Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Sep 29, 2023 19 tweets 9 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll dissect Russian propaganda, go through its main characteristics and also discuss how it differs from Ukrainian propaganda. This soup will mostly focus on the Kremlin's more "sophisticated" forms of media, like mobilization ads and advertisements.
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From the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022, Russia's propaganda machinery has been going on full steam.

In addition to using social media, botnets and troll farms to spread their narratives, they've also produced various ads and videos.

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Russian propaganda can be targeted at domestic population or to foreign audiences. Let's first look at how Russia promotes the war to its domestic audience. These ads generally focus on MASCULINITY, POWER and/or MATERIALISM.

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In Apr 2023, Russian Defense Ministry published a recruitment video in which anyone who is still doing a regular job instead of getting killed in Ukraine is not a "real man". In addition, young men are attracted with a hefty salary (by Russian standards).

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This appeal to one's masculinity is a common theme in Russian propaganda, but it is then complemented with the idea of wealth. But as we know, Russia's casualties in this war are incredibly high, and often the families of the fallen are not even compensated.

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In another ad published in Sep 2023, two Russians discuss how they're going to buy real estate and move to Kyiv and Odesa after they've been captured. This ad is all about Russian imperialism and power, and it is in...

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...contradiction to the Kremlin's official statements of the war being about "denazification" and "saving the Russian-speaking population" in Ukraine.

In reality, the war is about conquest and genocide, as most of you already know.

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One recruitment ad focusing on materialism shows a grandpa who has to sell his shiny Lada in order to survive, but eventually his his grandson signs a contract to join the war.

This absurd ad simply shows how Russian propaganda values material possession over human lives.

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Now, these ads may be the only connection to the war in poor areas, in which most of the information flows through TV channels. Russia's censorship organization, Roskomnadzor, makes sure that no information about Russia's losses and genocidal acts finds these people,...

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...and that these people living in poverty fully rely on the heavily filtered information they get from their televisions.

As the late Russian General Alexander Lebed said: "Let me recruit a platoon of the children of the elite, and the war will be over in a day."

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The propaganda that Kremlin produces for the foreign audiences differs from all this, and it often attempts to promote the INCONVENIENCE that the war brings. This type of campaigning peaked just before the winter of 2022, when the West was preparing for a "harsh winter"...

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...due to the lack of Russian gas and oil. One of the more "popular" videos was the one depicting Christmas in Europe without Russian gas. In it, a Western family eventually becomes so poor, that they have to eat the family hamster.

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In another ad, a woman is looking for love online in a cold and dark apartment. Eventually, he finds a Russian man who boasts with electricity, light and heat. After she decides to move to his place, there's already a bunch of "Western" women living with him.

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Many of these ads were published with German audiences in mind, probably because of their strong military support of Ukraine, but also to support the rise of far-right, pro-Kremlin parties like AfD:



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One example of this type of advertising is a video where German army authorities storm into a family's home and takes all of their money. The ad then claims that the German ad is taken directly from the German taxpayers.

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They've also published a bunch of ads which encourage the people from the West to move to Russia. All these ads also appeals to the Russian audiences, basically saying that "we have it so much better than the people in the West."

This ad even features a Ukrainian model.

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In other ads, they've called for the end of "Russophobia", even trying to adopt a hashtag #StopHatingRussians.

This ad was published just a month after Russia started their genocidal attack on Ukraine, showing how tone-deaf these propagandists actually are.

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To summarize the propaganda targeted at the West: it focuses on costs of the war and the inflation and price hikes it brings, naturally blaming it all on Ukraine rather than themselves. It also appeals to the regular voters to stop any kind of aid to Ukraine.

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All soups:
Support my work: vatniksoup.com
buymeacoffee.com/PKallioniemi

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Dec 20
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.

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Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).

2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
Read 24 tweets
Dec 4
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
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I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.

It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.

So here’s the latest:

2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…

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Read 21 tweets
Nov 29
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.

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Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.

Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.

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He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.

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Read 26 tweets
Nov 28
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.

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Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…

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..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
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Read 22 tweets
Nov 11
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.

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Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…

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..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
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Read 20 tweets
Nov 7
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.

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First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.

Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.

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Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.

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Read 18 tweets

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