Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Oct 11, 2023 19 tweets 10 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup I'll introduce the head of the Catholic Church and the bishop of Rome, Jorge Mario Bergoglio AKA Pope Francis (@pontifex). He's best-known for praising Russian imperialism and for failing to condemn Russia for their genocidal war in Ukraine.

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As most of you know, Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and thus holds significant religious and political power and influence. For example, in the 21st century, Pope Francis played a key role in in brokering the 2015 improvement in relations between the US and Cuba.

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Francis has also advocated for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide and has also been sympathetic toward the LGBT community. Additionally he has called for action against climate change.

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In light of this, it seems strange how Pope Francis has acted after Russia launched their full-scale invasion in Ukraine. To be fair, Francis visited the embassy of Russia in Rome to condemn the attack, and additionally called President Zelenskyy. But soon after this...

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..the weirdness began. In Mar 2023, just one day after more than 80 missiles and drones were launched at Ukrainian cities, bringing death and destruction, he stated the war was fueled by "several imperial interests".

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In May 2022, he suggested that Russia's invasion was "somehow either provoked," continuing that he's "simply against reducing complexity to the distinction between good guys and bad guys". He also claimed that NATO was "barking at the gates of Russia".

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In Aug 2022, Francis described the killing of Alexander Dugin's daughter, Darya Dugina, as "a case of innocents paying for the Russo-Ukrainian War". Ukraine criticized this, stating that Dugina was "one of ideologists of (Russian) imperialism" and not an innocent victim.

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In Nov 2022, Francis gave an interview to Christian magazine called America. When asked about his "seeming unwillingness to directly criticize Russia," and why he was "preferring instead to speak more generally of the need for an end to war, an end to mercenary activity...

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...rather than Russian attacks," he stated that "Generally, the cruelest are perhaps those who are of Russia but are not of the Russian tradition, such as the Chechens, the Buryati and so on."

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These utterly racist remarks reduced the Kremlin's responsibility on the atrocities in Ukraine, maybe somehow suggesting that the soldiers from the big cities don't commit any war crimes. He's also pondered whether it's "right for Western powers to arm Ukraine."

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In Aug 2023, the Pope sent a video greeting to the All-Russian Meeting of Catholic Youth in St Petersburg. During the speech, he addressed the youth by saying that "You are the descendants of great Russia: the great Russia of Saints, rulers, the great Russia of Peter I,...

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..Catherine II, that empire – educated, great culture and great humanity." These legacies have often been used by Putin as a justification for his brutal war in Ukraine, and it's yet another tone-deaf statement from Francis regarding the war in Ukraine.

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Francis' efforts to bring Russia closer to the Vatican began already in Feb 2016, when he met with Russia's Patriarch Kirill in Havana, Cuba. This was the first time leaders of the Catholic Church and the Moscow Patriarchate met, ...

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... and it was a big propaganda win for both Kirill and the Kremlin. At this time, Russia was already waging war in both Syria and in Ukraine, and some considered this meeting to "indirectly give a boost to Mr. Putin," and his imperialistic war efforts.

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It is of course common knowledge that Patriarch Kirill AKA Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyayev is not the holiest of men. In fact he used to be part of the KGB. Also, his fortune is estimated to be around 4 billion USD, and he owns a lavish palace in Gelendzhik.

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Most of Kirill's wealth came through corruption, when his church was given a privilege for duty-free importation of cigarettes during the 90s.



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To be fair, Francis has also strongly condemned the war on many occasions. He's warned pro-war Kirill to not become "Putin's altar boy", he's stated that Ukraine has "a lawful right to defend itself." But these statements became irrelevant after the Pope praised Russia's..

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...imperialistic past, blames the poor and uneducated for the cruelties in Ukraine, and states that the war in Ukraine may have been provoked by NATO. In the end, the former are quickly forgotten, whereas the latter are used as propaganda for years to come.

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All soups:
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More from @P_Kallioniemi

May 22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.

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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.

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As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.

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Read 21 tweets
May 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.

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Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”

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After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.

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Read 24 tweets
May 13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.

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Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.

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Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.

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Read 22 tweets
May 9
In today’s May 9th Vatnik Soup, we discuss the ambiguous relationship of the Kremlin with Nazism and explain why so many vatniks can be outright Nazis, and promote or excuse them while at the same time being so hysterical about alleged “Nazis in Ukraine”.

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Of course, Kremlin propaganda employs the Firehose of Falsehood and often lacks any consistent ideology other than spreading chaos and seeking power, so such contradictions can be commonplace. However in this case there is a certain cynical consistency there.

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To understand modern Russia, we need to go back a hundred years to the beginnings of Soviet Russia/Soviet Union — a genocidal terror regime under dictators Lenin and Stalin, whose totalitarian and imperialist legacy Putin’s Russia fully embraces.

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Read 24 tweets
May 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the state of X in May 2025. Since its acquisition by Elon Musk, this platform has rapidly transformed into his personal political tool and a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation.

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Not everyone is following this shitshow as closely as I am, so I thought it would be good to write a summary of all the changes that have happened on this forum and outside of it. These changes have drastically changed how the platform operates and who gets “a voice” here.

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Elon’s team has been tweaking the algorithm many times after the takeover. One of these tweaks happened already around Nov 2022, when the platform heavily suppressed the visibility of pro-Ukraine accounts. This change was then noticed & reported by many pro-Ukraine accounts.
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Read 23 tweets
May 2
In today’s 350th Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American comedian and podcaster, Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith). He’s best-known for his numerous appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and for his unhinged takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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Smith has a massive megaphone - he’s a good friend of Joe Rogan, and he’s appeared on Joe’s podcast a whopping 16 times. Naturally, he’s also visited Lex Fridman’s podcast and frequently appears on Fox News’ Kennedy and The Greg Gutfeld Show.

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Dave is part of the Kremlintarian section of the Libertarian Party called Mises Caucus. They took control of the party in May 2022, and with the help of their new leader, Angela McArdle, turned it into an extension of the MAGA Republicans:

3/22

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Read 24 tweets

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