In today's #vatniksoup and in the second edition of "Where are they now?", I'll do an update on some of your favorite vatniks around the world & report on what they've been up to.
If there's someone or something you'd like to hear more about, let me know in the comments👇
1/21
Let's start with some revelations regarding Russia's hybrid warfare operations in the West. The recent collaboration between Nordic public broadcasting companies revealed that the Russians have been focusing their espionage efforts around critical infrastructure in the...
2/21
...Nordic countries. These include wind farms, oil platforms, and undersea cables.
Watch The Shadow War with English subtitles here:
3/21
The Danish journalists, including @kevinshakir and @LisbethQuass, have also exposed a plan where Russian intelligence services organize false anti-Erdogan protests to sow discord between Turkey and EU countries, and to prevent Sweden's NATO membership.
4/21
This was inspired Rasmus Paludan's Quran-burning incident back in Jan 2023, and Russia was able to coordinate at least one anti-Erdogan demonstration in France in Mar 2023. Incidentally, one demonstration was also organized in Finland in early Mar 2023, ...
5/21
...but it is unclear if it had any external coordination. The event was broadcasted by @HuuhtanenPanu, a Finnish vatnik who is allegedly about to sue me for... something.
As we can see, the Russian fifth column is still strong in Europe. In one incident on 9 May 2023, four Russian women attacked a Ukrainian woman for carrying the Ukrainian flag.
But let's move on to vatniks, and I'm sure you recognize this one: Scott Ritter has been extremely busy in his new favorite country, Russia. His book "Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union" was recently published in...
8/21
..Russian by Moskovskaya Pravda, and naturally Scotty went to Russia to do a book tour. 5 May 2023, he told his audience in a bookstore in St. Petersburg that "There’s no way Russia should lose this war" and that...
9/21
..."If Russia wants to win this war, there is no reason why the war wouldn’t be over by late summer or early fall".
While Ritter was praising Russia and its mighty army in St. Petersburg, Gonzalo Lira was arrested by the SBU. There's wild rumors going around that his location was provided to the SBU by no other than our favorite "poor girl from Luhansk", Sarah "Donbass Devushka" Bils.
11/21
Some pro-Kremlin propagandists had warned Gonzalo about Bils, but apparently he didn't listen.
In other news, it appears that Russians are still enjoying NATO countries and European luxuries en masse - in my earlier soups I introduced Russia's Deputy Minister of Defense in Russia, Timur Ivanov, and his wife Svetlana.
13/21
Svetlana LOVES to party in Europe, and he was spotted having fun in Courchevel, France in early Apr 2023.
But she isn't the only one enjoying the luxurious European capitals. Boris Obnosov, a man who is responsible Russia's missile production, has sent his family to live in Prague, where they own a beautiful 140m2 penthouse.
15/21
In addition, they own several apartments around the city, and recently transferred their luxurious cars to Czech license plates. These people sure do seem to love NATO countries!
Here's a great thread on Boris Obnosov and his family:
Conspiracy theorist and Putin-enjoyer Michael Flynn has also been busy. As is tradition in the US, he's sued @jimstewartson for the claims that he's part of QAnon, and the DOJ, FBI and US government for malicious prosecution and abuse of process.
17/21
Previously, his brother sued CNN for 75 million USD over QAnon reports. BTW, Flynn is apparently still collecting a full military pension, paid for by the US citizens, and at the same time tours America with their The Great ReAwakening VS The Great Reset event.
On 29 Apr 2023, the Russians organized a hybrid event called "Global Conference on Multipolarity", a propaganda conference which is basically who's who of pro-Kremlin academics.
20/21
The event included speakers such as Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Glazyev, Konstantin Malofeyev, Pepe Escobar, Roger Köppel and Johan Bäckman.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.
1/20
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.
2/20
As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.
1/23
Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”
2/23
After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.
1/20
Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.
2/20
Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.
In today’s May 9th Vatnik Soup, we discuss the ambiguous relationship of the Kremlin with Nazism and explain why so many vatniks can be outright Nazis, and promote or excuse them while at the same time being so hysterical about alleged “Nazis in Ukraine”.
1/23
Of course, Kremlin propaganda employs the Firehose of Falsehood and often lacks any consistent ideology other than spreading chaos and seeking power, so such contradictions can be commonplace. However in this case there is a certain cynical consistency there.
2/23
To understand modern Russia, we need to go back a hundred years to the beginnings of Soviet Russia/Soviet Union — a genocidal terror regime under dictators Lenin and Stalin, whose totalitarian and imperialist legacy Putin’s Russia fully embraces.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the state of X in May 2025. Since its acquisition by Elon Musk, this platform has rapidly transformed into his personal political tool and a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation.
1/22
Not everyone is following this shitshow as closely as I am, so I thought it would be good to write a summary of all the changes that have happened on this forum and outside of it. These changes have drastically changed how the platform operates and who gets “a voice” here.
2/22
Elon’s team has been tweaking the algorithm many times after the takeover. One of these tweaks happened already around Nov 2022, when the platform heavily suppressed the visibility of pro-Ukraine accounts. This change was then noticed & reported by many pro-Ukraine accounts.
3/22
In today’s 350th Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American comedian and podcaster, Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith). He’s best-known for his numerous appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and for his unhinged takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/22
Smith has a massive megaphone - he’s a good friend of Joe Rogan, and he’s appeared on Joe’s podcast a whopping 16 times. Naturally, he’s also visited Lex Fridman’s podcast and frequently appears on Fox News’ Kennedy and The Greg Gutfeld Show.
2/22
Dave is part of the Kremlintarian section of the Libertarian Party called Mises Caucus. They took control of the party in May 2022, and with the help of their new leader, Angela McArdle, turned it into an extension of the MAGA Republicans: