Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Apr 26, 2023 18 tweets 9 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll discuss Russian online information operations, and how they are perceived around the world. In the West, we often perceive this propaganda only targeted at us, which is far from the truth.

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As I've written previously, the idea of Russian information operations date back to days of KGB, and it is part of the, aktivnye meropriyatiya, or active measures. Active measures includes activities like espionage, propaganda, sabotage and assassination, and it is ...

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...and was part of Russia's foreign policy. Another related term related to info ops is hybrid warfare, which is a theory of military strategy that blends conventional warfare with irregular warfare, cyberwarfare and warfare in the information space.

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It is worth noting that information operations are most often long-term operations, with goals far ahead in the future. KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov stated that most operations have a time span of around 25 years.



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The general, simplified model for info ops is as follows: first, you sow fears ("Ukrainians are killing Russians"). Then you fuel mistrust ("You can't trust the mainstream media, they're CIA/MI6/deep state/etc controlled"), ...

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...and finally you offer salvation ("here's an interesting blog/group that tells you the TRUTH").

The war waged in information space is just as important as the conventional war in the battlefield - when combined with other measures, effective online info ops can heavily..

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...affect people's opinions. For example, pro-Russian propagandists often refer to the Russo-Ukrainian War as a "waste of money". They can also refer to the high levels of corruption in Ukraine, which is mostly a legacy and tradition from the Soviet times, or refer to...

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...its leadership ("the Kyiv regime") as being greedy and corrupt group of warmongers.

One of the best-known propagandists of the modern era, Joseph Goebbels, laid out various principles on successful propaganda, and these principles are still utilized today.

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One of his principles was "Pick out one special 'enemy' for special vilification." In the case of Ukraine, this enemy is the "Kyiv regime" and their armed forces that is "infiltrated by neo-Nazis" that are a threat to both Ukrainians and the Russians.

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Another one of Goebbels' principles was "Avoid abstract ideas - appeal to the emotions" - bioweapons labs, "neo-Nazis", NATO proxy war, genocide of Russian population in Ukraine... all these are tangible, simple ideas that can easily be reinforced with propaganda.

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This reinforcing is done in line with another of Goebbels' principles, "constantly repeat just a few ideas". When we look at the Russian propaganda model in regards to Ukraine, we can see that Goebbels' last two principles are applied, too: the first one is "give only ...

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...one side of the argument", and "continuously criticize your opponents".

The most successful case of hybrid warfare were the Russian interference of 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum. These operations was started almost a decade before the ...

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...actual events, and they contained operations such as hack-and-leak, mass spreading of online disinformation and propaganda, funding of (opposing) NGO's, and undermining of the authorities, journalists and official institutions.
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All online operations were naturally supported with heavy use of troll farms and social media manipulation through organizations like Yevgeny Prigozhin's Internet Research Agency.
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But now that we know all this, we can counter it, right? Yes and no. The Kremlin propagandists have realized long time ago that the West has become more resilient against their BS, and so they've focused on new areas such as the Global South.
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For example, RT is one of the most popular sources for the Russo-Ukrainian War in Latin America. RT recently made partnership with Cameroonian TV channel, Afrique Média. An animation where Wagner soldier defeats "French zombie invaders" goes viral on African social media.
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In Mali you can listen to news on Sputnik Afrique every night. The leaked US intelligence documents revealed that Russia is planning a propaganda campaign to "realign" public opinion in Africa towards Russia & so far almost nobody in the West has paid any attention to this.
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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Feb 22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a former Ukrainian politician and president, Viktor Yanukovych. He’s best known for selling his country to Russia, trying to turn it into an authoritarian state, and eventually fleeing to Moscow once his plan failed.

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Now that Russia and the US are planning to replace president Zelenskyy with someone who’s more willing to sell the country to them (most probably Viktor Medvedchuk or one of his cronies), it’s a good time to remind people how Yanukovych and Putin almost took over Ukraine.

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Yanukovych’s first attempt at power came in 2004, when he “won” the Ukrainian presidential election through massive fraud. The rigged vote sparked the Orange Revolution, a wave of protests that forced the election to be re-run. His opponent, pro-Western candidate…

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Read 23 tweets
Feb 20
Russia uses Tucker Carlson as a vessel for its propaganda. Many of the most popular narratives originate from his misinformation-filled show, which is funded by Elon. Some of these lies include:

- Bioweapons labs
- Gonzalo Lira being a "journalist"
-Zelenskyy being a dictator
- The banning of the Russian Orthodox Church
- The banning of Viktor Medvedchuk's pro-Kremlin propaganda network
- Putin's interview and revisionism
- That ridiculous St. Petersburg propaganda piece

Bob Amsterdam, who Tucker has interviewed a few times is paid by a Russian oligarch, Vadym Novynskyi.

We now know from the Tenet Media case that Russian state media wants to spread Tucker's verbal diarrhea everywhere. These fake stories have finally made their way to Trump.Image
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Read 4 tweets
Feb 19
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll take out my crystal ball and predict what the alliance between the US and Russia could mean for Ukraine, Europe and geopolitics in general. These recent changes could be a real risk for the whole of Europe, and need to be addressed quickly.

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Some of us have been reporting on Trump’s pro-Kremlin tendencies for years now. His Moscow connections go back all the way to the late 80s, and the 2016 US presidential elections raised a lot of red flags about the close connections of his associates to Russian operatives.

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The recent Rubio-Lavrov meeting in Saudi Arabia was an eye-opening event for many who were still optimistic about Trump and Ukraine – the outcome was that Putin got absolutely everything he’s ever wanted from the war, and at the same time it seems that the US got nothing.

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Read 24 tweets
Feb 18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce how the Elon’s Election Interference Machine™ (EIM) works. Since Musk & his broligarch allies won the presidency for Trump, they’ve now harnessed the machine to interfere in European elections, including the ones in Germany & Romania.

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At this point it is clear why Elon bought Twitter – his grand plan was to promote “free speech absolutism” (which, of course, doesn’t even exist on the platform) and tweak the algorithms so that they allow him to promote political parties that align with his worldview.

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First, let’s talk about “freedom of speech” that the Trump administration, especially Musk and VP Vance constantly rant about. Incidentally, they only blame the EU for “limiting free speech”, and there’s a good reason for this: they are driving for political change.

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Read 24 tweets
Feb 14
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the Russian disinformation network “Doppelgänger”. Doppelgänger is an influence and hybrid operation spreading Kremlin propaganda via AI-generated fake news websites and social media sites, especially X.

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Doppelgänger is a massive influence operation that was initially exposed back in 2022. Their modus operandi is to create near-identical copies of large, legitimate Western news outlets to spread anti-Ukraine, anti-Western and anti-NATO narratives.

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The operation, overseen by Putin’s top aide Sergei Kiriyenko (who’s reportedly communicated with Elon), uses Russian firms like Social Design Agency (SDA) to create fake news sites that mimick legitimate media like The Washington Post, The Guardian, Bild and Fox News.

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Read 21 tweets
Feb 13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about Europe’s information defense against foreign influence operations & disinformation.

The EU can’t rely anymore on America’s help in geopolitical struggles, and it’s time we created a united front against information threats.

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Recent news coming from the US should be the final wake-up call for European decision-makers. Recently, Trump’s rhetoric has been openly pro-Kremlin and both anti-Ukraine & anti-EU, and at the same time the US is dismantling all institutions fighting against disinformation.

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So far, the Trump administration has put staffers working on disinformation as well as a team of election security advisers at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on administrative leave.

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Read 25 tweets

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