Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Feb 19, 2023 16 tweets 10 min read Read on X
In today's #vatnik soup I'll tell the tragicomedic saga of a Finnish political party, Valta Kuuluu Kansalle ("Power to the People"; VKK). It is one of the two parties with pro-Russian stances (the other is Vapauden liitto, "The League for Freedom").

1/15
Most of the people involved in these parties were ridiculed even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but after Feb, 2022, after they've come out with their true pro-Russian colors, they are basically the laughingstock of the whole country.

2/15
This we can attribute to three things: 1) high level of digital literacy in education, 2) our recent history and wars we had with the Soviet Union, and 3) these people are generally simpletons whose projects will almost always implode because of internal conflicts.

3/15
VKK actually has a member in the Finnish Parliament at the moment: Ano Turtiainen. Turtiainen was elected to the Parliament from the True Finns party, but was discharged from the party after sharing a racist meme. Initially VKK had only one promoted theme, he fought...

4/15
...against the COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other restriction, but later Ano started praising Russia and emphasizing the importance of collaboration between Finland and Russia. In addition, the party members have promoted "anti-globalist" and euro-skeptic views and ...

5/15
... many leading figures in the party have also spread the "Great Reset" conspiracy theory. Turtiainen also focuses on religious rhetoric and often speaks of the "end times".

6/15
VKK's roster has been ever-changing & there's been a lot of internal conflicts inside the party. Antivaxers Ossi Tiihonen (@OssiTiihonen), Heli Rämäkkö (@heliramax) and Cia Grönberg (@cia_kirsikka) left the party after Ano started touting his pro-Russian and religious views.
7/15
Tiihonen was previously discharged from True Finns for his antivax views. They became the leadership of the before-mentioned Vapauden Liitto.

In Feb, 2023, the party's first vice-chairman Ilkka Tiainen (@IkeNovikoff) tried to set up a coup by defaming Ano to get him...

8/15
...discharged, but failed miserably. Tiainen, Suvi Ahonen and Jarno Vähäkainu left the party. Tiainen is best-known for starting a pro-Russian TV channel, Posi TV. It's been since closed for lack of financing. Suvi Ahonen has started Fixit, Finnish version of Brexit, ...

9/15
... and Vähäkainu is best-known for taking secretly photos of a female MP in the Parliament cafeteria and sharing them on social media.

Like Stalin, Turtiainen solidified his power in the party by appointing his wife and his appeasers in the party's board of directors.

10/15
He also appointed Nico Giansanti as first vice-chairman. Giansanti is one of the hosts of the LEVELI podcast, a show which focuses on conspiracy theories, mysticism and "antiglobalism". Giansanti is good friend of a Finnish "independent journalist", Janus Putkonen.

11/15
Giansanti (@ReaverTeknoGods) received Bitcoin from his co-worker after which he left his job as a software developer and tried to became a prestigious figure, living lavish life, publishing awful music, sharing his "wealth" and joining some ridiculous "secret knighthoods".

12/15
Nobody really cares (or knows) about the political profile of VKK. As I mentioned, they are mostly ridiculed both in media and in social media. Of course we will have similar political coalitions in the future, too, and in some countries they will prevail.

13/15
Viktor Orban, Robert Fico, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini are just a few examples of politicians who are appeasing or are closely connected to Putin's regime and who have thrived in national politics.

14/15
Of course the difference between the VKK folk and these politicians is, that the latter group has had a lot of funding from Russia. But if we give these people and parties too much power, they will try and take over and reign in a kleptocratic manner - just like Putin.

15/15

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jun 8
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about Finland and how pro-Kremlin propagandists have become more active in the Finnish political space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time since 2022, they’ve gained some political power in Finland.

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Russia’s political strategy in countries with Russian-speaking minorities (such as Finland and the Baltics) is typically quite similar: it seeks to rally these minorities around issues like language and minority rights, and then frames the situation as oppression.

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At the same time, Russian speakers are extremely wary and skeptical of local media, and instead tend to follow Russian domestic outlets like Russia-1 and NTV, thereby reinforcing an almost impenetrable information bubble.

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Read 17 tweets
Jun 2
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Ukrainian SBU’s “Spiderweb” operation and the main disinformation narrative vatniks have been spreading during the afterfall. While domestic Russian media stays silent, the vatniks and Russian milbloggers have been extremely loud.

1/20
This operation was probably the most impactful strike since the drowning of the Moskva, massively reducing Russia’s capability to bomb Ukrainian cities (or anyone else’s). It involved smuggling 117 FPV drones hidden in trucks into Russia. Once near airbases,…

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…the roofs opened remotely, launching drones in synchronized waves to strike targets up to 4,000 km away. The mission took 18 months to plan. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers who transported them had no idea they were delivering weapons deep behind their own lines.

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Read 21 tweets
May 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian movie director, propagandist, and former priest: Ivan Okhlobystin. He’s best known for his strong support for the war on Ukraine and for his radical views, which are often used as a testbed for the domestic Russian audience.

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Ivan was born in 1966 from a short-lived marriage between a 62-year-old chief physician and a 19-year-old engineering student. She later remarried, and the family moved from Kaluga province to Moscow. Ivan kept the surname Okhlobystin from his biological father.

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After moving to Moscow, Ivan began studying at VGIK film school. He soon became a playwright for theatre productions and also wrote for Stolitsa magazine, which he later left because, as he put it, “it had become a brothel.”

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Read 21 tweets
May 22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.

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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.

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As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.

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Read 21 tweets
May 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.

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Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”

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After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.

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Read 24 tweets
May 13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.

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Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.

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Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.

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Read 22 tweets

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