In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American propagandist and podcaster, Donbass Devushka. She's best-known for her fake Russian identity, for her pro-Russian podcast, and for spreading false, pro-Russian narratives on social media.
1/23
Donbass Devushka wasn't always working under this pseudonym - during the summer of 2022, her alias was Mila Medvedev or @LuganskforLife (and also CheburekiVibes, MeatballSubZero, YuGopnik, GhostofLugansk).
2/23
While active under this account, she's posted several photos of herself, and confirmed working also under the pseudonym "Donbass Devushka" through a link to her post on Patreon.
3/23
In the past, she's stated that she's a "poor woman from Luhansk", but she's actually just a regular Yankee girl, living in Oak Harbor, Washington. She's originally from New Jersey and was married from 2011 until 2021.
4/23
Perhaps as an attempt to become more credible, she's changed her real name to a Russian sounding one at the end of Mar 2023.
5/23
Before she was working for a shop that sold tropical fish, but after the war started, she must've smelled a good niche for making some extra money, and started creating pro-Russian propaganda on various social media channels.
6/23
The Donbass Devushka YouTube channel was created in Jul, 2022, and @LuganskforLife Twitter account followed after one month. The YouTube channel is actually a collective of various people doing interviews and podcasts, and boy oh boy, do these interviews stink of vatnik.
7/23
Her Telegram channel was also one of the first places where the doctored leaks of Jack Teixeira were detected. These fakes had decreased Russian military losses drastically, while the Ukrainian ones were increased.
8/23
Many of them have been covered in earlier #vatniksoup threads, including Jackson "Z" Hinkle, Eva Bartlett, Scott Ritter and Gonzalo Lira. In these podcasts, "Devushka" fakes a terrible Russian accent, which she forgets to do every now and then.
9/23
The contents of the podcast are exactly as you'd imagine, full of BS like "Ukrainian Nazis", bioweapons labs, multipolar world, praise of Putin, mockery of the West, NATO and Joe Biden... basic vatnikology 101.
10/23
But there's nothing new in people ditching their old life and becoming propagandists for dirty Russian money, it's happened with people like Z-Hinkle, Mike "iEarlGrey" Jones, Karin Kneissl... in these circles, Devushka is still just a nobody. But what is much more...
11/23
...interesting in this case, is how her real identity was discovered. The whole operation was conducted by Shiba Inu unit of the #NAFO battallion. The identity of Devushka had been under scrutiny for long time, and finally they could piece the whole thing together to ...
12/23
...find out her real identity as a Jersey girl. The group noticed that some trolls had trolled Devushka's account by calling her by her real name. They then found out that she was married before, and found old photos of her from Facebook.
13/23
With this information, they identified her home address, and compared photos from her social media accounts to other open source images of her alleged address - and they matched. They even managed to get a confirmation through a reflection from the sunglasses she was ...
14/23
...wearing, and from the color of the wall paint her house has. Then they tracked her marriage certificate to find her birth date, and it matched with the one she posted on her Telegram channel.
15/23
Finally, they obtained a video of her working for the tropical fish joint and matched her voice to Devushka's, just without the fake Russian accent.
16/23
Of course this tactical unit also looked into her family tree: she's stated that in addition to being Russian, she's also Jewish. By referring to her Jewish heritage, she had a free pass to criticize Jews for pretty much everything (which is exactly what she did).
17/23
But of course there was neither Russian or Jewish blood in her, which was proved by looking at her parent's names in her marriage certificate.
18/23
So, one of the biggest pro-Russian disinformation and propaganda pushers online claimed to be a Russian-Jew from Luhansk, but actually turned out to be a divorced, middle-aged woman from Jersey. But that's not all: there's still the money she's been collecting through...
19/23
...various donation channels. On her TG channel, she's stated that all the funds go towards charity, for example to Mariupol, and to "Donbassian refugees in Rostov". For collecting donations, Devushka used several channels, including BuyMeACoffee, crypto wallets and Locals.
20/23
She's also collaborated with Rybar, a Russian news outlet focusing on military analysis also connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Now here's a problem that Devushka might be facing: Russia is heavily sanctioned, and in case to fundraising efforts were real, she's potentially...21/23
...violated them. If they weren't then it's a regular fraud.The Shiba Inus also checked her crypto wallets,and noticed that they had received funds on several occasions, but there were no traces of money being sent out. Based on this evidence, I'd go with the 'fraud' option.22/23
As of today, Donbass Devushka's account @PelmeniPusha has been suspended.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Vincent Bolloré, a French billionaire and media tycoon. He’s best known for building a powerful media empire and for reshaping editorial lines across French media and publishing, pushing them toward far-right and pro-Kremlin positions.
1/25
Born in 1952 in Boulogne-Billancourt to a family of industrialists, Vincent studied law at Paris Nanterre University. He took over the family business and turned it into a sprawling conglomerate spanning logistics, port infrastructure in Africa, advertising, and media.
2/25
Bolloré’s African logistics empire also became the subject of a long-running corruption investigation in France. Legal proceedings against Vincent Bolloré personally are still ongoing, with a trial planned in December, after a judge refused to approve a plea deal.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American conspiracy theorist, podcaster & antisemite, Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO). She’s best known for spreading conspiracy theories, attacking Ukraine, promoting pro-Kremlin BS, and becoming a favorite of Russian state media.
1/21
Candace started her career as an intern at Vogue magazine but later moved into political commentary. Her early career focused on criticizing Republicans, calling their antics “bat-shit crazy.” In 2016, her blog even published an article about Trump’s penis size.
2/21
That same year, she launched a doxxing website called SocialAutopsy. In response, people began posting Owens’s personal information online. During the controversy, she gained support from figures such as @Nero and @Cernovich. And just like that, she became a conservative.
In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.
1/20
Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.
The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.
2/20
Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce Russian propaganda operations around military targets like Starobilsk. For over a decade, the Kremlin has used similar strategies, combining crisis actors, “independent journalists” and fabricated evidence.
1/13
First, let’s go back to 2014. Russia funded separatist groups and sent its mercenaries to Donbas, which led to the creation of two puppet states, Donetsk and Luhansk, governed by Russian propagandists and soldiers like Igor Girkin.
The fake genocide was touted as one of the main reasons for Russia’s war during the early stages of the full-scale invasion, and the claim was made even by Putin himself. Before his mutiny, late Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said that all this was fabricated bullshit.
In this 9th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss “legitimate military targets”. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, with no declaration of war, hiding behind a “special military operation”. Yet vatniks & useful idiots pretend Russia has any legitimate or lawful targets in Ukraine.
1/8
Russia started the war in 2014 by seizing Crimea with unmarked soldiers, “little green men”. Russians have been waging an undeclared, illegal war with endless war crimes ever since, whether it’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children with genocidal intent…
… the concentration camps for Ukrainians under occupation, conscripting Ukrainians from occupied territories, or the terrorist, deliberate bombing of civilians, including their infamous “double tap” strikes.
So no, Russia does not have any “legitimate targets” in Ukraine.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer and millionaire. He’s best known for his champagne socialism, rabid criticism of the US and Israel, support for the Soviet Union and for Chinese and Russian invasions, and for mistreating his dog.
1/20
Born in 1991, Piker grew up in a privileged and well-connected environment. His father held senior roles at big corporations and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, is the founder of The Young Turks media network. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers, a top-tier university in New Jersey.
2/20
His main activity and primary source of income consists of hours-long livestreams on Twitch where he comments on news and yells at videos. He also keeps his dog in place the whole time with a shock collar.