Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Apr 15, 2023 25 tweets 14 min read Read on X
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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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...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 ...

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...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.

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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 ...

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...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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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...

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...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.
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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 ImageImage
...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 ImageImageImage
As of today, Donbass Devushka's account @PelmeniPusha has been suspended.

Big thanks to #NAFO for their incredible work.

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CORRECTION: Her account @PeImeniPusha is still active, but the tweets are protected. Also, she's blocked me. :( Image

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jul 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.

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On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.

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What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 27
Let me show you how a Pakistani (or Indian, they're usually the same) AI slop farm/scam operates. The account @designbonsay is a prime example: a relatively attractive, AI-generated profile picture and a ChatGPT-style profile description are the first red flags.

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The profile's posts are just generic engagement farming, usually using AI-generated photos of celebrities or relatively attractive women.

These posts are often emotionally loaded and ask the user to interact with them ("like and share if you agree!").

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Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.

Country code for the phone number is in Pakistan.

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Read 5 tweets
Jul 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.

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Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.

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Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.

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Read 23 tweets
Jul 14
While Ukrainians are terror bombed on a daily basis, rich Russians live in Europe like kings and queens.

This young lady lives in Portugal, and travels freely to Ibiza...
...the Alps...
... and of course Paris.
Read 5 tweets
Jul 7
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American national security policy professional and the current under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby). He’s best-known for fighting with cartoon dogs online and for halting military aid to Ukraine.

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Elbridge "Cheese" Colby earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Before entering government, he worked at top think tanks and in the intelligence community, focusing on nuclear policy and strategic planning.

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Cheese quickly became a key voice for a “China First” strategy, arguing the US must prioritize military buildup in Asia over commitments in Europe or the Middle East. He sees (or saw, rather) Taiwan as the core test of US credibility.

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Read 23 tweets
Jul 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.

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Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.

The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.

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The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text:

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vatniksoup.com/en/soups/
Read 15 tweets

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