Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Mar 13, 2023 26 tweets 14 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup and another edition of "You pronounced this nonsense, not me", I'll talk about an event called the Revolution of Dignity AKA Maidan Revolution. It was a wave of demonstrations in Ukraine that took place in 2013 and 2014.

1/24 Image
Many pro-Russian voices, including Russell Brand (@rustyrockets), have said that what happened at Maidan was actually a far-right wing organized coup d'etat - let's see if this argument holds.

First, let's talk about what led to the civil unrest. In Feb, 2013, Verkhovna...

2/24
...Rada, Ukraine's parliament, had overwhelmingly approved (315 of 349 MP's voted "Yes") the implementation of Ukraine's aspirations for European integration and the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. EU then said that this agreement wouldn't be ratified,...

3/24
...unless Ukraine addressed some stark human rights violations, including the imprisonment of opposition figures Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko.

As a countermeasure, Russia imposed some heavy sanctions on Ukraine in Aug, 2013: they stopped all incoming goods from ...

4/24
...Ukraine, which caused Ukraine's export to drop by 1,4 billion USD. This also caused a dramatic drop in Ukraine's industrial production.

On Nov 21, 2013, after extensive propaganda campaigns by the Kremlin, the Ukrainian Government suspended preparations for the EU...

5/24
...agreement and rejected to draft laws that would've released Tymoshenko and Lutsenko, which erupted protests in Kyiv.

Finally, Yanukovych was supposed to sign the agreement at the EU Summit in Vilnius at the end of Nov, 2013, but he didn't, and the protests grew bigger.

6/24
To pour gasoline on the fire, Russians countered the anti-EU stance In Dec, 2013, by offering a 15 billion USD loan (the EU had offered only 838 million USD) and cheaper gas prices if Ukraine wouldn't sign the Association Agreement.

The Euromaidan protest, that would...

7/24
..eventually become the Revolution of Dignity,began on 21 Nov, 2013 as a peaceful demonstration of 1500 people, summoned by a Afghan-Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem (@mefimus).

Only a week later Yanukovych ordered the state riot police,Berkut,to violently disperse the..
8/24
...protest. But a few days later the rioters came back, which resulted in more violence and ultimately to a new anti-protest laws that would make future protests much more difficult.

But this law only agitated the people, and the protests weren't happening only in Kyiv ...

9/24
...- large anti-Yanukovych and pro-EU protests were also seen in other cities around Ukraine,including Lviv, Kharkiv, Ternopil, Sumy, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Mariupol and Luhansk.

Later Yanukovych hired provocateur thugs called Titushky to agitate crowds ...

10/24
...and start fights. Titushky would attend peaceful demonstrations and then would at some point start fights and instigate violence in these crowds. Later during the protests, they started firing, along with Berkut, into protesting crowds with live ammo, beat protesters...

11/24
...with bats and iron pipes and even shot dead a Ukrainian journalist, Vyacheslav Veremiy. For this "work",they received good money - around 100USD per day.

By January the protests had become bigger and more violent, as more and more people defied the draconian...

12/24
anti-protest laws. Feb 18-20, 2014, was the most violent period of the Maidan protests. In just span of few days, almost 100 people were killed as thousands of protesters attempted to storm the Parliament, only to be met with bullets from Berkut snipers.

13/24
Finally on 21 Feb, 2014, Yanukovych and opposition leaders signed an agreement to form an interim government, reduce president's power and impose early elections. The next day, Yanukovych fled to Crimea and two days after that he finally fled to Russia.

14/24
On 27 Feb, after realizing that they could no longer control the revolution, Russians started the annexation of Crimea.

So, were there neo-Nazis at Euromaidan? Yes. Svoboda, Right Sector, Misanthropic Division, Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and UNA-UNSO are all ...

15/24
...such groups, and they were also involved in the violent acts during the protests. If there's an uprising where a nation tries to separate itself from a dictator and from external influence, or where people fight a perceived threat, why wouldn't the nationalist be there?

16/24
But in the grand scheme of things, nationalists were just a small fraction (not more than 15% at different stages of the Revolution) of the protesting population.Often these type of extreme groups are active in violent protesting, as they have hard time getting recognition..17/24
...in politics and feel disenfranchised: for example, in the 2019 elections, they received 2,2% of the total vote.

Were they funded by the US to organize a coup d'etat like Igor Lopatonok's (@lopatonok) and Oliver Stone's "Ukraine on Fire" silly documentary suggests? No.

18/24
Some organization from the US have influenced Ukrainian politics since the Orange Revolution of 2004, but there is no evidence of them funding any kind of coup in Ukraine. Organizations like National Endowment for Democracy and US Agency for International Development...

19/24
...offer support and help in matters like democratic assistance, democracy promotion and civil society support.

Yet, we don't have to be naive here: their ultimate goal is to affect the country's foreign policy, but in my opinion it is better to do it through this...

20/24
...type of peaceful organization than by, as the Russians do, by force and extortion. Propagandists like Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) have grasped at straws, trying to connect prominent US figures like John McCain who supported the protests and briefly met with Svoboda...
21/24
...leader Oleh Tyahnybok, and Victoria Nuland, who "handed out sandwiches to them", to the protests. If meeting rather unimportant actors and giving them sandwiches is the criteria for supporting a coup d'etat, then the bar is set pretty damn low.

22/24
Another "evidence" of US meddling is an intercepted call at the midst of Euromaidan between then-Assistant Secretary of State,Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt,where she tells him who she thinks should run Ukraine and also claims "Fuck the EU".23/24
All this banter is of course normal in private conversations, yet neither of these people have actual influence over who the Ukrainians vote to power. This imperialistic mindset ignores the sovereignty of 🇺🇦 and simply suggests that they can't decide anything by themselves.
24/24
Support my work (and get some AI art!): buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi

Past soups: vatniksoup.com
Related soups:
Russian Nazis:
CORRECTION TO SLIDE 15/24

As neo-Nazis does not equal far-right groups, the first sentence should read:

"So, were there far-right groups at Euromaidan?"

• • •

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

Sep 5
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian-Estonian businessman, Oleg Ossinovski. He is best-known for his deep ties to Russian rail and energy networks, shady cross-border dealings, and for channeling his wealth into Estonian politics.

1/14 Image
Oleg made his fortune via Spacecom Trans & Skinest Rail, both deeply tied to Russia’s rail system. Most of this is through Globaltrans Investments PLC, a Cyprus-based firm with 62% held via Spacecom and tens of millions in yearly profits.

2/14 Image
Image
Ossinovski’s Russian-linked ventures made him Estonia’s richest man in 2014, with an estimated fortune of ~€300M. His business empire stretched across railways, oil via Alexela shares, and Russian bitumen imports from Help-Oil, a supplier to the Defense Ministry.

3/14 Image
Read 15 tweets
Sep 2
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Swiss/French writer, Alain Bonnet, aka Alain Soral (@officielsoral). He’s best known for his rabid antisemitism and for his pathetic support for all the worst authoritarian regimes from Russia to North Korea.

1/22 Image
Alain’s childhood was problematic, as his father has been characterized as a “narcissistic pervert” who beat his children and did jail time for fraud. Alain himself has said he was “programmed to be a monster.” Born Alain Bonnet, he took the stage name of his sister,…

2/22 Image
Image
… actress Agnès Soral. She wasn’t too happy about this, commenting “How would you like to be called Agnès Hitler?”. Like many grifters, he became a pick-up/seduction artist writer, à la late Gonzalo Lira, writing books and even making a B-movie, “Confessions d’un dragueur”.
3/22 Image
Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Aug 18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.

1/24 Image
Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.

2/24 Image
Image
Image
Image
Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

3/24 Image
Image
Read 25 tweets
Aug 11
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.

1/23 Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia
Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.

2/23 Image
One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.

3/23 Image
Read 24 tweets
Aug 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the autocratic concept of “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars”: the idea that the leader is wise and just, but constantly sabotaged by corrupt advisors. This narrative shields the ruler from blame, and it’s used by both Putin and Trump today.

1/20 Image
The phrase “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars” (Царь хороший, бояре плохие), also known as Naïve Monarchism, refers to a long-standing idea in Russian political culture: the ruler is good and benevolent, but his advisors are corrupt, incompetent and responsible for all failures.

2/20 Image
From this perception, any positive action taken by the government is viewed as being an accomplishment of the benevolent leader, whereas any negative one is viewed as being caused by lower-level bureaucrats or “boyars”, without the approval of the leader.

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets
Jul 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.

1/20 Image
On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.

2/20 Image
Image
What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.

3/20 Image
Read 21 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!

:(