In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American podcaster, RT columnist and former political aide, Tara Reade (@ReadeAlexandra). She's best-known for her allegation about Joe Biden sexually assaulting her, and for supporting Putin and Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine.
1/22
Reade rose to popularity in Mar 2020, when she alleged that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her in 1993 while she was working as his staff assistant. After a thorough investigation by various journalists, it was discovered that her story was full of holes and she even...
2/22
...lied under oath. In addition, according to Associated Press, "Over the years, Reade spoke favorably about working for Biden." CNN reported that Reade had "praised Biden on social media on numerous occasions". Incidentally, these allegations came out just before...
3/22
...the 2020 US presidential election. Russia has been really pushing these allegations."Foundation to Battle Injustice",a propaganda organization ran by Prigozhin,is featuring Reade on their front page with a quote from Tara saying "Joe Biden raped me and ruined my career".
4/22
Eventually the story died down, but it had apparently left a strong mark on Reade. After she became "unhirable" in the political sphere in DC, she gradually drifted towards the "anti-establishment" movement and eventually started promoting outright Russian propaganda.
5/22
But some, including @gregzhouse, have suggested that she'd been influenced by the Russians already back in 2018. In 2019 she tweeted about the new Russian "foreign agents" law, that requires foreign journalists to register as foreign agents or face fines.
6/22
In May 2020, she published an article on Medium titled "Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin". In the article, she wrote that "President Putin brought a chaotic and failed nation to become a vibrant, creative, economic force within a decade,"...
7/22
...continuing "Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness."
Few weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine, Tara was interviewed on RT where she claimed that she was "threatened" for her views on Russia. She also repeated her...
8/22
...allegations against Biden, saying that her case was "more serious" than the others reported. She referred to herself as a "whistleblower".
Reade hosts a podcast called "The Politics of Survival with Tara Reade", in which she discusses the war with "neutral voices"...
9/22
...like former spy Maria Butina, who was sent to the US as a sleeper agent, slept with bunch of men, got caught, and was booted back to Russia. She's also had a chat with "independent journalists" like Wyatt Reed, Johnny Miller, Alina Lipp, and documentarist/propagandist...
10/22
...Igor Lopatonok, the director of the Ukraine on Fire documentary:
Her narratives are the same as all the others: inflation and price hikes in the West, "NATO expansion launched the proxy war", calls for peace after Putin annexed the four...
11/22
...Ukrainian Oblasts, "Ukrainian Nazis" and the "Kiev regime", and of course "genocide in Donbas" with 14 000 "Russian casualties". There is absolutely nothing new or original in Reade's propaganda.
12/22
She was also one of the speakers at the "antiwar" Rage Against the War Machine event, in which she blamed Biden's administration, among other things, for organizing a "money laundering scheme" in Ukraine.
13/22
She's written several op-eds for RT. In Feb 2021, Reade published an article for RT titled "I believe AOC when she says she is a survivor of sexual assault. Why could she not say the same about me?"
14/22
In Aug 2022, she was awarded an award for... something by The Center for Political Innovation, a pro-Russian and communist association ran by Caleb Maupin.
15/22
In Oct 2022, she discussed about the loss of "Western hegemony" and its "failed states", praising Putin and the new multipolar world rising in the East. According to her, "China and Russia are flourishing," while forecasting a "cold Winter" (that never came) for the West.
16/22
In Dec 2022, Semafor reported that Russian diplomats had attempted to bring Ms. Reade to a UN meeting on "weapons diversion". She's not any kind of weapons expert and was refused the platform, and the plan was probably to bring him there to defame Biden, anyway.
17/22
In the US politics, she has promoted the pro-Kremlin MAGA gang, including @RepMattGaetz and @RepMTG, who both have called to end the US military aid to Ukraine. The two had interviewed Reade, and wanted her to testify against Biden in Congress.
18/22
Reade also appeared on Tucker Carlson, where she repeated the allegations against Joe Biden. According to Tara, Joe Biden took her "future", but I'm pretty sure it was Ms. Reade herself who took it by making things up.
19/22
On 30 May 2023, Reade gave an interview to the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik. With the help of her friend, Maria Butina, she had defected to Russia. Apparently Butina is trying to fast track Tara's citizenship request, comparing her "whistleblowing" to Edward Snowden.
20/22
The propaganda event they referred to as "press conference" lasts only 9 and half hours, so I suggest you give it a listen.
Now that she's in "Snowden land" and out of reach from US authorities, we will probably see an uptick in "Joe Biden raped me" BS from Ms. Reade.
21/22
She might even do a collab with an actual convicted sex criminal, Scott Ritter! Meanwhile, she can have hot girl summer in Moscow with the failed spy Maria Butina and convicted drug trafficker Oksana "Mira Terada" Vovk:
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:
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian journalist, Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin). He’s best-known for posing as a Russian dissident, while at the same time sneakily promoting the Kremlin’s narratives about the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/20
On paper, Leonid doesn’t look like your typical Kremlin apologist - he’s written and worked for prestigious Western outlets like the BBC, the Guardian, and he’s even written some Lonely Planet guides for the Baltic countries!
2/20
But Ragozin’s public commentary often seems to walk a fine line: condemning the war while pushing narratives that shift blame, dilute responsibility, or quietly carry the same old imperial baggage Russia - or its opposition - has never truly forgotten.
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll introduce a bank that is well-known in both Austria and Russia: Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) and its Russian subsidiary, AO Raiffeisen. It is one of the few foreign banks that still does business in Russia.
1/21
Raiffeisen’s Russian branch was founded in 1996 and expanded dramatically after the acquisition of Russia’s Impexbank in 2006. A year later, it was the largest bank trading in foreign capital (seventh in size) in Russia.
2/21
In the early 2000s, Raiffeisen opened new branches in Russia, including in Saint Petersburg, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Krasnodar. After 2018, it focused on digital expansion and by 2021 it had a digital presence in more than 300 cities.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an Estonian lawyer, social activist, politician, and useful idiot for the Kremlin, Varro Vooglaid (@varrovooglaid). He’s best-known for promoting pro-Kremlin viewpoints under the guise of “traditional family values.”
1/20
Vooglaid has an academic background, which usually gives people plenty of credibility in the eyes of the Kremlin. Most of his academic career was spent at the University of Tartu, but he was also a researcher between 2007 and 2011 at the University of Helsinki.
2/20
Varro is likely the most influential vatnik in Estonia. His academic credentials provide him credibility, while his religious image appeals to “traditionalists” - many of whom oddly admire Russia and its imperialistic nature.