In today's #vatnik soup I'll be talking about sport and politics. With the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, there's been a lot of debate on whether Russia and Belarus should be able to compete or not. In this soup I'll explain why they - in my opinion - shouldn't.
1/17
Putin himself has said already back in 2018 that "Russia's committed to principle of ‘politics and sports don’t mix’". Of course we all know that in case of Russia this statement is bullshit, as sports has been used as a propaganda tool since forever.
2/17
Banning of countries from Olympics is not a new thing, and it - in addition to boycotts - has been applied on many occasions throughout the 21st century. For example, 1920 Games in Antwerp banned Austria, Bulgaria, Türkiye, Hungary & Germany due to their involvement in WWI.
3/17
1948 London Games banned Germany and Japan due to their involvement in WW2. Between 1972-1988, South Africa was banned due to their apartheid regime. The ban on South Africa was maintained due to worldwide pressure.
4/17
And then we have Russia, a country that had many of its athletes banned from participating in 2016 Olympics in Rio due to their state-sponsored doping program. For this reason, Russian athletes also couldn't compete under their own name and flag in 2018 PyeongChang ...
5/17
...Olympics, 2020 Tokyo Olympics or in 2022 Beijing Olympics.
A 2015 report by WADA described widespread doping cover-ups with the inclusion of FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. In Nov, 2015, Russia was banned from world track and field events and suspended RUSADA.
6/17
Two former directors of RUSADA, Vyacheslav Sinev and Nikita Kamaev, died under suspicious circumstances, as is tradition in Russia. Kamaev had recently approached a British newspaper, planning to publish a book on systematic doping in Russia since 1987.
7/17
Grigory Rodchenkov, who WADA described as the person who's "the heart of Russian doping", fled to the US and shared his story with filmmaker Bryan Fogel who then made the award-winning documentary, Icarus, on the subject.
8/17
WADA report by Richard McLaren in 2016 showed that Russia's state-run doping program ran on wide range of sports from weightlifting to snowboarding. The report concluded that at it had detected 643 positive samples, but this number is generally considered "only a minimum".
9/17
Russia was thus banned until the end of 2022 from participating as a country, but individuals could still join competitions as independent athletes. But even these bans haven't stopped Putin doing politics through sports.
10/17
In May, 2022, after Russian 15-year old figure skater Kamila Valieva won team gold medal in Beijing 2022, Putin held a press conference where she awarded Valieva with an "Order of Friendship" medal and sang her a song.
11/17
Valieva had previously tested positive for banned substance, trimetazidine, and her gold medal was still pending due to investigations. RUSADA cleared her in Jan, 2023.
Russians have been, and are still competing internationally in various sports.
12/17
For example, the Austrian company Red Bull GmbH sponsors "alternative" athletes. While some of them have toned down their social media activity, many of them are still actively taking part in competitions and promotions around the world.
13/17
National Hockey League (NHL) still allows Russian individuals play as usual. Of these, Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin has supported Putin on several occasions. Most of them have not commented on the war and visit their homes in Russia occasionally.
14/17
Sports is, and always has been a political tool in Russia. Big sports events are a way to divert people's attention from political scandals, corruption and poverty to "Russian achievements". State workers are often forced to participate these events.
15/17
Organizing sports events is also a neat way to funnel money to Putin's friends - Out of the total budget of 50 billion USD, the Rotenbergs, Gennady Timchenko and Vladimir Yakunin were awarded at least 15 billion USD in Sochi contracts.
Russia's sports culture is very similar to their political system: riddled with corruption and cheating.
As the legendary Czech goalkeeper Dominik Hasek put it: "Every athlete represents not only himself and his club, but also his country and its values and actions".
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.
1/23
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).
2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.
It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.
So here’s the latest:
2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.
1/25
Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.
Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
2/25
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1/21
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…
2/21
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
2/17
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.