In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an Austrian communist and social media personality, Roman GK AKA @GeromanAT. He's best-known for promoting pro-Kremlin perspective on the Russo-Ukrainian War and for trying to monetize his apparent social media addiction.
1/17
.@GeromanAT belongs to the "big three" of pro-Russian Twitter analysts/political commentators, the other two being a Serbian nurse, @200_zoka whose account has since been deleted, and German Russia-LARPer, @Trollstoy88, who's still pretending to be someone he's not.
2/17
As much as he would like to be a Serb, Roman is actually German-Austrian and lives in Austria. So, we have yet another vatnik and fan of authoritarian regimes living comfortably in the West.
Why these people never move the countries they so much seem to like?
3/17
Roman has worked in IT support for a long time, but apparently the business hasn't been exactly booming lately.
Perhaps due to this, he's started a side hustle of spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda. At the moment he makes around 200 USD a month, or around 70 cents per hour.
4/17
What he lacks in knowledge and skill, he makes up with volume - since 2015, he's tweeted almost 400 000 times,averaging to around 120 tweets/day. He's also in X's subscription program.
Fortunately his partner makes decent money, otherwise he'd probably be homeless already.
5/17
Roman is a strong supporter of various conspiracy theories. He believes in the most ridiculous Russian lies, including "US-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine", that Ukraine is infested with "Nazis", and that the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was an "illegal NATO coup".
6/17
In the Geroman-world, absolutely everything that somehow supports Ukraine or the West is a "psyop".
Here are some examples of events Roman considers to be "psyops": Bucha massacre, QAnon, Anonymous, Pentagon leaks, Chinese spy balloons,...
7/17
...Ukraine's attack on Kherson, Uyghur genocide, White Helmets in Syria, MH17 and Skripali poisoning. He also absolutely despises Bellingcat, probably due to their exposes on Russia's crimes against humanity around the world.
8/17
In Roman's view, Russia can and will do no harm to civilians or civilian structures, and if they do, it's because the evil "Ukrainian Nazis" are hiding out in these civilian buildings. Of course in his twisted world, the evil Ukrainians are targeting civilians all the time.
9/17
The most disgusting of these alleged "psyops" is his denial of the Bucha massacre. He's stated that "We did not see a single video showing Russians killing civilians in Bucha" and that the whole thing was "done by AFU".
10/17
He called the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson and Kharkov planned and professional retreats, and before Ukraine re-captured Kherson, Roman was highly optimistic on Russia actually attacking in both of these directions in addition to southeastern Donbas region.
11/17
He considered the battle of Bakhmut a "designated meat grinder" that was supposed to deplete Ukraine of its troops. Recently his focus has been on Robotyne, saying that UAF is "running down a valley secured by RF held high grounds and will suffer even more casualties."
12/17
Roman thinks that "communism will be the leading world power soon." He's also declared that capitalism has "killed much more people all over the world than Communism" & that you can see that "communism works" by looking at totalitarian,hyper-capitalist countries like China.
13/17
Roman absolutely despises NAFO, probably because they're the ones who always call on his BS. He calls all NAFO members "nazis" and supports so-called "NAFO hunters" who report pro-Ukrainian accounts in order to get them banned.
14/17
He also has a Telegram channel with around 15 000 subscribers. In Aug 2023, Z-supporter Merdan E doxxed the wrong Pekka Kallioniemi and posted his phone number and a flat he was selling on various platforms. This failed doxx was also posted to Roman's TG and is still there.
15/17
It must feel extremely empowering to doxx the wrong people and put them in harm's way.
Apparently Roman has also collaborated somehow with the @DD_Geopolitics collective. It's still unknown if this collaboration extended outside of sharing the failed doxxing information.
16/17
Considering that he seems to loathe all "Nazis", he talks surprisingly little about Russian Nazis like Alexey Milchakov or Yan Petrovsky of the Rusich Group or the Russian Imperial Movement:
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce further details about South African-American businessman and social media figure, Elon Musk (@elonmusk). He’s best-known for running companies like Tesla, SpaceX & Twitter/X, and for using the latter for political campaigning.
1/25
In this soup, I will focus on how his social media platform Twitter/X has become a cesspool filled with racism, propaganda & conspiracy theories. Elon himself, living fully in denial, has stated that “X has the truth” & that X is actually “the only place to find the truth”.
2/25
Elon has claimed that X’s community-driven content moderation program, Community Notes, corrects disinformation spread on X. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as most made-up stories are never Community Noted. And if they do, the notes are hardly ever seen by anyone.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician and disbarred lawyer, Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani). He’s best-known for meddling with the pro-Kremlin forces in Ukraine, and for organizing the infamous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference.
1/22
Giuliani rose to fame as the mayor of NYC between 1994 and 2001. He adopted an aggressive enforcement strategy and organized crackdowns on relatively minor offenses like graffiti and cannabis possession. His role in the 9/11 aftermath made him a global superstar.
2/22
This fame gave Rudy new opportunities, and in 2006 he was invited to the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group (ISG), a group that assessed the situation in Iraq. He was soon kicked out of the group due to being more interested in making money by public speaking gigs.
In today’s 300th #vatniksoup, I’ll go through some of the most heroic feats that Ukrainians have achieved since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
In the last 900 days, under-equipped underdog Ukraine has fared well against the imperialist and genocidal Russia.
1/23
As in most conflicts, Ukraine relies heavily on leadership. For this reason, the Kremlin first focused their main propaganda efforts on Zelenskyy, even claiming that he had already fled from Ukraine to Poland. Soon after these allegations, Zelenskyy and his cabinet…
2/23
… published a video from the streets of Kyiv to fight this propaganda campaign. This video quickly became one of the biggest morale boosters for Ukraine, and it has become one of the most legendary and symbolic videos of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a British far-right activist, Tommy Robinson (@TRobinsonNewEra). He’s best-known for his role in the far-right, Islamophobic organizations like the English Defence League (EDL) and his close connections to the Kremlin.
1/23
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was born in Luton and during his youth delved into a life of crime, serving four prison terms between 2005 and 2019. He used several pseudonyms to hide his criminal past, finally sticking to Tommy Robinson.
2/23
Tommy joined the fascist and far-right British National Party (BNP) in 2004 but left a year later. The party didn’t allow non-whites to join and was then led by Nick Griffin, who today is better known for sharing video game footage while claiming it’s real.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician and author, JD Vance (@JDVance). He’s best-known for his strong stance against US aid to Ukraine, and for being the Republican party’s nominee for vice president in the 2024 election.
1/20
Vance hails from the small town of Middletown, Ohio. His parents divorced when he was a toddler, JD’s mother struggled with drug addiction, and he was raised primarily by his grandparents. Later he enlisted in the US Marine Corps, and spent 6 months as a PR guy in Iraq.
2/20
In 2016, Harper published JD’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, in which he described his life and hardships, and the socioeconomic problems of his hometown. The book was very successful, and it was even adapted into a shitty Netflix movie. It also made JD famous.