In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russo-Serbian-American actor, martial artist and carrot-enjoyer, Steven Seagal. He's best-known for allegedly pooping his pants, for his praise of dictators around the world, for being a dick, and for his sexual harassment lawsuits.
1/19
Seagal's roots go back to Russia, and his paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish (actual Russian Jewish, not the Donbass Devushka kind) immigrants. In an interview by Dmitry Borisov, ...
2/19
...he stated that his paternal ancestry can be located to the Siberian city Vladivostok but also to Belarus and St. Petersburg.
Steven got into the movie business in 1987, when he cooperated in Above the Law with Andrew Davis. With zero acting skills and ...
3/19
...experience in martial arts, he became one of the action movie B-listers, appearing in movies like Hard to Kill and Marked for Death. His wider success came from his 1992 movie, Under Siege. Until the early 2000s, Steven was somewhat successful action star, but after...
4/19
...the relatively successful Exit Wounds (2001), most of his movies have been released as direct-to-video.
His success during the early 90s also landed him a spot as a host on Saturday Night Live. The series' Lorne Michaels, David Spade and Tim Meadows described Seagal...
5/19
...as "show's worst host ever". They called on his humorlessness and on his ill-treatment of the cast and writers. Seagal also refused to do a skit with characters that had previously claimed they could "beat up Steven Seagal".
6/19
Seagal has also been involved in various business endeavors, of which most have failed to make money. In 2005, his company Seagal Enterprises produced an energy drink, "Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt", but the product was quickly discontinued.
7/19
He's also launched an aftershave, "Scent of Action". In 2013, Seagal teamed up with Russian weapons manufacturer, ORSIS, to promote his signature rifle known as "ORSIS by Steven Seagal". He's also lobbyed for lifting off the US import restrictions on Russian firearms.
8/19
In addition to collecting sword, Seagal also collects sexual harassment lawsuits. He's been involved in various harassment cases since the early 90s, and for example Portia de Rossi has told that he'd unzipped ...
9/19
...his pants after saying "how important it was to have chemistry off-screen" during audition.
He also told then 16-year-old Katherine Heigl in 1994 that "he had girlfriends the same age". Seagal's also been accused of raping an 18-year-old.
10/19
As so many Russian shills,Seagal has been involved in cryptocurrencies. In 2020, after failing to disclose payments for the promotion of Bitcoiin2Gen & agreed to pay a total of 314 000 USD as penalty. He's also been blamed by various stuntmen for intentionally hitting them.
11/19
While filming the movie Out for Justice, Gene LeBell choked Seagal unconscious after Steven had claimed that his "immune" to such attacks. As a result, Seagal lost control of his bowels. This incident may be the reason why Putin likes him so much.
12/19
Steven Seagal is a huge Putin fan, once describing him as "one of the great living world leaders". He showed strong support for the annexation of Crimea, and even appeared there in Aug, 2014, at an event organized by the motor cycle gang, Night Wolves. At the event, he ...
13/19
...depicted Ukraine as a "country controlled by fascists". In 2016, Putin handed out a Russian passport to Seagal at an orchestrated event, but he had gotten his Russian citizenship already in Nov 2014, few months after appearing at the absurd event in Crimea.
14/19
In May 2021, the fake opposition party A Just Russia - Patriots - For Truth announced that they are giving Steven an official membership card to their party. In Mar 2022, Seagal celebrated his 70th birthday in Moscow, with many guests under Western sanctions as guests.
15/19
Later that year Steven visited Olenivka in Donetsk, with former Ponzi schemer and leader of the puppet state DPR, Denis Pushilin as his host. According to Pushilin, Seagal also interviewed Ukrainian POW's, thus breaking the Geneve convention.
16/19
In 2013, Seagal was invited as a guest at Ramzan Kadyrov's birthday party in Chechnya. Steven called him a "great leader", and Kadyrov referred to him as “almost a Chechen national.”
17/19
When visiting Belarussian dictator Lukashenko, Steven was given one carrot and one watermelon as a gift. After receiving the watermelon, he commented "Nice. Nice."
18/19
In Feb 2023,he was awarded with the Russian Order of Friendship for his "major contribution to the development of international cultural and humanitarian cooperation".Earlier this month,it was reported that Russia has recruited Steven to teach martial arts to its soldiers.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.
1/23
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).
2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.
It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.
So here’s the latest:
2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.
1/25
Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.
Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
2/25
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1/21
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…
2/21
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
2/17
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.