prominent QAnon figures and he also worked in the Trump campaign until Aug, 2015.
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In 1985, BMSK signed a 600 000 USD contract with Jonas Savimbi, who was the leader of the Angolan rebel group UNITA. The firm branded Savimbi as anti-communist and secured aid of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Congress to him.
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Manafort also lobbied a Filipino dictator and kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos. For this, BMSK earned a annual sum of 950 000 USD. Marcos's reign was infamous for its brutality and corruption - Filipino organization ...
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... Presidential Commission on Good Government later revealed that Marcos and his family had stolen 5 to 10 billion USD from the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Another controversial figure Manafort and BMSK lobbied was the president of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko.
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This deal secured the firm 1 000 000 USD annually. Under his kleptocratic rule, the nation suffered from massive inflation and widespread human rights violations. Sese Seko embezzled something between 4 and 15 billion USd during his rule.
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In Dec, 2004, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska arranged a meeting between Manafort and Ukraine's richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov. His job was to help Akhmetov's holding firm, System Capital Management, to survive the political crisis after the Orange Revolution.
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Manafort later brought Akhmetov to Washington DC to meet with prominent US officials like Dick Cheney. Akhmetov allegedly has connections to organized crime, and before this he had fled to Monaco after being accused of murder in Ukraine.
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From 2004 until 2010, he worked as an adviser for pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych and for his political party Party of Regions. Between 2007 and 2008 Paul was involved in various investment projects in Ukraine while working for Deripaska, after which they signed another deal.
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This deal earned him 10 million USD annually & his job was to promote Russian interests in Europe and in the US. In 2010 Deripaska loaned 10 million USD to Manafort which he allegedly never repaid. Even though Manafort had earned a lot of money from his lobbying efforts,...
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..., he was massively indebted: as of Feb, 2017, Manafort had approximately 12 million USD in home equity loans outstanding. NBC News also found documents that showed 27 million USD loans from two Cyprus entities to a company connected to Manafort.
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In 2014 Manafort had big role in creation of the political party Opposition Bloc, a pro-Russian political party, in Ukraine. This party was generally perceived as a successor for Yanukovych's Party of Regions.
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National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine claimed in 2016 that they had found records that show 12,7 million USD cash payments designated for Manafort. This money came from the Party of Regions and the payments were allegedly done between 2007 and 2012.
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Leaked texts between Paul and his daughter revealed, that he supported the violent opposition of Euromaidan protestors, which resulted to several deaths from the bullets of Berkut riot police.
Paul worked closely with ex-GRU employee Konstantin Kilimnik.
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Kilimnik and Manafort helped Yanukovych to win the presidency in 2010. Kilimnik and Manafort also assisted several pro-Russian Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs and tried to ensure that Yanukovych would sever ties to the US and Europe.
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FBI started investigating Manafort in 2014. Manafort also became a person of interest in the FBI counterintel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 US election.The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded in Aug, 2020 that while working as Trump's campaign...18/21
...manager, "Manafort worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election". During the Trump campaign, Manafort shared information secretly with Kilimnik, who then shared it with the Russians.19/21
In Aug, 2018, Manafort was convicted by the Eastern District of Virginia on five counts of tax fraud. Robert Mueller's office advised that he should receive a sentence between 20 to 24 years, but in Mar, 2019 he was sentenced to just 47 months in prison.
20/21
District of Columbia convicted Manafort to additional 43 months in jail. He was jailed between 2018-2020, after which he was released to home confinement due to COVID-19 concerns. In Dec, 2020 Trump issued Manafort a full pardon and he was released.
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.
1/22
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.
2/22
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.
3/22
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.
1/19
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.
1/19
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.
1/19
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”.
2/19
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.
1/22
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.