In today's #vatniksoup, I'm going to talk about MICE. Not the rodent, but an acronym that originates from CIA recruitment strategy used in espionage. MICE explains the main motivators for covert and also overt action, and it stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego.
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Whereas CIA Staff Historian Randy Burkett has stated that MICE has "outlived its usefulness" in counterintelligence, it seems to still apply quite well to those who are recruited to spread online propaganda. When doing research and deep dives on individuals who are...
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... producing and promoting pro-Kremlin viewpoints, one can quickly find connections between the people and these four motivators. Naturally, these motivators can also overlap. One example from counterespionage is the case of Earl Edwin Pitts, who had been an FBI agent...
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...who sold secrets to the Soviets and later to the Russians. During his interrogation, he told that he was treated badly while working for the FBI,but was also motivated by the stacks of rubles the Russians offered.
These days people who work to benefit a foreign actor..
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...are called "useful idiots", a term falsely attributed to Lenin. In my view, it's counterproductive to refer to these people as idiots, as some of there are actually quite intelligent, and they've simply taken an opportunity to benefit from "working for the enemy".
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A research project called Project Slammer, conducted during the late 80s, suggested that the subjects who become spies often see themselves as special, even unique; deserving, living in unsatisfactory situation, has ran out of other options (than to engage in espionage),...
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...and not a "bad person". This probably applies to most online propagandists, too.
Propagandists, like spies, often think of their work as "victimless" crime - many might feel that spreading disinformation and false narratives doesn't hurt anybody, it's just...
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..."another version" of the story. Yet these actions often have consequences - they can, for example, affect the support and aid that Ukraine gets from the West.
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Now, I'm going to move to the territory of speculation. I've been researching "independent journalists", politicians and other pro-Russian actors for quite some time, and I feel like I have a hunch of what drives some of them.
Here's my analysis for each motivator:
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Money: This one's the easiest - most of the pro-Kremlin mouthpieces are motivated by money. In fact, if you'd take the money out of the equation, they'd stop producing their nonsense and would move on to other things.
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In my opinion, most "independent journalists", including Janus Putkonen, Mike "iEarlGrey" Jones and Patrick Lancaster are driven by money. All of them have had some hardships in their previous lives, and have moved on to work for the Kremlin to make a decent living.
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Some businessmen were offered lucrative business deals by the Kremlin, possibly to help with their cause.
In addition, there are those politicians and grifters who are most probably driven by both their ego and their money.
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These include Gonzalo Lira, Jackson "Z" Hinkle, and most of the MAGA crew. Politicians like MTG and Boebert will drop any ideology (for example, QAnon) as soon as it no longer serves their self-interests.
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Ideology: Ideology can be extremely strong motivator and often creates staunch and loyal propagandists. Most of the ideology-driven Putin propagandists come from the far corners of the left and right,but many of them also believe in various conspiracy theories and have no..
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..political affiliation. Some people who in my opinion are driven by ideology, include Caitlin Johnstone, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Caleb Maupin, Steve Bannon and of course Noam Chomsky. It's not rare to see people from the far-left and from the far-right cooperate in this...
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..domain,reinforcing the idea of the horseshoe theory. Even though rabid anti-US/NATO/Western stance is not an ideology per se, it is a strong motivator for many propagandists. Russia is also often pushing the idea of "decadent West" vs "traditional Russia.
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Compromise/Kompromat: This refers to damaging information about a person, which can then be used for blackmail. The most common type of kompromat is some kind of sex tape of the person involved. Putin has used this strategy to his benefit since forever.
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The most famous case happened in 1999, when then FSB Chief Putin released a sex tape where Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov was in bed with two young women. Skuratov had started investigating corruption of Putin's then boss, Boris Yeltsin, and this tape was used to make...
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...him resign from his position. Kompromat is the most difficult to detect,as once the compromising material has been exposed, these people often become useless. In my opinion, those men who have visited Russia on various occasions are the most evident targets of kompromat.
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Some of these people include Mark Ames, John Dolan, Andrew Anglin and Graham Phillips. Ames has even written about their sexcapades during the 90s and 00s in Moscow.
Ego: Ego is another strong motivator, and can create very loyal propagandists.
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In many cases, propagandists ego has been "bruised", and they often feel like they have been mistreated by their own country. For ego-driven propagandists, two prime examples are Scott Ritter and Douglas Macgregor. Both were at some point quite talented in their work but...
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...were, to some degree, mistreated by their superiors. Macgregor's career was hindered due to his unorthodox methods, and Ritter was humiliated as a weapons inspector. Now they're both pushing Kremlin narratives, and Ritter is even touring around Russia, even going to...
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... talk shows to praise Russia and defame the US and Ukraine. In my opinion, fake news bloggers like Aaron Maté and Max Blumenthal are driven by their huge egos, and formerly prestigious old school journalists like Seymour Hersh have the same problem.
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MICE is good at describing our core motivations for producing and promoting propaganda, but it's also oversimplifying things. Randy Burkett has stated that it excludes important factors like family, tribe, religion, ethnicity and nationalism.
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But I still argue that it is a useful tool for determining what drives these actors to publish disinformation and false narratives, and that in most cases we can apply these motivators to most people.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.
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On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.
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What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.
Let me show you how a Pakistani (or Indian, they're usually the same) AI slop farm/scam operates. The account @designbonsay is a prime example: a relatively attractive, AI-generated profile picture and a ChatGPT-style profile description are the first red flags.
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The profile's posts are just generic engagement farming, usually using AI-generated photos of celebrities or relatively attractive women.
These posts are often emotionally loaded and ask the user to interact with them ("like and share if you agree!").
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Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.
1/21
Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.
2/21
Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American national security policy professional and the current under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby). He’s best-known for fighting with cartoon dogs online and for halting military aid to Ukraine.
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Elbridge "Cheese" Colby earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Before entering government, he worked at top think tanks and in the intelligence community, focusing on nuclear policy and strategic planning.
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Cheese quickly became a key voice for a “China First” strategy, arguing the US must prioritize military buildup in Asia over commitments in Europe or the Middle East. He sees (or saw, rather) Taiwan as the core test of US credibility.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.
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Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.
The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.
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The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text: