Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jul 10, 2023 26 tweets 15 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Canadian lawyer and politician, Dimitri Lascaris (@dimitrilascaris). He's best-known for parroting the Kremlin propaganda regarding NATO expansion and the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, and for traveling to Russia amidst the war.

1/24
Dimitri refers to himself as an "ecosocialist" and has been previously active in the Canadian Green Party. In 2020 he was a candidate for leading the group, but lost the final vote 50-42%. One of his campaign people was @RadDesai, whose known for organizing conferences..
2/24

...that promote the interests of both the Russian and Chinese governments. Before this, Dima was working for the Real News, a pro-Kremlin blog that platforms people like Scott Ritter and Lawrence Wilkerson. Wilkerson is best-known for his anti-Semitism and calling the...

3/24

..Ghouta chemical attack a "false flag operation" orchestrated by Israel. Ritter, on the other hand, is best-known for exposing his genitals to a police officer he thought was a 15-year-old girl.

On 19 Mar 2022, a month after Russia started their brutal attack in Ukraine,..
4/24

...Lascaris suggested that Ukraine shouldn't defend themselves as it'll probably result in the "destruction of one's country," and that the rational course would actually "pursue compromise" with Russia.

His takes on history could come directly from the Kremlin...

5/24
His takes on history could come directly from the Kremlin. First of all, he states in one of his blog posts that in 2014 Crimea "merged" with Russia - no mention of the illegal annexation, little green men, none of that. Then he refers to a news article from TASS that...

6/24
.."97% of voters reportedly supported Crimea's reunification with Russia," a sham vote that was condemned by basically everyone other than Russia.
Dima's reasoning for Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine is based on two of the most used Kremlin narratives: 1) NATO expansion..
7/24

...and the broken promise to Gorbachev (which, based on Gorbachev, was never even made), and 2) the "US-facilitated coup" and the infiltration of "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine in 2014.But with the latter he goes a few steps further: he states that what followed was a "right-wing,..
8/24



..anti-Russian regime," providing absolutely no further explanation.

Lascaris' final conclusion immediately after Russia's full-scale invasion started was that: "An objective and fair-minded review of the historical record leads inexorably to the conclusion that Russia...
9/24
...has legitimate grievances in this conflict," and later he declared that the evidence for the US and British governments actively provoking war in Ukraine is "overwhelming."

In Apr 2023, Dima traveled to Russia, where he had meetings with officials of the Russian...

10/24

...Ministry of Foreign Affairs and gave a speech at the Valdai Conference. As a staunch supporter of peace between Russia and Ukraine, surely Lascaris spoke about the peace negotiations? Well, no - his speech was about the destabilization of the dollar and how Russia...

11/24
...could compete with the dollar. Later, he admitted that some of his meetings during the trip were organized with the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, and his old fiend Desai and campaign worker also joined the Valdai meeting.

12/24
While in Russia, he visited various Kremlin-funded "NGO's" that provide nonlethal equipment and firearms accessories to the Russian troops. One of these organizations, We Are Together – Sevastopol, is presented to the Westerners as an NGO that "helps refugees".

13/24





The group's leader, Victoria Kashlyakova, admits that they also provide the invaded areas with propaganda materials such as board games praising Mother Russia.

On his way to Crimea, Lascaris also interviewed a PMC Wagner sniper called "Sokol". Ironically, his hate for...

14/24





.."neo-Nazis" doesn't extend to the Russian ones, as he doesn't offer a single shred of criticism towards the mercenary group and its affiliations and history of literal neo-Nazis like Alexei Milchakov and Dmitry Utkin.



15/24 https://t.co/4QIz0pWreS


As a human rights activists, Dima speaks very little of actual human rights violations in Ukraine. I couldn't find any of his commentary on the Bucha massacre, mass graves, torture and castration in Izium or the FSB-run children's torture chambers in Kherson.

16/24



He hasn't mentioned the 700 000 Ukrainian children abducted by the Russians, which by international law constitutes as a genocide. @dimitrilascaris, you must have written about these topics, maybe you can point me to the tweets and/or articles?

17/24
Lascaris has also been very critical of Ukraine's Zelensky. In Jul 2022, he posted an article criticizing the Ukrainian president, calling him an "anti-hero" who has "degraded whatever democracy existed in Ukraine." He also blames Zelensky for his ties to oligarch...

18/24



...Ihor Kolomoyskyi, whose Ukrainian citizenship Zelensky later stripped, and whose assets the Ukrainian state has also nationalized. He preaches about the corruption in Ukraine, and how Zelensky has been unable to prevent it. This corruption is a remnant of the...

19/24



..Soviet history, and Zelensky has taken impressive measures to reduce it. Actively fighting corruption while you're being attacked by a genocidal maniac is probably quite challenging, so we can probably judge Ukraine's battle against corruption only after Russia has been..
20/24
..driven away from the country. Now, how about the country that Dima has praised and recently visited? In the 2022 Corruption Index, Russia was at the 137th place.

As an "ecosocialist", Dimitri is a staunch supporter of Russia, one of the biggest exporter of fossil fuels.

21/24

He also hasn't said a word of Russia's ecocide in Ukraine, resulting in the destruction of Ukraine's flora and fauna and also its cultural heritage sites.
To conclude, Dima is a classic Kremlin propagandist touting the "not one inch eastward" and "US-orchestrated coup" BS.
22/24

He seems to openly support Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine, and hasn't criticized it after the initial days of the invasion. His prospects to do anything meaningful in Canada are probably over, and in my view Dima is a potential future resident of the Russian Federation.

23/24

And yes, I know I said I'd stop #vatniksoup, but the vatniks spring up like mushrooms, and these networks need to be exposed.

So, as long as there are vatniks and people who read my silly threads, I'll continue doing this work.

24/24
Sources:

https://t.co/VVwE69kIT2

Ping: @Alexey__Kovalev

Support my work: https://t.co/QgUl6jpNNe
Subscribe for my YouTube channel: https://t.co/1gnCOdcGoa
Past soups: https://t.co/9k5rQx4cgbcanadianinfluencewatchdog.blogspot.com/2023/07/why-ar…
medium.com/@alexey__koval…
buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi
youtube.com/@TheSoupCentral
vatniksoup.com
And Dima,let me ask one more thing: If James Baker's verbal promise to "not expand NATO eastwards" (that referred to East Germany, by the way) should be respected,what about Putin's statement that Crimea is Ukraine? I mean, if not, then we can probably agree that Putin is a liar?

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jul 6
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.

1/15 Image
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.

2/15 Image
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:

3/15

vatniksoup.com/en/soups/
Read 15 tweets
Jul 1
In today’s Wumao Soup, I’ll introduce how and where the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda and influence operations work. Due to China’s massive population and advances in AI, CCP-aligned online content has become increasingly visible.

1/20 Image
Like Russia’s troll farms, China has its own troll army: the “50 Cent Party” or “Wumao” refers to state-linked online commentators who are reportedly paid ¥0.50 per post to steer discussions away from criticism and amplify CCP narratives on social media.

2/20 Image
Back in 2017, a research paper estimated that the Wumao produced almost 500 million fabricated comments annually to distract readers and shift topics. In that sense, Wumao operates very similarly to the Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” model:

3/20

Read 21 tweets
Jun 26
In today’s Vatnik Soup and the “Degenerate Russia” series, I’ll show you the brutal reality of Russian war crimes, in particular the horrific tortures and sexual abuses of children, women and men.

Buckle up, this one is not for the faint-hearted.

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For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeted at right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional,family values.

2/24

In the previous “degenerate Russia” series we discussed Russia’s insanely high divorce rates, rampant domestic violence, high murder rates, thriving neo-Nazi culture, corruption of the Orthodox Church, and their massive demographic problem:

3/24

Read 26 tweets
Jun 24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explore how Russia is working with Iran, and how the recent Israel–US strikes on Iran could affect the war in Ukraine. Iran has been one of Russia’s key allies in their genocidal war, but in reality the partnership is deeply one-sided.

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Historically, Russia/USSR has been involved in numerous wars in the Middle East, invading Afghanistan for nearly a decade and desperately trying to keep Syria’s authoritarian leader, al-Assad, in power before his eventual downfall.

2/21 Image
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While initially supportive of Israel, the Soviet Union quickly pivoted to backing its enemies, fueling antisemitism, terrorism, and chaos in an already tense region. At times, this meant near-open war, like when Soviet Air Force MiG-21s were shot down by Israel over Egypt.

3/21 Image
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Read 22 tweets
Jun 20
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce a Latvian politician and former MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka. She’s best-known for her history in the Communist Party of Latvia, for her pro-Russian politics in the country, and her connections to Russian intelligence.

1/22 Image
Based on Ždanoka’s speeches and social media posts, she has a deep hatred towards the people of Latvia. The reason for this can only be speculated, but part of it could be due to her paternal family being killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police,…

2/22 Image
…a paramilitary force supported by the Nazis, during the early 1940s. Ždanoka became politically active in the late 80s. She was one of the leaders of Interfront, a political party that supported Latvia remaining part of the USSR.

3/22 Image
Read 23 tweets
Jun 16
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the main themes of Russian disinformation on TikTok. Each day, there are thousands of new videos promoting pro-Kremlin narratives and propaganda.

It’s worth noting that Russians can only access European TikTok via VPN.

1/10
There is currently a massive TikTok campaign aimed at promoting a positive image of Russia. The videos typically feature relatively attractive young women and focus on themes of nationalism and cultural heritage.

2/10
Ironically, many of these videos from Moscow or St. Petersburg are deceptively edited to portray Ukraine in a false light — claiming there is no war and that international aid is being funneled to corrupt elites.

3/10
Read 11 tweets

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