In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American politician, media personality and businessman, Donald Trump. He's best-known for serving as the 45th president of the US, and for promoting pro-Kremlin viewpoints regarding Putin and the Russo-Ukrainian war.
1/23
After becoming the president of his father's real estate ventures in early 70s, he started expanding its operations aggressively by building hotels, casinos and whatnot. Trump's businesses have been involved in over 4000 legal actions,and he's filed for bankruptcy six times.
2/23
While studying in college during the Vietnam War era, Trump deferred draft four times. After his graduation, he was diagnosed with bone spurs, thus avoiding going to the war. This diagnosis allegedly made by a podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, who rented his office from...
3/23
...Donald's father, Fred Trump. Dr. Braunstein’s daughters later said that they "know it [the diagnosis] was a favor" to Donald's father.
Yuri Shvets, a former Soviet intelligence officer who worked as a Major in the KGB from 1980 to 1990, and as a resident spy in DC...
4/23
..between 1985 and 1987, has stated that Trump "was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years & proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow." According to Shvets, KGB considered Trump as "extremely vulnerable intellectually,..
5/23
...and psychologically," and also vulnerable to flattery. Based on Journalist Craig Unger's book "American Kompromat", Trump first appeared on the KGB's radar in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova.
When Trump visited Moscow and St. Petersburg, he was flattered by...
6/23
...the KGB operatives, also floating the idea that Trump should get into politics. Soon after returning from this trip, Trump started looking into possible presidential run in the Republican party and ran a full-page ad on NYT criticizing US foreign policy.
7/23
Trump has had a lot of business interests in Russia. He had undertaken a project to build a Trump skyscraper in Moscow. This idea came to be during his visit to Moscow in 1987, and was later pushed by Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with mob connections.
8/23
In 2008 he sold a Palm Beach mansion to Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev for 95 million USD, while four years prior he only paid 41 million USD for the estate.
Even though the Mueller report didn't conclude conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians, an...
9/23
...initiative called Moscow Project found 272 known contacts and 38 known meetings between the Trump team and Russia-linked operatives.
And there's no doubt about Russian influence in the US 2016 presidential election. Days before Trump became president in 2017,the Obama..
10/23
...administration released an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which assessed that "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic...
11/23
...process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." Trump ignored these reports, and in 2017, he said that he had spoken with Putin about forming a cyber unit with Russia to fight "election hacking".
12/23
So how did Donald help Russia and Putin? First of all, he "watered down" the toughest penalties the U.S. had imposed on Russian entities after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014. He even questioned the sanctions altogether, stating that "why would anybody have sanctions if...
13/23
...somebody’s doing some really great things?" He also supported Russia's return to the G7 and eased sanctions on Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.
In 2017, Trump revealed highly classified information to foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and to the Russian ambassador...
14/23
...Sergey Kislyak. US media was not allowed in this meeting, but there was a Russian photographer present.
On many occasions, Trump has praised Putin, calling him a "genius" and "savvy" after Putin invaded Ukraine. He's said that Putin has done "a really great job...
15/23
...outsmarting our country."
In 2019, he temporarily froze US aid worth 391 million USD for Ukraine. The Trump administration had previously stalled sales of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine in fear of angering Russia and Putin.
16/23
Trump also hired Paul Manafort, who had spent a good decade promoting pro-Russian politics in Ukraine, to run his 2016 presidential campaign. He was later sentenced to over 7 years in prison. One of his crimes was evading taxes on the 60 million USD he made in Ukraine.
17/23
Before leaving his presidency, Trump pardoned five people who were convicted as a result of investigations on the Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, including Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. He also pardoned GOP strategist Jesse Benton, who was...
18/23
...sentenced again in Feb 2023, for funneling Russian money into the Trump campaign.
Trump's style of politics is almost wholly based on lies. Actually, after becoming the President, Trump's lying became so common that the Washington Post started tracking the factuality..
19/23
...of his statements with their fact-checking department: by Jan 2021, Trump had lied over 30 000 times during his term as the President. You can read my previous thread on this type of "post-truth politics" here:
Recently Trump was hit with yet another set of charges, this time federal. An investigation found out that he held classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He even discussed over classified war plan documents with people who had no security clearance.
21/23
Lately he's been trying to pin the blame on his aide Walt Nauta. There are at least 7 cases between 2017-2023 where US citizens have been sentenced under the Espionage Act to prison time for storing classified documents at home.
22/23
What would Trump's presidency mean to Ukraine? Even though the support from US has been strongly bipartisan, he could have some veto power over military and humanitarian aid. Also, the sanctions against Russia could be eased or even lifted. Either way, Ukraine will prevail.
23/23
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American conspiracy theorist, podcaster & antisemite, Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO). She’s best known for spreading conspiracy theories, attacking Ukraine, promoting pro-Kremlin BS, and becoming a favorite of Russian state media.
1/21
Candace started her career as an intern at Vogue magazine but later moved into political commentary. Her early career focused on criticizing Republicans, calling their antics “bat-shit crazy.” In 2016, her blog even published an article about Trump’s penis size.
2/21
That same year, she launched a doxxing website called SocialAutopsy. In response, people began posting Owens’s personal information online. During the controversy, she gained support from figures such as @Nero and @Cernovich. And just like that, she became a conservative.
In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.
1/20
Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.
The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.
2/20
Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce Russian propaganda operations around military targets like Starobilsk. For over a decade, the Kremlin has used similar strategies, combining crisis actors, “independent journalists” and fabricated evidence.
1/13
First, let’s go back to 2014. Russia funded separatist groups and sent its mercenaries to Donbas, which led to the creation of two puppet states, Donetsk and Luhansk, governed by Russian propagandists and soldiers like Igor Girkin.
The fake genocide was touted as one of the main reasons for Russia’s war during the early stages of the full-scale invasion, and the claim was made even by Putin himself. Before his mutiny, late Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said that all this was fabricated bullshit.
In this 9th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss “legitimate military targets”. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, with no declaration of war, hiding behind a “special military operation”. Yet vatniks & useful idiots pretend Russia has any legitimate or lawful targets in Ukraine.
1/8
Russia started the war in 2014 by seizing Crimea with unmarked soldiers, “little green men”. Russians have been waging an undeclared, illegal war with endless war crimes ever since, whether it’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children with genocidal intent…
… the concentration camps for Ukrainians under occupation, conscripting Ukrainians from occupied territories, or the terrorist, deliberate bombing of civilians, including their infamous “double tap” strikes.
So no, Russia does not have any “legitimate targets” in Ukraine.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer and millionaire. He’s best known for his champagne socialism, rabid criticism of the US and Israel, support for the Soviet Union and for Chinese and Russian invasions, and for mistreating his dog.
1/20
Born in 1991, Piker grew up in a privileged and well-connected environment. His father held senior roles at big corporations and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, is the founder of The Young Turks media network. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers, a top-tier university in New Jersey.
2/20
His main activity and primary source of income consists of hours-long livestreams on Twitch where he comments on news and yells at videos. He also keeps his dog in place the whole time with a shock collar.
What you see happening here is coordinated strategic communication by the Trump cult. Elon’s baby mama and former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair explained this ecosystem in a long video. They have built platforms where people can find narratives to spread and get paid for doing so.
Even though the system technically breaks the platform's ToS, this is perfectly fine for @nikitabier and the rest of the X crew, because Elon pays their salaries and this is part of his election interference machinery.
If you wanna know how the system works, read this:
Here’s Ashley’s video, where she explains how the system works. She was immediately attacked by various MAGA actors, which suggests that what she said hit a nerve.