In today's #vatnik soup I'll talk about children, and especially the children of the Russian propagandists and politicians. It seems that the Kremlin-elite doesn't want to send their children to fight in Ukraine, but rather provide them with Western luxuries and education.
1/18
I have previously written about Kremlin folk who often criticize the West while vacationing on various European hotspots. Some of these include the Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, Timur Ivanov and his wife, and the press secretary for Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov.
2/18
In the midst of the Russian mobilization and the Great Exodus, Putin called those who leave Russia and turn to the West "scum and traitors to their homeland". The "We all must do our part" rhetoric has been constantly parroted in the Russian media,...
3/18
...and everyone who avoids their duty to the "Fatherland" is a coward. In Mar, 2022, he said that "they [the West] will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors. To those who earn their money here, but live there".
4/18
Of course there is also the narrative about the "decadent West", where traditional values are forgotten and children's parents are called simply Parent 1 and Parent 2. In this story, homosexuality and pedophilia are rampant in the West and religious values...
5/18
...have been forgotten a long time ago. Nevertheless, it seems that the Russian elite want to join the unholy bacchanals in the West, and even send their kids to learn about these twisted values!
Let's go through some notable examples:
6/18
This is Polina Kovaleva, Sergei Lavrov's stepdaughter. Polina loved spending time at the now-seized Deripaska's mansion in Porto Cervo. Somehow, at the age of 21, she had the money to buy an apartment from Londongrad with a price tag of 4,4 million pounds, with cash.
7/18
Maria Pevchikh (@pevchikh) has called Polina's Instagram feed as a "non-stop holiday". Due to the attention she got, her Instagram account has been turned to private, but there's no doubt she's still vacationing somewhere around the world.Kovaleva was sanctioned in Mar, 2022.8/18
This is Jelizaveta Peskova,daughter of Dmitri Peskov. While Ukrainian civilians, including children,are bombed and tortured in places like Kherson,Peskova is posting pictures & videos from various luxurious locations in Europe. She also seems to enjoy the "Western decadence".9/18
As a child, she attended the Ecole des Roches, a boarding school whose fees would've taken up most of Dmitry Peskov's official salary. Later she interned for Louis Vuitton and completed a marketing degree from a French Business School.
10/18
To be fair, she's been vocal about the war, saying that "for me, it's totally unfair and unfounded". This comment came after she was sanctioned in Mar, 2022. On the day of the full-scale invasion, she posted the words "No to war" on her Instagram page, a crime that...
11/18
...could put her behind the bars for 15 years when (if) she goes back to Russia - it'll be interesting to see what happens.
And it doesn't end there: Lavrov's other daughter, Yekaterina, studied in the US, State Duma's Deputy Speaker Sergei Zheleznyak's three daughters...
12/18
...study in Switzerland and in Britain, Putin's close confidant, Vladimir Yakunin's children and grandchildren also lived in Switzerland and in the UK, and Russian politician Yelena Mizulina's son lives in the US. Pavel Astakhov, ...
13/18
...a politician who is best-known for advocating the ban on the adoption of Russian children by foreigners, has a son who was also studying abroad. Sergei Lisovsky's son hold the citizenship of a NATO state. Lisovsky is an open supporter of the Russo-Ukrainian War and...
14/18
...one of the main suspects in the murder of journalist Vladislav Listiev. Alexei Cepa, a State Duma member who constantly criticizes the West, doesn't mind that his son runs a company in Spain and owns a villa in Marbella.
15/18
His daughter Anastasia lives in the UK and is beneficiary in a company that sells "luxury clothes and accessories".
Master propagandist Vladimir Solovyov's son used to study in London. He was recently accused of "draft-dodging" by living and modeling in London, but the...
16/18
...images that were shared were actually taken by a Russian model agency, Contora.
Even Putin's daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, has lived in Europe with his husband Igor Zelensky, flying more than 50 times between Moscow and Munich in a time period of just one year.
17/18
While Ukrainians die en masse, these hypocrites keep on living a life of luxury as usual. Recently they've relocated to Dubai.
As the late Russian General Alexander Lebed said: "Let me recruit a platoon of the children of the elite, and the war will be over in a day."
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce a Latvian politician and former MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka. She’s best-known for her history in the Communist Party of Latvia, for her pro-Russian politics in the country, and her connections to Russian intelligence.
1/22
Based on Ždanoka’s speeches and social media posts, she has a deep hatred towards the people of Latvia. The reason for this can only be speculated, but part of it could be due to her paternal family being killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police,…
2/22
…a paramilitary force supported by the Nazis, during the early 1940s. Ždanoka became politically active in the late 80s. She was one of the leaders of Interfront, a political party that supported Latvia remaining part of the USSR.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the main themes of Russian disinformation on TikTok. Each day, there are thousands of new videos promoting pro-Kremlin narratives and propaganda.
It’s worth noting that Russians can only access European TikTok via VPN.
1/10
There is currently a massive TikTok campaign aimed at promoting a positive image of Russia. The videos typically feature relatively attractive young women and focus on themes of nationalism and cultural heritage.
2/10
Ironically, many of these videos from Moscow or St. Petersburg are deceptively edited to portray Ukraine in a false light — claiming there is no war and that international aid is being funneled to corrupt elites.
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.
1/16
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.
2/16
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.
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,…
2/20
…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.
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.
1/20
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.
2/20
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.”
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.
1/20
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.
2/20
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.