In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Portuguese Major General and TV commentator, Agostinho Costa. He's best-known for his terrible, pro-Kremlin analysis on the Russo-Ukrainian War on @cnnportugal.
1/22
Costa joined the Military Academy in 1977 and finished his training in 1982. His work history in the Portuguese Army is remarkable, and before retiring in 2021, he worked as a EUROFOR Chief of Staff, head of the GNR, and as vice president of Eurodefense Portugal.
2/22
Like so many generals after retiring, he became an analyst and was invited by CNN Portugal to comment on the Russo-Ukrainian War. But his analysis had two big problems: he was 1) biased towards Russia, and 2) almost always wrong in his predictions.
3/22
At the beginning of the war when the +60 km convoy was forming up and ran into logistical problems,Costa was making sure to not show the Russian army as incompetent.Even when the soldiers were exchanging food for gas,he outright refused to admit that Russia had a big problem.4/22
Costa was also certain that the main objective of the Ruskies was to take Kyiv, actually saying that "the Russians are already in Kiev, right?", only to later change his mind, saying that it actually was NOT in the objectives.
5/22
He was also against sending military aid to the Ukrainian Army, and he thought that for example sending missile systems to Ukraine is pointless as "they don't know how to use them." Costa referred to the attack on the Kerch bridge as a "subversive terrorist attack", ...
6/22
...and when the interviewer compared the event to the Russian shelling of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to get it off the grid, Costa considered that Russia's actions were not terrorism. After Russia bombed the port of Odessa one day after the grain deal, Costa came to...
7/22
...the rescue, saying that "Russians have not pledged not to attack ports and other infrastructure." He's often referred to the Russians as being gentle, saying that they're going easy to not hurt the civilian population. This bold claim seemed especially unbelievable...
8/22
...after Russia killed 60 civilians with a missile strike to Kramatorsk railway station in Apr, 2022. In Feb 2023, he repeated the sentiment, stating that "We have already seen that Putin is not willing to accept many dead in this war."
9/22
Missiles aren't the only military aid senhor Costa has criticized. He's also stated that the F-16's - that will be sent eventually - will make no difference, and nor do the Leopards that have been sent because of the "low numbers".
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He's criticized Portugal for sending 4 out of their 37 tanks to Ukraine,because Portugal is apparently under constant thread from its imperialistic neighbor, Spain. In the end of Jan 2023, Agostinho declared that "there is no doubt that Ukraine is about to lose this war",..
11/22
...and that the Ukrainian Army is "about to collapse in terms of personnel, equipment, arms and ammo".
12/22
Costa compared the assassination of blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St. Petersburg to the tactics employed by the Daesh terrorists.
See Tatarsky's history in the video below.
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In Apr 2023, Costa declared that "Crimea will not move to Ukraine without a global confrontation using nuclear weapons." In May 2023, he spread the false narrative that 200 NATO officers were killed in a missile strike, but added 100 casualties just to keep it original.
14/22
Finally, let's talk about Costa's favorite topic, which is the fall of Bakhmut. On 3 Dec 2022, he claimed that Bakhmut is "at risk of falling" to the Russians. The next day, he said that it would be captured by the end of the year. In Dec 2023, he said that the objective..
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...wasn't actually to capture Bakhmut, but to destroy the Ukrainian forces. On 7 Mar 2023, according to Agostinho, Ukrainian command had already abandoned the city. On 8 Apr 2023, he said that Ukraine will retreat "in a matter of days".
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Finally, on 20 May 2023 and after five months, he gets to be right - Bakhmut has fallen and senhor Costa can open the champagne.
General Agostinho is member of the Freemasons, and he's caused so much discomfort among his fellow masons that some of them have announced...
17/22
...their views on him publicly. Generally, you should never talk about the organization or about its members in public, but I guess even the Portuguese Freemasons, unlike Putin, have their red lines that shouldn't be crossed.
18/22
Costa and two other generals were accused of "pro-Russian positions" already at the beginning of the invasion. A former military officer said that all three had "a certain admiration for the doctrine and professionalism of the Russians," and fascination towards...
19/22
...General Gerasimov and his doctrine of hybrid warfare. The two other generals saw the writing on the wall and sort of faded out from the spotlight, but Costa is still going strong.
Now, I feel like there's nothing wrong in inspiring to be a neutral military analyst.
20/22
But, Agostinho Costa is nothing of the sort. He's a Portuguese version of Douglas Macgregor, never condemning the Russian Army and usually blaming and underestimating the Ukrainians. I'm sure that he garners a lot of attention and views, but as long as he's sharing his...
21/22
..."wisdom" on this war, the credibility of @cnnportugal as a serious news outlet deteriorates, as it did with Bruno Carvalho:
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.
1/23
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).
2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.
It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.
So here’s the latest:
2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.
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Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.
Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
2/25
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1/21
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…
2/21
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
2/17
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.