Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
May 19, 2023 25 tweets 12 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American journalist and former policy adviser, James Carden. He's best-known for his collaboration with Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel, and for his pro-Kremlin takes on the war in Ukraine.

1/24 Image
Carden was a close associate of Stephen Cohen, an American scholar known for his strong support of Russia and Vladimir Putin. Carden was often defending any criticism Cohen's pro-Putin writings received, calling them "scurrilous" and "hysterical".

2/24 Image
In 2017, Carden questioned the involvement of the al-Assad regime in the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack. In his article, he relied on a report by Theodore Postol, who worked together with Maram "Syrian Girl" Susli to debunk al-Assad's involvement in chemical attacks in...

3/24 Image
...Ghouta, Douma and Khan Shaykhun. OPCW investigations concluded that a large majority of the attacks were in fact carried out by the al-Assad regime. Along with Carden, the Russians denied the allegations, calling the reports "one-sided" and "distorted".

4/24 ImageImage
In 2017, Carden appeared on RT as a commentator and suggested that Washington Post has started a "project of promoting a new Cold War with the Russian Federation". The concept of "new Cold War" is something that's been heavily pushed by pro-Kremlin intellectuals like...

5/24 Image
Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel, and it basically stems down to the narrative that the US "neocons" are "sabotaging" the relations to Russia, which apparently should be treated with silk gloves, even though they've completely ditched democracy for...

6/24 Image
...totalitarianism and at the same time plan to invade most of their neighbors. When @cjcmichel called him out on his BS, Carden took the high road and called him a "sniveling shit" in LinkedIn DM's. He also demanded to see if Casey was "brave as BATMAN [sic]".

7/24 Image
Carden's version of 2014 Revolution of Dignity is pretty much the same as the Kremlin's. By his words, "the Ukrainian far right escalated the violence in the Maidan and drove then-President Yanukovych into exile," oversimplifying absolutely everything about the event.

8/24 Image
He has also blamed pretty much everyone else but Putin for the conflict in Ukraine. He's written that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko "ratcheted up the violence" against the "breakaway provinces" of Luhansk and Donetsk. None of his writings mention any Russian...
9/24 Image
involvement among the "separatists", and James put a strong emphasis on Poroshenko's cabinet members with "far-right affiliations". He even went as far as blaming Obama for this, asking the question "What if Mr. Obama had not announced a new round of sanctions against...

10/24 Image
Russia on July 16?" Now, it's worth mentioning that these sanctions were imposed after Russia annexed Crimea, but according to him they "blocked" the "off-ramp" for Putin. By his hypothesis,even the MH17 down shooting could've been avoided if Obama hadn't sanctioned Russia.
11/24 Image
This maneuver would get pretty high score at the Mental Gymnastics World Championships.

In Jun 2022, Carden interviewed Irish MEP Clare Daly on Ukraine. It's a solid pro-Kremlin propaganda piece where both of them agree with each other and enforce each others points of...

12/24 ImageImage
...views. James describes Daly is a "courageous and outspoken" and a "stalwart opponent of the trans-Atlantic militarist consensus".

In Feb 2023, he published an article on The American Conservative, where he blames Ukraine being a "binational kleptocracy".

13/24 Image
This of course was a legacy of the extreme corruption of the Soviet times, which the Ukrainians came to protest in both 2004 and in 2014. Yet, probably due to his pro-Kremlin stance, Carden completely fails to see why the Revolution of Dignity actually happened: ...

14/24 ImageImageImage
...it was not the "US neocons orchetrating a coup", but the Ukrainian people who were tired of this corruption of both Yanukovych and his party, and the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. After the war ends, it will be Ukraine's next big battle.

15/24 Image
By Carden's view Victoria Nuland "helped orchestrate" the "overthrow" of Yanukovych, and this directly led to the 13 000 deaths in the East of Ukraine. By Carden's words, she went "so far as to hand out cookies to anti-government protesters".

16/24 ImageImage
Now that Stephen Cohen has passed away and Katrina vanden Heuvel has been ousted from her position at The Nation, Carden's lost his biggest megaphone. He's now looking for new outlets to publish on, and his latest hit piece...

17/24
on the famous Eurasia Review attacked Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic. His op-ed title "I Saved You Trouble Of Reading Latest Ukraine Propaganda By Two Of America’s Biggest Neocons" already tells you what the article is about, but here are some of the...
18/24 Image
highlights: Carden criticizes Zelensky for closing down three TV channels heavily affiliated with Viktor Medvedchuk. Putin and Medvedchuk are close allies, and Putin is godfather to Viktor's daughter. After Medvedchuk was captured, Putin traded him for the Azovstal...

19/24 Image
..defenders of the Azov Brigade. In the same article, Carden still exaggerates the influence of far-right elements in Ukraine, not-so-subtly blaming them, along with the US and Poroshenko, for the 2014 events in Donbas.He also demonstrates his lack of critical thinking by..
20/24 ImageImage
...claiming that the ratio for Ukraine-Russia casualties is 7:1. This information can only come from two false sources: the doctored leaks from Donbass Devushka, or from serial liar, Douglas Macgregor, who has been dead wrong since the war started.

21/24 ImageImage
James also likes to take all the agency away from Ukraine, suggesting that it's the US and the "neocons" who's forcing "terrified teenagers and young men" to fight in muddy trenches in "conditions along the Somme", again stripping Ukraine of its agency and free will.

22/24 Image
In his latest article "What the 68-year-old Austria treaty could tell us about Ukraine today" from 15 May 2023, he defends Austria's "neutrality", naturally forgetting to mention that Austria is riddled with Russian spies and dirty money:

23/24 Image
In addition to contributing to the Kremlin-funded Russia Direct, Carden used to be an editor of The National Interest, an American international relations magazine, but was booted for being, as one of their editors told, "too pro-Putin, even for us."

24/24

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Pekka Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

Sep 11
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the agenda-setting and flood of disinformation that spread on X and other platforms right after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s far from the first or last time a tragedy has been weaponized for political purposes.

1/18 Image
Every major political event, especially those involving violence, attracts massive attention. In the immediate aftermath, reliable information is scarce, making it highly vulnerable to both coordinated and improvised disinformation campaigns.

2/18 Image
As I’ve mentioned in my previous soups and lectures, in disinformation campaigns, being first with a narrative is crucial, as people often remember the first version best — psychology studies show it sets the mental schema, and later updates rarely overwrite it.

3/18 Image
Read 19 tweets
Sep 8
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce American social media personality David Freeman, AKA Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman). He’s best known for spreading political disinformation on X and shamelessly sucking up to Trump, Putin, and other authoritarian leaders.

1/22 Image
David is a textbook example of someone profiting from MAGA grievance politics. He uses extreme, provocative language to farm engagement on X and never hesitates to flatter anyone who might give him more exposure — or money.

2/22 Image
Image
But David wasn’t always like this. At some point, in his mid-40s, he even tried a real job: he trained to become a cop. He spent three years with the Metro Transit PD, but after that he either got fired or quit, and never looked back.

3/22 Image
Read 24 tweets
Sep 5
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian-Estonian businessman, Oleg Ossinovski. He is best-known for his deep ties to Russian rail and energy networks, shady cross-border dealings, and for channeling his wealth into Estonian politics.

1/14 Image
Oleg made his fortune via Spacecom Trans & Skinest Rail, both deeply tied to Russia’s rail system. Most of this is through Globaltrans Investments PLC, a Cyprus-based firm with 62% held via Spacecom and tens of millions in yearly profits.

2/14 Image
Image
Ossinovski’s Russian-linked ventures made him Estonia’s richest man in 2014, with an estimated fortune of ~€300M. His business empire stretched across railways, oil via Alexela shares, and Russian bitumen imports from Help-Oil, a supplier to the Defense Ministry.

3/14 Image
Read 15 tweets
Sep 2
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Swiss/French writer, Alain Bonnet, aka Alain Soral (@officielsoral). He’s best known for his rabid antisemitism and for his pathetic support for all the worst authoritarian regimes from Russia to North Korea.

1/22 Image
Alain’s childhood was problematic, as his father has been characterized as a “narcissistic pervert” who beat his children and did jail time for fraud. Alain himself has said he was “programmed to be a monster.” Born Alain Bonnet, he took the stage name of his sister,…

2/22 Image
Image
… actress Agnès Soral. She wasn’t too happy about this, commenting “How would you like to be called Agnès Hitler?”. Like many grifters, he became a pick-up/seduction artist writer, à la late Gonzalo Lira, writing books and even making a B-movie, “Confessions d’un dragueur”.
3/22 Image
Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Aug 18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.

1/24 Image
Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.

2/24 Image
Image
Image
Image
Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

3/24 Image
Image
Read 25 tweets
Aug 11
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.

1/23 Photo by JULIE OLIVER /Postmedia
Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.

2/23 Image
One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.

3/23 Image
Read 24 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(