In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about @DD_Geopolitics, so-called useful idiots, and theorize on how DDG's founder Sarah Bils become one. Bils is best-known for setting up the pro-Kremlin Donbass Devushka network and later rebranding it as DD Geopolitics.
1/16
This investigation was conducted by The Unintelligence Agency (TUA).
If you missed the first soup on Donbass Devushka, I suggest reading it now to understand what's going on in this one:
As we've established before, Russian active measures often look for "useful idiots", or people who are willing to spread the Kremlin propaganda without them fully comprehending their goals:
These people are often motivated by money, ideology, compromising material or their ego; I'm not a psychologist, but in Bils' case I'd bet on both money and ego. Almost immediately after she started the Donbass Devushka network, she started grifting for money by selling...
4/16
...Z-merchandise and collecting donations for made-up causes and charities. Even her former colleague, @squatsons, seemed confused about the whole charity situation, and eventually admitted that he didn't know where the money went - probably to Bils' own pockets.
5/16
After the WSJ published their story on Bils, she claimed that TUA ruined her life. According to her, she had lost two jobs, two businesses & time with her child. She declared that this was due to people "doxxing" her. But Sarah ruined her life long before NAFO even existed.
6/16
According to court documents, she has a "long-term problem with drugs, alcohol or other substances". She sold her child's toys and was so addicted to being on her phone, that she neglected her child. The house was a mess and there were times she didn’t feed them.
7/16
She has a massive drinking problem, and she skipped deployments due to this. Once her ex-husband found her passed out on the floor while she was supposed to watch over their kid. She was sent home from deployment for being drunk. She often drank in the presence of her child.
8/16
According to her ex, she wanted to waive her rights as a parent since she can't afford child support. She was also constantly cheating on him, as testified by her kid. After he filed for divorce, she invited her brother and her mom to live with them.
9/16
And about that doxxing: Bils has no trouble spreading other people's personal information and calling for her fans to brigade against them.
She considers TUA and WSJ exposing her lies a "doxx" and constantly lies about the extent of these revelations.
10/16
You absolutely can't trust anything Bils says, and she's claimed to be Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian, Italian, Slovenian and Latvian. She's also lied about her education, academic background (there isn't any), and about... well, everything.
She's from New Jersey.
11/16
You may ask, "why all these gossip-y details? Why do they even matter?" Well, these are the type of people Russian intelligence targets. Problematic figures who are looking for a some kind of external factor to solve all of their problems, usually related to money.
12/16
Now, we know that Bils has around 63 000 USD in loans and she's willing to do anything to keep up with her lifestyle - even sell her child's toys and try to steal Vicodin. I'm sure even Dmitry Polyanskiy (@Dpol_un) agrees that Bils would be a perfect asset for the Kremlin.
13/16
DDG is still actively collecting "donations", and all money goes to Sarah's private account. The network was started in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but has since switched their focus to the next trendy thing, the Israel-Palestine conflict.
14/16
Bils/DDG have been accepted to Russia's "inner circles", and they are now invited to participate in silly events like the "Crisis of Freedom of Speech". They've also tweeted statements from Hezbollah and invited guests from Iranian state-controlled propaganda channels.
15/16
This will conclude our long series on Donbass Devushka/DD Geopolitics/Sarah Bils. By now, DDG has become a rather minor actor when it comes pro-Kremlin fake news & propaganda, and it's time to focus on actors and organizations that have actual impact on the information war.
16/16
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about Finland and how pro-Kremlin propagandists have become more active in the Finnish political space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time since 2022, they’ve gained some political power in Finland.
1/16
Russia’s political strategy in countries with Russian-speaking minorities (such as Finland and the Baltics) is typically quite similar: it seeks to rally these minorities around issues like language and minority rights, and then frames the situation as oppression.
2/16
At the same time, Russian speakers are extremely wary and skeptical of local media, and instead tend to follow Russian domestic outlets like Russia-1 and NTV, thereby reinforcing an almost impenetrable information bubble.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the Ukrainian SBU’s “Spiderweb” operation and the main disinformation narrative vatniks have been spreading during the afterfall. While domestic Russian media stays silent, the vatniks and Russian milbloggers have been extremely loud.
1/20
This operation was probably the most impactful strike since the drowning of the Moskva, massively reducing Russia’s capability to bomb Ukrainian cities (or anyone else’s). It involved smuggling 117 FPV drones hidden in trucks into Russia. Once near airbases,…
2/20
…the roofs opened remotely, launching drones in synchronized waves to strike targets up to 4,000 km away. The mission took 18 months to plan. The unsuspecting Russian truck drivers who transported them had no idea they were delivering weapons deep behind their own lines.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian movie director, propagandist, and former priest: Ivan Okhlobystin. He’s best known for his strong support for the war on Ukraine and for his radical views, which are often used as a testbed for the domestic Russian audience.
1/20
Ivan was born in 1966 from a short-lived marriage between a 62-year-old chief physician and a 19-year-old engineering student. She later remarried, and the family moved from Kaluga province to Moscow. Ivan kept the surname Okhlobystin from his biological father.
2/20
After moving to Moscow, Ivan began studying at VGIK film school. He soon became a playwright for theatre productions and also wrote for Stolitsa magazine, which he later left because, as he put it, “it had become a brothel.”
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.
1/20
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.
2/20
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.
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.
1/23
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.”
2/23
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.
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.
1/20
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.
2/20
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.