Thread by @P_Kallioniemi

In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russo-Ukrainian businessman and politician, Oleg Tsaryov (@OlegTsarov). He's best-known for acting as a pro-Russian separatist officer in Donetsk, Ukraine, and revealing Yanukovych's plan to become the dictator of Ukraine.

1/19

Oleg was born in 1970 in Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro) in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. He became an MP in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada in 2002, later joining Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions. He was re-elected again in 2006, in 2007, and in 2012.

2/19

When the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity got in full swing, Tsaryov was one of the most fervent supporters of using violent against the protestors, whom he called "terrorists, bandits and extremists."

3/19

In 2014 he self-appointed himself as a presidential candidate for the 2014 election, after which he was expelled from the Party of Regions. Few days later, he traveled to Donetsk and offered to become a leader of the separatist "South-east movement".

4/19

He'd assured that the Donetsk separatists would disrupt the upcoming presidential election, promising to create a "central authority" in Donetsk. It seems that Tsaryov was abandoned by pretty much everyone & his popularity at the presidential election was practically zero. 5/19

He'd lost all support of his previous party, and he was also beaten up by a mob after a TV interview. He eventually withdrew his presidential candidacy.

6/19

Come May 2014,Oleg had become such a loved person in Ukraine that there was allegedly a bounty of 1 million USD set on his head.A month later he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity & was sanctioned for arrest for calls to overthrow the Ukrainian constitutional system.
7/19

In Jun 2014, he became Speaker of the "Unity Parliament" for the puppet states of DPR and LPR. Tsaryov called for the creation of Federal State of Novorossiya, a confederation that he terminated later on because it "did not comply with the Minsk II accords".

8/19

Subsequently, Tsaryov fled to Russia. After Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine began, Oleg claimed that "as promised, the denazification operation has begun." A little later he declared that he was "already in Ukraine" and that "Kyiv will be liberated from the Nazis".

9/19

In Mar 2022, RT published a propaganda video of Oleg delivering humanitarian aid in Ukrainian territory invaded by Russia.

In Mar 2022, Tsaryov called on the Oleksandr Vilkul, mayor of Kryvyi Rih, to surrender the city to Russian troops, saying that "his" Russian troops...
10/19

...are "nearby the city". Oleg claimed that Vilkul had always taken "pro-Russian stance" and that they "used to be fellow party members". Vikul replied to Tsaryov "Fuck you, traitor, along with your masters!"

11/19

In Apr 2022, he declared that "this [Ukraine] has always been and will be Russian land and we are restoring sovereignty over this land." In Feb 2023, Russian political scientist, Sergei Markov, suggested that "Tsaryov would be a wonderful president of Ukraine."

12/19

In Mar 2023, Tsaryov a coup plan that was supposed to be done by Yanukovych and his Party of Regions,with the help of Putin. For some weird reason, this plan was revealed by Tsaryov.

13/19

The plan was to do the same that Lukashenko has done in Belarus - rewrite the constitution which would allow Yanukovych to become a president indefinitely. This was then supposed to provoke Ukraine's western regions into separatism (instead of the people in east of Ukraine).14/19

They even planned Oleh Tyahnybok of the far-right Svoboda party for the role of running separatist movement in the west of Ukraine. This of course is a clear indication that Yanukovych and his Party of Regions were actually Russian agents, trying to make Ukraine into...

15/19

...a puppet state under Kremlin rule a'la Belarus. It's worth noting, that this was one of the many plans that Yanukovych had hatched with the Russians, but the others weren't documented. This basically proves that Ukraine was at hands of foreign actors and that Ukrainians..16/19

... had no other chance than to protest and defend their country. One could even say that Maidan Revolution saved Ukraine, as this way Russia could only seize Crimea and parts of the Donbas Oblast, which will soon join Ukraine again.

17/19

So Tsaryov basically proved the "CIA-funded coup d'etat" narrative to be a lie, thus undermining Russia's propaganda efforts. Oops.

In May 2022, Tsaryov was sentenced In Ukraine in absentia to 12 years in prison.

18/19

Tsaryov was sanctioned in 2014 by the EU for calling for the creation of Federal State of Novorossiya & in 2014 by the UK government because of his involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Tsaryov has three children, and as is tradition, two of them allegedly study in the UK.19/19

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https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1635211581868085250