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

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Feb 8, 2023 • 15 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X

Scrolly

In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce a Ukrainian businessman, Dmytro Firtash. He's best known for funneling money into the pro-Russian political campaigns in Ukraine. He's also been connected to the Russian Mafia boss Semion Mogilevich.

1/14

Firtash established his trading company Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and eventually moved to Moscow in the early 1990s. Firtash's diversified international group companies, Group DF, concentrates on chemical industry and energy and real estate sectors.

2/14

In addition to Group DF, Firtash is co-owner of RosUkrEnergy, a Swiss-registered company that's 50% owned by Gazprom, and the other 50% of ownership can be connected to Firtash and Ivan Fursin.

3/14

In Apr, 2005, Oleksandr Turchynov, the head of Ukraine's SBU, stated that the Russian Mafia boss Semion Mogilevich is a silent partner in RosUkrEnergy and that the SBU had a huge file on Mogilevich's businesses during a 12 year time period.

4/14

A leaked cable revealed that Firtash had told the US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor that he needed permission from Mogilevich to do business in Ukraine during the '90s. It's also suspected that the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank was used as a front to legimitize RosUkrEnergo.5/14

In 2008, Firtash, together with Paul Manafort, was transforming the Drake Hotel in NYC into a spa and luxury mall named Bulgari Tower. The project was worth 895 million USD of which Dmytro was supposed to provide 100 million USD, but the deal was never finalized.

6/14

Firtash financed pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych's campaign in the Ukrainian presidential election in 2010. Once elected, he urged Yanukovych to adopt different policies and learn from the events of the Orange Revolution.

7/14

In Jun, 2021, Ukraine imposed sanctions against Dmytro because apparently his titanium businesses aided the "military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation".

8/14

In Aug, 2021, the Zaporizhya Titanium-Magnesium Plant was returned from Firtash to state-ownership because the plant owner Firtash hadn't invested the required assets for its modernization.

9/14

In Mar, 2014, Austrian authorities arrested Firtash in Vienna, as the US law enforcement wanted to have him extradited to the US on bribery and racketeering charges. A week after his arrest, he was released on bail of 125 million USD, the largest in Austrian history.

10/14

Austrian Supreme Court cleared his first extradition request in 2019. He was also investigated for money laundering in Spain in 2017, but this case was dropped due to "insufficient documentation".

11/14

The US prosecutors filed lawsuits against Firtash in 2017, alleging that he was involved in bribery that supported the Russian Mafia bosses. Allegedly he also attempted to "find dirt" on former VP Joe Biden before the 2020 US presidential election.

12/14

As of 2016, Dmytro and his family - excluding his oldest daughter Ivanna - were all Russian citizens. Firtash acquired a nice villa on the Cote d'Azur of France through the Irish firm Morga Ltd. Dmytro Firtash is living under house arrest in Austria.

13/14

In Apr,2022,Dmytro denounced Putin, saying that "he is never going to come out victorious."Regarding his political stance and businesses,he stated that "I was never pro-Russian, but you have to understand that I am a businessman. And my goal is to earn money. That’s my job."14/14

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1622213798403739649

Support my work (and get some AI art!): buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi

Past soups: vatniksoup.com
Related soups:
Paul Manafort:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1622213798403739649

Austria:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1622546510398255108

• • •

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

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Feb 13

In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce the International Olympic Committee (IOC) @Olympics . It’s mostly known for organizing sporting events, and for being supposed to foster the Olympic ideal while actually submitting to dictators.

1/15

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894 in Paris by Pierre de Coubertin with a noble goal: promote peace through sports. Politics out, sportsmanship in: sounds great in theory.

2/15

But in practice, the IOC has a long history of accommodating authoritarian regimes, always in the name of “neutrality,” “dialogue,” and “keeping sports separate from politics”, usually not in a particularly consistent or moral way.

3/15

Read 16 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Feb 11

In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll tell you 15 things about the People’s Republic of China that you didn’t learn from TikTok, Douyin or DeepSeek.

1/20

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1939996956652179589

This is our 2nd Wumao Soup. In the 1st one, we introduced how the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda works. Now we’ll cover some of the big topics they hide or lie about. Think of it as an antidote soup to their propaganda.

2/20

https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1939996956652179589

1 - Tiananmen Square massacre
Yes, it happened. Yes, it was a massacre. Vatniks, wumaos, and tankies in the West deny it, while China censors the slightest mention of it, even the date it happened.

3/20

Read 21 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Feb 6

In today’s Vatnik Soup, made together with chef invité @Martinlaineolen, we discuss the extensive links between pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Russian officials and intelligence operatives, and how Western politicians reinforced these links.

1/23

While MAGA influencers remain silent on Epstein, pro-Kremlin propagandists and bot farms have expectedly launched an anti-Ukraine online operation, spreading fake narratives that connect Ukraine, its politicians, and the late sex trafficker.

2/23

But the emails paint a very different picture: in reality, Epstein had very close connections with Russian officials and intelligence operatives, and even built bridges and arranged meetings between MAGA figures and the Kremlin.

3/23

Read 26 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Feb 5

In this 5th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss something that sounds great in theory, but was completely turned upside-down by the tankie kind of vatnik: anti-imperialism. More consistent anti-imperialists call this the “anti-imperialism of idiots”.
1/5

“Anti-imperialism” was popularized by Lenin, who saw imperialism as the ultimate stage of capitalism. Ironically, the largest empire is now… Putin’s Russia, proud heir to both Lenin’s Soviet Union and to the Tsarist Empire.
2/5

Indeed, Russia is an empire that is still ruled by a de facto all-powerful Tsar, that still proudly flies its imperial flag, that still dreams of expanding its already huge territory through brutal conquest and colonization.
3/5

Read 5 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Feb 1

In this 4th Debunk of the Day, we’ll refute an absolute classic of vatnik BS, the crown jewel of peak dishonesty: whataboutism.
Now, not everything that looks like whataboutism is wrong. Seeking consistency or comparing actions or responses is normal.
1/5

But when someone pulls some completely unrelated event, that happened to completely different people, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, you know what you’re dealing with: a crass denial of the problem at hand, a bad-faith attempt to derail the topic.
2/5

Logic or chronology plays no role here, nor your opinion on these other topics. You could be the staunchest critic or supporter of these other actions thrown into the discussion, it doesn’t matter. It is irrelevant whether these other things are true or not, or bad or not.
3/5

Read 5 tweets

Vatnik Soup

@P_Kallioniemi

Jan 31

In this 3rd Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about… “ending” the war by surrendering or ceding territory.

Nearing four years of the 2-day “special military operation”, Russia is desperate to obtain through other means what they failed to conquer on the battlefield.
1/5

An endless army of vatniks therefore tries to demoralize both Ukrainians and supporters.
They sound noble: “anti-war” or concerned about the fate of Ukraine’s civilians, soldiers and cities. They claim that if we just stop fighting or helping, this horror would magically end.
2/5

What they never mention is… WHO started the war, WHO murders Ukrainians, WHO destroys Ukrainian cities: the same monsters they suggest Ukrainians be at the mercy of. Surrendering wouldn’t end the atrocities of the occupation, it would enable them. Surrendering wouldn’t even…3/5