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 #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the Wagner Group, its founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, and the mutiny they started on 23 Jun 2023. The event marked the climax of the Wagner Group–Russian MoD conflict, and finally led to the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin.
1/22
Wagner has been used in many conflicts around the world, but they came to global prominence during the war in Donbas in 2014-2015. Wagnerites helped the Donbas separatists fight against the Ukrainians during the conflict, which helped Putin to “outsource” the insurrection.
2/22
The group doesn’t have any central ideology, but many of its members and leaders have ties to various neo—Nazi movements in Russia. For example, Wagner leader Dmitry Utkin had several Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. Neo—nazi group Rusich has also fights as part of Wagner.
3/22
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an Amsterdam-based propaganda channel, Bonanza Media (@bonanzamedia2). It’s best-known for producing & spreading online pro-Kremlin propaganda videos while closely coordinating & collaborating with the Russian intelligence agency GRU.
1/19
Russian intelligence has been extremely active in the Netherlands for a long time. For example in 2018, four GRU agents were caught while trying to hack into OPCW,an organization that monitors the use of chemical weapons. In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
2/19
…and the MH17 investigation have become targets for the Russian intelligence and propaganda operations. These operations are often complemented with “investigative journalism” media outlets, that often echo the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about the recent EU elections and what are their implications for both the Kremlin and Ukraine. Right-wing political parties, some pro-Kremlin, won a lot of seats around Europe, and this result can also change the EU’s stance on Ukraine.
1/19
But before we start, I want to promote a truck fundraiser I'm doing together with the fantastic @ArturRehi and @69thSB.
Our goal is 20 000 USD, and you can contribute to this important fundraiser here:
EU’s support of Ukraine is essential for their survival against genocidal Russia. So far,this support has been delayed mostly by Orban’s Hungary (& to some degree, Fico’s Slovakia). Now, this support will probably be challenged by many new members of the European Parliament.
3/19
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss a specific propaganda/disinformation that the Kremlin likes to use – antisemitism. I also talk about how the Russian society itself has become riddled with antisemitism & how this has led to a decrease in Jewish population in the country.
1/19
Russian antisemitism works on many levels, and their narratives vary depending whether they’re targeting a local audience or people in Europe and the US. For example for the latter, Russia attempts to create a false narrative of Ukraine being an antisemitic “Nazi state”.
2/19
But before diving deeper, let’s look at a survey data of Russians in 2023: Nearly 30 million Russians harbour antisemitic attitudes, and 15% of those surveyed believed that “Jews were responsible for most of the world’s wars.” 38% think that the Jews have...
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian media personality and propagandist, Diana Panchenko (@Panchenko_X). She’s best-known for betraying her own country by peddling anti-Zelenskyy and anti-Ukraine propaganda and disinformation for the Kremlin.
1/22
Panchenko was born in 1988 in the Mykolaev Oblast in Ukrainian SSR in 1988. She studied publishing and editing at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and later graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in law.
2/22
After graduating, Diana worked briefly for the news site . Between 2010 and 2015, Panchenko was a presenter for KyivTV, but she found her true calling as a pro-Kremlin propagandist after she was hired by a national “news channel” called NewsOne.