Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Apr 12, 2023 21 tweets 10 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American politician, conspiracy theorist and businessman, Donald Trump Jr. He's best-known for his dealings with the Russians, and for his work for The Trump Organization and for his father.

1/20
Trump Jr's early life was a wild ride - his parents divorced when he was 12 due to his dad's affair which estranged Don Jr. from his father for a year. After getting his BS, he lived in a truck and worked as a bartender until he returned to work for the Trump Organization.

2/20
It seems that the organization was closely tied to Russian money as early as 2008, when Don Jr. stated that "In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," ...

3/20
...adding that "we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia". Don Jr. has also visited Russia on various occasions. In 2006 he was tour guided by one Felix Sater, a Russian-American gangster, convicted felon, real estate developer and advisor to the Trump Organization.

4/20
In Jun 2016, Don Jr. met with a group of Russians, including Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer best-known for her advocacy against the Magnitsky Act. Named after Sergey Magnitsky, the Magnitsky Act is a bill that allows the sanctioning of foreign government ...

5/20
...officials worldwide when they're involved in human rights offenses. The meeting was set up because the Russians promised "dirt" on Hillary Clinton for the upcoming presidential election. He was also informed that this information was "part of Russia and its government's..
6/20
..support" for Don Jr's father. He also lied about the reason for the meeting, first saying that it was about adoptions of Russian children, but finally admitting that he was there to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was accompanied by Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner.

7/20
In Oct 2016, Don Jr. exchanged messages on Twitter with WikiLeaks, asking about the hacked e-mails of John Podesta, then chairman of the Clinton campaign. WikiLeaks provided them with a link to search these e-mails, which was then publicly shared by Don Jr. In Nov 2017, ...

8/20
...it was revealed that Julian Assange himself had used the WikiLeaks account to talk with Don Jr. During the same month, he also gave a speech at a pro-Russian think tank, known for their nomination of President Putin for the Nobel Peace Prize and calling him a "peacemaker".9/20
He was paid at least 50 000 USD for the gig, and also got a free trip to Paris.

In Mar 2022, Don Jr. tweeted a link to Zero Hedge article about trans women sent to the front lines in Ukraine, stating that "the left has gone all in in support of the white ...

10/20
supremisist [sic] Azof [sic] battalion in Ukraine so apparently they’re flexible?!?"

In Dec 2022, he compared the US spending on Vietnam War vs. the war in Ukraine, claiming that the US had spent the same amount on Ukraine than it did in Vietnam in 14 years.

11/20
The only thing he forgot to mention is, that when you include inflation, the Vietnam expenditure equals 780 billion USD.

In the same month, he also implied that Zelenskyy is "banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church" and that "His government has also been raiding Ukrainian...
12/20
... Orthodox churches and arresting priests". Don Jr. fails to mention that the banned churches are connected to Russia & that these priests are basically spies for the Kremlin. They've also systematically attacked Ukrainian civilians,soldiers & their Ukrainian colleagues.

13/20
When it comes to conspiracy theories, Don Jr. has covered most of them. He's spread conspiracy theories by Alex Jones, promoted the idea that the Clintons had murdered people, that the survivors of a high school shooting were "coached" to propagate anti-Trump rhetoric,...

14/20
...that George Soros was actually a nazi, that the US and Ukraine were developing bioweapons, and that Joe Biden is a pedophile. Naturally, he's spread disinformation on voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election. He's also shared a ton of photoshopped fakes or ...

15/20
...images taken out of a context, so either he's stupid or has an agenda. Actually, I think it's both.

Even at the ripe age of 45, Don Jr. tries to stay on top of his meme game.

16/20
He's posted various unfunny Zelenskyy themed memes, and even joked about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the then United States Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Don Jr has written two books: his first book published in 2019...

17/20


..., called Triggered, focused on criticizing political correctness, and his second book, Liberal Privilege, solely focused on criticizing Joe Biden. Most of the copies were bought by the Republican National Committee...

18/20
...and other conservative associations.

In Apr 2023, he admitted signing a check in the alleged "porn star hush money" scheme involving his father. On 5 Apr 2023, Don Jr. applied some mafia tactics, possibly learned from his old friend Felix Sater, when he shared ...

19/20
...an article with photo of Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter. Merchan is the judge in Don's father's case in NYC.

20/20
Support my work:
Past soups: https://t.co/9k5rQx4cgb

Related soups:
Paul Manafort: https://t.co/hDLSU7H2OM
Russiagate: https://t.co/S4Y1ox9NLS
Conspiracy theories: https://t.co/so2FcfSypybuymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi
vatniksoup.com


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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jun 8
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 17 tweets
Jun 2
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,…

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…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.

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Read 21 tweets
May 28
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.

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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.

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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.”

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Read 21 tweets
May 22
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 21 tweets
May 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.

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Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”

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After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.

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Read 24 tweets
May 13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.

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Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.

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Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.

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Read 22 tweets

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