In today's #vatnik soup I'll be introducing a Portuguese "independent journalist" and a politician, Bruno Carvalho. Carvalho is part of the gang that does live - and often staged - reports from Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
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Bruno's political affiliation is with the communists, and he was elected to city hall of Amadora as a member of the communist party CDU/PCP. Allegedly he joined the party at a very young age, as there's video footage of a 19-year old Bruno being interviewed about politics.
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Perhaps due to his political background, Carvalho is all about them Ukrainian nazis. He calls the Azov Regiment "the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion", being consistent with the views of his party, PCP.
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In May, 2022, he published an image on Telegram of "Mein Kampf", a book written by Austrian politician Adolf Hitler, on top of a Ukrainian flag. He claimed that his "fellow journalist" found the book inside an empty house in Rubizhne.
4/17
Interestingly, he also claimed that it was the ONLY book found inside the house, suggesting that someone really loves Hitler over there in Luhansk Oblast.
Carvalho stated that no one else was present when they entered the apartment, but a video published by the Russians...
5/17
suggest otherwise: it clearly shows that he entered the flat together with Russian soldiers.
He's also interviewed people who were "robbed" by the Ukrainian forces, and denied all sorts of war crimes conducted by the Russian forces, including mass graves in Mariupol.
6/17
In addition, this heroic "independent journalist" has reported on Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles that, based on Bruno, were used to attack civilians in the puppet states of DPR & LPR. During the fake referendums, Carvalho claimed on a news broadcast that "Donetsk is a country".
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Carvalho has also been a target of criticism in Portugal. For example, João Galamba, Minister of Infrastructure has mocked him and the content he's shared on Twitter. Carvalho considered this a serious attack against his journalistic integrity and demanded an intervention... 8/17
... from the Journalist's Union.
Now here comes the interesting part: Bruno Carvalho is a contributor for @cnnportugal. On their website, you can see various video reports from Bruno with titles like ...
9/17
... "It's very difficult to justify a narrative that says it's the Russians who are bombing themselves" and "I counted at least 50 rockets in this zone alone: this is the result of hours of consecutive attacks in Donetsk". You know, variations of the "genocide in Donbas"...
10/17
... narrative that Russia has been pushing since 2014. It is necessary to have reports from both sides of the conflict, but the other side shouldn't be covered by "journalists" who have no respect towards journalistic ethics.
11/17
Former MEP Ana Gomes asked the CNN about the issue,but neither @CNN or @cnnportugal responded to her.Carvalho's shared a video of Zelenskyy with subtitles that turned out the be fake. He added a "correction" that suggested that the "opinions are divided" on what Zelenskyy...12/17
...actually said, which of course isn't true. As of today, Bruno's tweet is still available.
Carvalho's been also going on about the Minsk agreement. He's stated that Zelenskyy should've complied with the Minsk agreements instead of pushing for NATO.
13/17
But as many of you know, Russia never complied with the Minsk agreement, either. I'm by no means expert on this topic, but please read this fantastic analysis by @neil_abrams for more information:
Russia has a huge propaganda network in Latin America, and news channels like RT Español and Sputnik Mundo are very popular there. Portuguese is an official language in Brazil, a country with population of over 200 million people.
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Yet it is kind of a "blind spot" for the Western analysts focusing on Russian propaganda and disinformation. "Journalists" like Carvalho have large presence in these areas, and their pro-Russian narratives are often published without any criticism.
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In addition, contributing for a prestigious and well-known brand such as CNN, Bruno's considered as a reliable source of information.
Thank you for the sous-chef @Cbritinha and the rest of the Portuguese team for helping me to prepare this soup.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russian social media personality and vatnik archetype, Mr. G (@Wagnersfamily). He's best-known for sharing the most outrageous Kremlin lies, albeit previously being extremely anti-Putin and Kremlin, even coining the term "vatnik".
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It's worth noting, that G is an extremely irrelevant account and person, but his almost comical descent from an anti-Putin, fully fledged Russian Liberal, to full blown vatnik, who doesn't hesitate to lie and naturally lives outside of Russia, is worth demonstrating.
2/19
In his liberal days G was dedicated to popularizing the vatnik meme. He ran the site together with his friend, and also the @trueVATNIK Twitter account, which went inactive in 2015, but was popular in circles opposed to Putin's imperialist ambitions.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll intoduce an Italian propagandist, Vittorio Nicola Rangeloni. He’s best-known for producing pro-Kremlin propaganda from Donbas for the Italian-speaking audience, and for breaking the Geneve conventions by interviewing prisoners of war.
1/19
Rango grew up in Lecco, Italy. His mother was Russian, and because of this young Vittorio was told about the virtues and wonders of Russkiy Mir and the superiority of the communist system.
2/19
In his early 20s, Rango was yet to discover his role in this world. He enjoyed traveling, and decided to take his humble savings of 3000 EUR to relocate to his dream destination in the newly formed and completely made-up Donetsk People’s Republic.
I've actually noticed this trend on TikTok with our videos - they do relatively well on YouTube, Instagram and X, but fail miserably on CCP's spying app. In the second photo you can see views for our videos, on other platforms these ranged from 500 to 120 000.
"TikTok is more focused on entertainment, dance videos and such" - Well, not really. According to a study, account registered as a 13 year old was quickly served with conflict-related content, and the account quickly delved deep into the conflict rabbit hole.
I decided to do a little non-scientific test: I created an account, used VPN to relocate myself to the US, and just watched what the TikTok algorithm offered me. I didn't like or comment any videos and finished every video that was shown. My age was set to 18.
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At first, the algorithm seemed to show me some of the most popular videos on the platform, mostly consisting of cute animals, comedy and babies.
Then, after 30 or so videos, I was shown this video demonstrating the "superiority" of Chinese kindergartens.
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Then, a few more cute animals and a relatively attractive girl dancing. Then, again video about Chinese kindergartens. This time I wanted to see what happens if I interact with the post, and I liked the video.
In today´s #vatniksoup REBREW, I´ll introduce a Canadian propagandist & social media personality, Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate). He´s best-known for whitewashing al-Assad´s & Russia's war crimes in Syria & for denying Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.
1/24
Maté´s biography reads an awful lot like his collaborator @MaxBlumenthal´s. Another failson of a well-to-do and famous father, in this case, of bestselling Canadian pop psychologist Gabor Maté, Aaron similarly fought a losing struggle to make a career in liberal journalism.
2/24
Maté´s personal life is also a bit weird. Records show he was married to a former NPR reporter named @StarleeKine, yet neither he nor Kine have ever publicly acknowledged their marriage on social media,even at the time it took place. Perhaps this is because it also...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American propagandist and political commentator, Ben Swann (@BenSwann_). He's best-known for spreading conspiracy theories related to 9/11, vaccines & Pizzagate, and for running several Kremlin-funded disinformation channels.
1/20
Homeschooled with nine brothers and sisters, Benny turned out to be a talented young man, earning his Master's degree in history at the age of 16.
He was also working as a youth pastor at his local Baptist church at the age of 15.
2/20
Ben's family was heavily involved in TV, and he also started working for various channels, first as a cameraman and later as an investigative journalist. Eventually he launched his own news segment called Reality Check, in which he promoted libertarian views and Ron Paul.
In today's #vatniksoup REBREW, I'll introduce an American propagandist and social media personality, Max Blumenthal (@maxblumenthal). He's best-known for his great admiration towards authoritarian regimes, and for launching the fake news blog @TheGrayZoneNews.
1/24
Max started his career as a fairly mainstream left-wing journalist, publishing in the New York Times and elsewhere. His father Sydney is a former journalist and distinguished adviser to former US President Bill Clinton. He's an intimate associate to both Bill and Hillary.
2/24
Blumenthal Senior stood a good chance of entering the White House again in 2017, had the presidential election in November 2016 gone a different way. As we know, Russia intervened in that election in every way possible to help Donald Trump win: