In today's #vatniksoup, I'll continue introducing the international pro-Kremlin network called DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics). They're best-known for spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation, and for collecting money to outlets like Rybar and Killnet.
1/19
In this second part of the series, we'll introduce the original poster of the doctored Pentagon leaks, French far-right activist, and of course some genocidal Russian fifth columnists who criticize the West while living and/or studying there.
2/19
As of today, DDG has almost 125 000 followers on X/Twitter, and even with artificial inflation it's one of the largest English-speaking, pro-Kremlin social media networks online.
In case you missed the first part of this series, you can find it here:
3/19
DDG is part of the larger "vatniksphere" who often collaborate on various projects, and they've been connected to other prominent pro-Kremlin propagandists like @jacksonhinklle and @geromanAT.
This investigation was done by The Unintelligence Agency.
4/19
DDG's chat is highly anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western, and most (if not all) of the admins have been actively participating in these conversations, probably from the comfort of their homes in the West, yet they fail to see the irony of that.
5/19
All people introduced here have/had administrator privileges on the DDG Telegram channel. Many of them are originally from Russia, others hail from the UK, France and Slovenia.
Without further ado, let's see who they are!
6/19
Luke H AKA Lucas Tiger/No U - Luke is a UK citizen who first shared the doctored Pentagon leaks to DDG's Telegram. Few months after the WSJ story, Luke was caught speeding without a license, after which he claimed that "Jesus was behind the wheel" and that...
7/19
..."Jeremy Clarkson would be proud" of his driving.
Regarding the photoshopped leaks, many key statistics of the conflict were modified in them, making it seem that Ukraine had lost much more troops and vehicles than Russia.
8/19
These fake leaks were spread and promoted extensively throughout the vatniksphere (for example by Douglas Macgregor) and were used a "proof" that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine.
As of today, the leaks are still available in the DDG chat.
9/19
Maria K AKA Masyanya (@venividivici_80) - Born to Russian parents in Latvia, Maria currently lives in the US. Even by DDG's standards, Maria is a real nasty piece of work. She's called for the destruction of Ukraine and killing of Ukrainians on many occasions, and even...
10/19
...cheered on deaths of Ukrainian children. Incidentally, she reports the accounts that disagree with her genocidal views for "hateful conduct". And all this from the safety and comfort of her home in Nevada, US.
11/19
Katarina A AKA Kata - A Russian import manager living in Chile. According to @squatsons, Kata may be flexing some US sanction laws through a PO box in the US. Even though she has permanent residency in Chile, she hasn't forgotten her Russian roots.
12/19
She has no trouble demeaning Ukrainians, calling for Ukraine to be "burned to the ground" and wearing a Wagner shirt. As of Aug 2023, Kata's also an admin on @squatson's TG.
13/19
Alex O AKA Alex - Alex is one of the many Russian students enjoying the hospitability of Europe while blaming these countries for absolutely everything. He's studied to become a surgeon in the UK, a NATO country.
What stopped you from studying in Russia, Alex?
14/19
Lydia O AKA Lydia - Lydia is a makeup and clothes saleswoman from Novosibirsk by day, and Kremlin propagandist by night. She's denied Russia's children abductions in Ukraine and the massacre in Bucha. She featured on DDG's 1st podcast, right after Bils was ousted as a fake.
15/19
Paul Le Meur (@plm203) - Le Meur is another administrator who goes by his real name and doesn't hide his face. He's in direct contact with a french propagandist Christelle Néant who has lived in Donbas since 2016.
16/19
Néant is also the founder of the French propaganda outlet called "Donbas insider". Paul claims to be a member of the extreme far-right "Reconquête" party, which is ironic since he's always complaining about the Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" - maybe they're the wrong kind of Nazis?
17/19
Kirill A AKA Fabushka (@fabushka_) - Mysterious Russian businessman who gave (sold?) Bils the @DD_Geopolitics account. Also, Kirill very much cheered over the doxxing of the wrong Pekka Kallioniemi and other NAFO figures.
18/19
Borut M AKA Area 52 (@Area5Z) - Slovenian (failed?) artist who accepted Hargreaves' classified documents, while the provider clearly labels them as "LEAKED".
Mr. Borat was also involved in the original Donbass Devushka group's merch sales and design.
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.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist and politician. He’s best known for rising to power at the height of the Greek debt crisis, not solving anything but endearing himself to the left, and using his fame to promote Russian imperialism.
1/20
Born in 1961 in Athens, Varoufakis studied economics in the UK and built an academic career in Australia, the US, and Europe. His early work focused on game theory, political economy, and critiques of capitalism.
2/20
Presenting himself as the fearless, unorthodox economist willing to confront the EU’s “neoliberal” elites, he rose to prominence during Greece’s debt crisis. At its height in 2015, he was appointed finance minister under the left-wing Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras.
In this 8th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss complaints about US financing of NATO, in particular how the US allegedly pays for European defense, leading to calls for a US withdrawal from the Alliance — which would only make it easier for Putin to invade more countries.
1/7
NATO by itself costs peanuts. In fact, the core of NATO is a principle, an agreement, that ideally costs nothing. The main cost is defense spending, which the US is eagerly doing anyway: Trump has just announced a 50% increase in military spending for his “Department of War”. 2/7
To sow division and thereby weaken the Alliance, vatniks deliberately mix up different figures, such as contributions to the NATO common budget, with defense spending. And US military spending has been huge by the sheer fact that the US is the world’s largest economy.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll talk about why we’re doing this: why we think Ukraine is so important and why we believe that souping vatniks and debunking their propaganda narratives is so crucial to counter Russia’s & their allies’ wars of aggression and achieve real peace.
1/20
War is expensive, and Russia is not a rich country that could afford this: Hospitals? Roads? Plumbing? No: everything into terror and destruction.
But not only that. There is a 2nd item in the Russian state budget that remains strong no matter what:
Manufacturing support for that terror and destruction. Propaganda. Vatniks. “Innocent” travel bloggers. “Independent” journalists. “Patriotic” politicians. Russia spends hundreds of billions of rubles a year ($5 billion) on this, and that kind of money buys you A LOT of BS.
In this second (and possibly last) Basiji Soup, we’ll explore how the Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared for a conflict with the US and Israel. We won’t cover the military aspects, but another kind of war — information warfare.
1/20
In the 1st Basiji Soup, we souped the Islamic Republic, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, its support of terrorism including Russia’s, its (one-sided?) relationship with Putin, and the mass protests against it that started two months ago:
The Internet blackout has been crucial in allowing the regime to cover up its massacre of the protesters and especially the scope of it, making it difficult to assess the number of victims. They went to great lengths to jam Starlink, after having made its use illegal.
In this 7th Debunk of the Day, we’ll expose the “Chickenhawk” fallacy. The chickenhawk accusation or the “go to the front!” imperative is a dishonest attempt to silence anyone supporting Ukraine by pushing them to go fight. A barely hidden death wish, as it’s always uttered… 1/5
…with zero regard for who you are or what your personal circumstances might be — you could already be there, on your way there, a veteran, or unable to fight. More broadly, not everyone can or should be a soldier, just as not everyone can or should be a policeman or a nurse. 2/5
Yet a society still needs those things to be done, and the fact that not everyone can go to medical school or fight crime does not mean that we have to surrender to invaders and criminals, nor that we cannot all have an opinion on healthcare. 3/5