In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about #NAFO and its achievements. Pro-Kremlin accounts and Russian opposition often claim that NAFO is nothing but a harassment movement, but this statement couldn't be further from the truth.
1/18
Wikipedia describes NAFO as an "Internet meme and social media movement dedicated to countering Russian propaganda and disinformation", but since its launch, the movement had a strong focus on crowdfunding the Ukrainian military and other pro-Ukrainian causes.
2/18
The strength of NAFO stems from its de-centralized structure. There are no leaders or hierarchy, so any kind of character assassination becomes challenging.
This hasn't stopped people from trying that, though, and the vatniks have grasped at straws and relentlessly...
3/18
... attacked NAFO founder @Kama_Kamilia for his old tweets - to no avail, since the movement is stronger than ever. Since starting the movement, Kama has strongly emphasized that the focus should always be on NAFO, not on him.
4/18
NAFO has also divided into coordinated subgroups with different goals. Some accounts produce memes, some focus on donations, others do research and many ridicule and counter Russian disinformation. All this is done with just one goal in mind - to help Ukraine win the war.
5/18
And that's exactly why the movement is being constantly attacked:it is making a big difference with its fight-fire-with-fire tactic against Russian paid trolls & at the same time it aids the Ukrainian war effort. NAFO dogs also support each other by sharing people's content.
6/18
I know that NAFO has collected millions and millions to assist Ukraine, but my personal focus with #vatniksoup and in NAFO has been on researching pro-Kremlin narratives and people who spread them.
I was doing all this alone until Apr 2023, when I started collaborating with a NAFO research team to investigate a pro-Kremlin organization called Donbass Devushka. Its key figure pretended to be a "poor woman from Lugansk [sic]", Ukraine. In reality she was a Sarah Bils,...
8/18
..a former non-commissioned officer & Jersey girl with a terrible fake Russian accent. DD claimed they collected & donated money for humanitarian aid in Donbas,but no evidence of money going anywhere other than the owner's pockets was never presented:
9/18
After the first NAFO summit, the movement caused controversy after the organizers brought an inflated shark onto the stage during the event. This was a reference to a Russian tourist killed by a shark in Egypt. Russian opposition and the Navalny team decided that instead...
11/18
...of discussing the ongoing war and thousands of Russian and Ukrainian youth dying in the front, this incident was much more important topic of discussion, thus demonstrating total tone-deafness to the whole conflict.
12/18
For some reason, these same people were critical of Kaja Kallas' greetings to all of NAFO's Shiba Inus.
13/18
Ousting Sarah Bils as the Donbass Devushka wasn't the only fifth column expose that NAFO research team has done - On 16 Jul 2023,we published our work on Richard Z AKA @trollstoy88,a German citizen pretending to be Russian:
And that's definitely not the end of it. The NAFO research team will continue their efforts to expose Russia's fifth column in the West, and there will most certainly be more reports coming from them and me in the near future.
17/18
At the same time, other #NAFOfellas keep on bonking, churning out memes, crowdfunding millions and millions to aid Ukraine, and keep being a pain in the Kremlin's ass in general.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll discuss the current state of Twitter/X. After @elonmusk took over, the site's gotten rid of most their safety rules & monetized people who agree with Musk's politics & constantly use lies and deceit to create outrage and increase their audience.
1/19
On 14 Jul 2023,Musk started paying ad share revenue to X's "creators". Besides some meme and Musk-fanboy accounts,these creators mostly consisted of accounts that regularly spread disinformation & outright lies.Many of them have also tried to manipulate their follower count.
2/19
Many of these "creators" will shift their narrative as soon as a new trend evolves. Today, they'll talk about Bud Light, Hunter Biden and Ukraine, but tomorrow it's going to be something else - something that's trendy. These people are also experts on absolutely EVERYTHING.
3/19
In today's #vatniksoup I'll talk about Russian Nazis and introduce Russian neo-Nazi movements and paramilitary groups like Rusich and PMC Wagner. They're best-known for being funded by the Kremlin and being responsible for the "denazification" in Ukraine.
1/24
Like in many European countries, the white power skinhead movement became a notable phenomenon in the Russian far-right. This movement was intensified, in addition to high unemployment rate and awful education, by the First Chechen War and the imperialistic rhetoric...
2/24
...of the Russian government. Russian officials "dealt with" the neo-Nazi problem between 1998-2000, and it was used to justify anti-extremism legislation, that was later used to prosecute Russian liberals.
It was also used to launch an initiative called...
In today's #vatniksoup I'll introduce a Bosnian social media personality and nurse, @200_zoka aka Lazo Z. He's best-known for his conspiratorial analysis on the war in Syria, and for his pro-Russian takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
This soup was a NAFO collaboration.
1/20
.@200_zoka belongs to the "big three" of pro-Russian Twitter analysts/political commentators, the other two being a German tanker bridge attendant @trollstoy88 aka Richard Z, and Austrian IT support guy, @GeromanAT.
The former was introduced here:
But this "zuppa del giorno" is just as much about Lazo's catfishing personality as it is about him. For a long time, Lazo used pictures of an young and attractive Russian girl as his profile picture and in his tweets. This strategy of using attractive yet fake images to...
In today's #vatniksoup I'll introduce an Indian political analyst, poet, singer, and patriot (all his words) Atul Mishra and his network, The Frustrated Indian (@TheAtulMishra & @FrustIndian). He's best-known for his awful pro-Russian takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/18
As I have said before, Western analysts and disinformation researchers have a blind spot in the Global South, where pro-Kremlin propaganda thrives and Russia is somewhat popular. For example, in India, 57% of the population sees Russia as in somewhat/very favorable light.
2/18
The Frustrated Indian tries to profit from this particular niche by providing a false and made-up image of European politics and of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The whole scheme works on making pro-Russian, outrageous claims that works on lies and half-truths.
Currently Twitter is a dumpster fire and all kinds of fake news and disinformation is rampant on the platform.
Here's my 2 cents on how to make it better:
1/9
- Small UX issue: With long tweets, "Show more" should just expand the tweet text instead of opening the tweet URL.
- Give us more info in analytics: full follower list with filtering and ordering options - if you're greedy, just give it to blueys.
2/9
- Add actual experts to the Community Notes system - it shouldn't be a mob rule thing where the majority can vote if something is "true" or "false". There are plenty of scientists and disinformation experts (e.g. @Shayan86 and @hoaxeye) who know what's up.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a social media personality and LARPer, @trollstoy88 AKA Richard Z. He's best-known for acting to be Russian, and for his pro-Russian tweets on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Most of the research presented here was done by the NAFO Team.
1/22
.@Trollstoy88 belongs to the "big three" of pro-Russian Twitter analysts/political commentators, the other two being a Serbian nurse, @200_zoka, and Austrian IT support guy, @GeromanAT.
There's also @WarMonitors, but he seems to be more anti-NATO than pro-Russia.
2/22
For a long time, Dick's been claiming to be Russian. In reality, he lives in West Germany in a small town near Düsseldorf and Cologne. Ironically, he's even called for Russia to invade Berlin, declaring that it's actually a Baltic Prussian city named Veletian.