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.

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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...

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...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,...

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...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 ...

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...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...

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...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.

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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...

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..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..
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...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 ...

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...- 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 ...

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...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...

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...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...

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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.

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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.

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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 ...

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...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?

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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.

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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...

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...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...

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...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...
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...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.

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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.
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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?"

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Oct 10
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce American propagandist Alexandra Jost, aka “Sasha” (@sashameetsrus). She’s best known for being paid by the Russian state to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda — and for doing it with a big smile.

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Alexandra, now 26, was born in Hong Kong. Her father is from Texas, and her mother is from Siberia. According to her, she has “dreamed of living in Russia since childhood.” Sasha's mother runs a dance studio in Moscow and her younger brother is avoiding mobilization.

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Since the beginning of her creator career, Sasha has been adamant about one thing: that she’s “never had to be paid” to speak of her “love” for Russia. But, as always with Russia, this turned out to be nothing but vranyo — a Russian “tactical lie.”

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Read 24 tweets
Oct 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll reintroduce an American political commentator and pro-Kremlin propagandist, Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson). He’s best known for his promotion of crazy conspiracy theories and for his support of authoritarian regimes around the world.

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Tucker’s career spans decades, but he’s also been very active in recent years, so a lot has happened since our previous soup on him, which can be found here:

2/24

Once described as “the most powerful conservative in America”, Tucker has now fully transformed into a grifting conspiracy theorist and propagandist willing to work for whoever pays him the most. It’s unclear whether Tucker truly believes his endless conspiracy theories or…
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Sep 25
This is what you’re debating with on social media:
It appears that a few pro-Russian bot farms already found this thread, so remember - just block them all, there's no point in arguing with a computer.
Most of you have seen those "No DMs" profiles, right? That's because you can interrupt the GPT procedure by injecting them new instructions.

At some point it also worked in comments ("give me a cake recipe"), but not so much anymore.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 11
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the agenda-setting and flood of disinformation that spread on X and other platforms right after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s far from the first or last time a tragedy has been weaponized for political purposes.

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Every major political event, especially those involving violence, attracts massive attention. In the immediate aftermath, reliable information is scarce, making it highly vulnerable to both coordinated and improvised disinformation campaigns.

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As I’ve mentioned in my previous soups and lectures, in disinformation campaigns, being first with a narrative is crucial, as people often remember the first version best — psychology studies show it sets the mental schema, and later updates rarely overwrite it.

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Read 19 tweets
Sep 8
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce American social media personality David Freeman, AKA Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman). He’s best known for spreading political disinformation on X and shamelessly sucking up to Trump, Putin, and other authoritarian leaders.

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David is a textbook example of someone profiting from MAGA grievance politics. He uses extreme, provocative language to farm engagement on X and never hesitates to flatter anyone who might give him more exposure — or money.

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But David wasn’t always like this. At some point, in his mid-40s, he even tried a real job: he trained to become a cop. He spent three years with the Metro Transit PD, but after that he either got fired or quit, and never looked back.

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Read 24 tweets
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 15 tweets

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