Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Mar 4, 2023 25 tweets 13 min read Read on X
In today's #vatnik soup, I'll introduce a Spanish writer, colonel and attention-seeker,Pedro Baños. He's best-known for his takes on "geostrategy" (his Twitter handle is @geoestratego), for his hate on "Anglo-Saxon" world and for his long-lasting, low-key support for Russia.
1/24 Image
Baños started his long military career in the early 80's, and he was even the head of Counterintelligence and Security of the European Army in Strasbourg during the early 2000's. In 2017 he published a book called "Así se domina el mundo" ("How They Rule The World").

2/24 Image
The book focuses on the idea that world is ruled via realpolitik, a system of politics based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations. British writer Jeremy Duns compared the Spanish and English versions of the book, and noticed that Baños had deleted...

3/24 Image
...around 30000 words from the English version. In these deleted passages,Baños had referred to the Jewish Rothschild family in connection with the antisemitic fabricated text and conspiracy theory called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in Russia in 1903.4/24 Image
In the TV show "Cuarto Milenio" he flirted with the idea that the Rothschilds together with Israel were behind the JFK assassination. Still back in Jan, 2022, he claimed in a YouTube show that the world was in the hands of "ten-twelve families who run everything".

5/24 Image
Back in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, Baños condemned the attack and called it a "Pyrrhic victory" for Putin. His views on both Russia and the US apparently changed around 2014, after the Russians annexed Crimea and started their false flag operation in Donbas.

6/24
After the shoot down of MH17, he suggested on an interview on RT that, according to "alternative sources", it might have been shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet.

7/24 Image
During the Syrian War, Pedro accused the US and president Obama of "imprisoning Russia through NATO". He also supported the Russian version of the Douma chemical attack, denying the use of chemical weapons by the al-Assad regime. A year later his stance on this battle of...

8/24 ImageImage
...empires became even more evident, when he wrote an article for the Spanish military publication "Ejército", praising Putin's ambitions to return Russia to its "former glory". Baños stated that the EU's sanctions to annexation of Crimea was an "unnecessary mistake".

9/24 Image
In Jun, 2018, he was going to be appointed as the director of National Security of Spain, but the nomination was contested by Partido Popular and Ciudadanos parties due to Pedro's "public positions in favor of the Kremlin", and he was never chosen for the job.

10/24 Image
Spanish political analyst and political scientist José Ignacio Torreblanca (@jitorreblanca) went as far as comparing him to Michael Flynn, a US general with solid pro-Russian connections and who also believes in various conspiracy theories.

11/24 ImageImage
Baños also downplayed the Russian interference during the 2017 Catalonia referendum, blaming the journalist, Nicolás de Pedro (@nicolasdepedro), who wrote about the incident to be employed by a "fake think tank" funded by the British secret service MI6.

12/24 ImageImage
NYT had earlier uncovered that the group calling for the independence met with FSB colonels and that even the infamous GRU unit 29155, a group best-known for the Salisbury poisonings, was somehow meddling with the independence process.

13/24 Image
In Nov, 2021, when Russia was gathering its troops along the Ukrainian border, Pedro called those who warned about the invasion "warmongers". When Zelensky was preparing Ukraine for war, Baños called it a ruse, "steering away the attention from internal politics".

14/24 Image
Baños spent the months before the invasion on mocking analysts who were warning about it. In Apr, 2022, he said in an interview that "providing weapons to Ukraine is not the right way". In another interview he predicted that "hundreds of thousands could die of cold" in...

15/24 ImageImage
...wintertime due to the sanctions on Russia. Pedro's comments haven't gone unnoticed in the Spanish media: an article by Julio Valdeón (@JulioValdeon) on El Mundo explicitly accused Baños of being paid by the Kremlin.

16/24 ImageImage
Lately Baños has been going around every possible TV show, touting about classic Kremlin propaganda like Ukrainian biolabs and COVID-19 being a US experiment.

17/24
It is rather alarming when colonels and "geostrategists" mix conspiracy theories and strong anti-US and NATO rhetoric with geopolitical views. His fandom for Putin & his regime has been evident on many occasions, and even though he has condemned Russia's illegal invasion,...18/24 ImageImage
... he keeps on promoting the "mistakes of the Anglo-Saxons", barely mentioning the genocidal events conducted by Russia in Ukraine.

Baños seems to love attention and being in the spotlight. I mean, the man is 63 and has an active TikTok account.

19/24 Image
He also attempts to control the narrative: after I announced that I'm looking for help in translating Spanish for project "Pedro Baños", he immediately went into damage control mode, even suggesting that there's a "disinformation campaign" against him, and that #NAFO...

20/24 Image
...mostly consists of bots. He claimed that this campaign is organized from Finland, and his friend, claiming to be "digital analyst", continued that it this might cost "as much as 10 000 EUR" each month.

21/24
Why is Baños doing this? For money and fame, of course. Since he lost his cozy job in the military, he now somehow has to stay relevant, which is why he makes silly TikToks, spreads conspiracy theories on populist TV shows and blames people for plotting against him.

22/24
So, @geoestratego, here's a litmus test: Let us know what you think of the massacres in Bucha and Izium, tell us how you feel about the FSB-organized kid's torture chambers in Kherson, please enlighten us with your thoughts on the mass bombings of civilian targets,...

23/24 ImageImageImage
...conducted by the Russian troops. This would be the moment to truly condemn Russia's war atrocities and illegal invasion.

This thread will be published also in Spanish in the near future. Thank you for the sous-chef @Victor_Vas_Her for helping me to deliver this soup.

24/24 Image
Support my work (and get some AI art!): buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi

Past soups: vatniksoup.com
Related soups:
Michael Flynn:

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Pekka Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

Dec 20
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 Image
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
Read 24 tweets
Dec 4
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 Image
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…

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets
Nov 29
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 Image
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 Image
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.

3/25 Image
Image
Read 26 tweets
Nov 28
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 Image
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 Image
..“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 Image
Image
Read 22 tweets
Nov 11
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 Image
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 Image
..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 Image
Image
Image
Read 20 tweets
Nov 7
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 Image
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 Image
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.

3/17 Image
Read 18 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(