In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russian politician and economist, Sergey Glazyev. He's best-known for his long career in Russian politics, and for his leaked phone calls in regard to Russian meddling in Ukraine before, during and after the Revolution of Dignity.
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Sergey was born in Zaporizhzhia, in the Ukrainian SSR. His father was Russian & mother Ukrainian. After getting his doctorate from the Moscow State University,he entered government service becoming the First Deputy Minister of External Economic Relations under Yegor Gaidar.
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Gaidar was best-known for his economic reform known as "shock therapy" - with the help of US economists, Gaidar and his posse tried to transform the Soviet system into free market capitalism overnight. It was a disaster for everyone except the oligarchs and organized crime.
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Glazyev was elected to State Duma in 1993, collaborating with now-eunuch Dmitry Rogozin. He was also involved in the short-lived nationalist party, the Congress of Russian Communities, whose main function was to work as a fake opposition for Boris Yeltsin.
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He also ran for President in 2004, gaining 4,1% of the total vote. In 2007, Sergey announced that he'd leave Russian politics, arguing that Putin's authoritarianism had killed all opposition in the country, only to come back after Putin appointed him as a presidential aide.
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In Mar, 2014 Sergey stated that the "entire crisis in Ukraine was orchestrated, provoked, and financed by American institutions in cooperation with their European partners," continuing that these institutions financed and trained the Ukrainian neo-Nazi movement.
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A year before, in 2013, he called Ukraine's collective will to integrate into the EU as a "some kind of sick self-delusion". He called former President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, a Nazi, stating that he was elected illegitimately.
As is tradition in Russia,...
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..he said that "this Nazi government is bombing the largest region in Ukraine [referring to Donbas]". In Aug 2017, he claimed that Ukraine is "occupied territory", with only "servicemen of American aggressors" who receive instructions and funding from the American embassy.
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But this is all basic level State Duma member/Kremlin propagandist rhetoric, what makes Glazyev different from others? In 2016 Ukrainian authorities published phone calls intercepted by the SBU between Glaziev and people who were directly involved in the pro-Russian...
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...demonstrations in various cities around Ukraine, including Odessa and Kharkiv in 2014. As the Surkov leaks of 2016 provided evidence for the Russian meddling in the Donbas in 2014 and after, the Glazyev tapes proved it in various other areas.
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Based on these leaks, Russia was planning to invade the so-called Novorossiya, consisting of large Ukrainian regions in the east and in the south of Ukraine, thus creating a land bridge to Crimea.
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In the phone calls, Glazyev instructed the pro-Russian agents on how to increase the impact of the riots and how to eventually occupy administration buildings. He also instructed these agents on receiving funding for the insurrections.
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From his phone call to "Prime Minister of Crimea", Sergey Aksyonov, we get a general idea how the process goes: throw out the "Banderovtsy" (Neo-Nazis) from the building council, gather executive authority and appeal Mr Putin for assistance against the "evil Nazis".
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In the calls he also states that the riots must look as if they were grassroots with local residents as the main actors despite the funding coming from Russia. The leaks also offer damning evidence against Glazyev on so called 2014 Odessa clashes, in which 46 pro-Russian...
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...and 2 pro-Ukrainian people died, and which pro-Russian propagandists like Aaron Maté have occasionally used as an evidence against "Ukrainian neo-Nazis". A call between State Duma member Konstantin Zatulin and Glazyev proved that Russia funded the riots both in ...
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...Kharkiv and in Odessa. They also talk about Crimea, complaining how some pro-Russian politicians didn't show up to a demonstration. Glazyev commented on the situation as follows: "Holy fuck. We fed them for so long". Glazyev also funded the Cossacks, a pro-Russian ...
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...militant group for partaking the riots in Crimea. Glazyev also talked about a "woman who will be buried soon." She had died during the riots, and he wanted to turn her funeral into a propaganda piece: "This has to all be done properly in the propaganda sense. So they...
17/24
..will be heroes and so on. So that people would be there.This event is very important."In one of the phone calls,Glazyev also referred to a certain "Slava",extremely likely referring to Vladislav Surkov who developed the strategic plan for the annexation of Crimea & Donbas.18/24
In another call between Glazyev and Zatulin, they plan to create a pro-Russian Automaidan - a motorized response to the Ukrainian Automaidan movement. For this, they asked "the Surgeon", the founder of the biker club "Night Wolves" for assistance. Sergey also calls ...
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.."the Surgeon" to help them with Zaporizhzhia:" The key city which needs support in Zaporizhzhia. Because without Zaporizhzhia,Crimea won’t survive, it’s not viable." Under Ukrainian control, Crimea got its energy and water from the mainland.
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So, there it is: the Russian plan to steal a large chunk of Ukraine to create a land bridge between Russia and Crimea, to capture Odessa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, the Donbas... and all this revealed to us already back in 2016.
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The plan can of course be originated way back to the end of the 90's, when Alexander Dugin laid the plans in his 1997 book Foundations of Geopolitics.
Recently Glazyev has become a prominent figure again, pushing for the BRICS collaboration and the abandonment of the USD.
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He's also commented on the collapse of the ruble, basically saying that the Central Bank of Russia knows what they're doing. But in regard to economic issues, how much trust should one put on a guy who was one of the leaders of the Russian "shock therapy" in the early...
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...1990s, leading to the total collapse of the country's economic system?
In Mar 2014, right after the Russian annexation of Crimea, Glazyev became one of the first people to be sanctioned by the US.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I talk about populism. Populism includes a range of political stances with the focus on the idea of the “common people” in opposition to the “elites”. In recent decades, populism has been on the rise around the world,and especially in the US & Europe.
1/25
At its core, populism pits “the people” against “the elites.” It’s a political approach that claims to represent the common folk, often oversimplifying complex issues and tapping into frustrations. Populism can be left-wing, right-wing, or somewhere in between.
2/25
In the US and Canada during the 19th and early 20th century, populist sentiments often came from the small independent farmers, “the people”, who were opposing the bankers and politicians, or “the elites”. The People’s Party in the US was considered…
In today’s vatnik soup, I’ll discuss how Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania cut the cord on Russian energy, further reducing their reliance on the Kremlin.
At the same time, the Baltics set an example for EU countries like Slovakia & Hungary whose leadership still worships Putin.
1/24
Moscow has long used its vast natural gas reserves as a geopolitical weapon, manipulating energy supplies to keep neighbors obedient. They’ve used the “energy weapon” several times, with the most blatant cases of Kremlin blackmail coming of course from Ukraine.
2/24
Let’s rewind back to the 1990s: The USSR dissolved, but Russia inherited the gas reserves, pipelines, and Gazprom — its political weapon. Meanwhile, the Baltic states were politically free but economically tied to Russia, heavily reliant on Russian gas.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an Estonian politician, Jana Toom (@JanaToomEE). She’s best-known for promoting pro-Kremlin viewpoints both in domestic Estonian politics and in the European Parliament.
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Toom’s mother, Margarita Chernogorova, studied law in Leningrad & worked for the Communist Party. She was also a confidant to the most notorious leader of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, Karl Vaino. One of Chernogorova’s tasks was to suppress the Singing Revolution.
2/22
During the early 90s Toom lived with her husband in Snezhinsk, Russia and returned to Estonia in 1994. Soon after, she joined the editorial board of Molodyož Estonii, a paper known for being a mouthpiece for the Leninist Communist Youth League during the Soviet era.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Kremlin’s toolbox at sea. Recently, we have seen several sabotage operations allegedly conducted by Russia & its allies, especially in the Baltic Sea region. Since 2023, there have been several underwater cables cut by ships’ anchors.
1/18
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,the Baltic Sea has become a hotspot for NATO-Russia rivalry. This rivalry ramped up in Sep 2022,when the Nord Stream gas pipelines were sabotaged by an unknown perpetrator (some blame a “pro-Ukraine group”, others, the Russians).
2/18
These sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea now target critical infrastructure like Internet and energy cables, links that are vital for European communication and trade. Russia and its allies allegedly use these acts to test NATO’s resilience and response.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the absolute state of X in January 2025. Since its acquisition by Elon Musk, this platform has rapidly transformed into his personal political tool and a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation.
1/22
Not everyone is following this shitshow as closely as I am, so I thought it would be good to write a summary of all the changes that have happened on this forum and outside of it. These changes have drastically changed how the platform operates and who gets “a voice” here.
2/22
Elon’s team has been tweaking the algorithm many times after the takeover. One of these tweaks happened already around Nov 2022, when the platform heavily suppressed the visibility of pro-Ukraine accounts. This change was then noticed & reported by many pro-Ukraine accounts.
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