Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Nov 15, 2023 18 tweets 9 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a German journalist and documentarist, Hubert Seipel. He's best-known for creating several propaganda pieces on Vladimir Putin, for downplaying Putin's atrocities, and for receiving money from a Russian oligarch without disclosing this.
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Let's start with the obvious - Hubert Seipel, a German "Russia expert", received at least 600 000 EUR in undisclosed offshore payments from companies linked to an oligarch Alexei Mordashov, a person very close to Vladimir Putin.

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This money was paid to him in installments, and it was allegedly paid to support his work on two books about Putin. Both of these books portray the Russian president in a very positive light. The second book was actually titled "Putin's Power: Why Europe Needs Russia".

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A handwritten note by Seipel suggests that a similar contract was done for his 2013 Putin biography. These transfer were discovered from the so-called Cyprus Confidential files, consisting of 3,6 million leaked documents dating from the mid-90's to April 2022.

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After the documents were leaked, Seipel has admitted to receiving the money as "sponsorship", which was generously and secretly offered by the oligarch with no strings attached, although this appears to stretch both plausibility and the definition of sponsorship.

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Seipel didn't disclose any of these payments to his publisher or his other employers. Mordashov, who made the payments to him has been under Western sanctions since 2022. In a 2021 radio broadcast, he denied receiving money from Russia in return for favourable reporting.

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In 2009, Seipel started working on a documentary on Russia's energy giant, Gazprom. This provided him access to key personnel of Gazprom like its Deputy Chairman, Alexander Medvedev, and Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev.

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Produced around the same time as Russia's invasion of Georgia, the documentary shows a positive image of the company and emphasizes the importance of business cooperation between Russia and Europe.

To be fair, Seipel wasn't afraid to criticize Putin at this point, either.

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During the production, he also met with Putin, and this seemed to be a stepping stone for Seipel into Putin's inner circle.

Between 2011 and 2012, Seipel accompanied Putin for months for the documentary, "Ich Putin – ein Porträt".

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The documentary is a powerful propaganda piece that portrays Putin as the macho man the way he was often described as in the Western media. It shows Putin practicing judo, playing hockey, going on hunting trips and visiting troops in remote areas like Siberia.

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Seipel conducted the first televised interview with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, which was broadcast on German, publicly-funded network ARD in Jan 2014.

Snowden was also featured in Glenn Greenwald's 2014 documentary Citizenfour:

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In Nov 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, Seipel did a controversial interview with Putin. He was criticized for violating journalistic standards by conducting an extremely one-sided and biased interview, and some even blamed him for supporting Russian state propaganda.

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Next year in his book "Putin: Innenansichten der Macht" he criticized the German term "Putin-Versteher" (Putin-understanders), which refers to people who support Putin's imperialistic endeavours in regions and countries like Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine.

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In 2021, after Biden referred to Putin as "a killer", Seipel said that the Democrats liked to blame Putin for Trump's victory in 2016, suggesting that Russia didn't interfere (despite overwhelming evidence that shows otherwise) with the 2016 US presidential election.

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During the same interview, when asked about the poisoning of opposition figure Navalny, he claimed that the evidence that the order came from the Kremlin "is not as clear as it is written," and that other parties have Novichok, too. Navalny was indeed poisoned by the FSB.

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On 24 Feb 2022, @ARD_Presse invited him to talk about the war. They discussed how "Putin feels threatened by NATO's eastward expansion," a classic Kremlin narrative that was used to justify Russia's genocidal war. Weeks before, he also said Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine.

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To conclude: We know have solid evidence of Kremlin's influence operations on prominent Western journalists. Incidentally, Mr Seipel himself has said that the money he received "didn't affect his independence as a journalist."

Why not disclose it then?

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More about Putin's "economic war" here:


Sources: @ZDFfrontal, @BadBalticTakes

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Aug 18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.

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Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.

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Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

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Read 25 tweets
Aug 11
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.

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Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.

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One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.

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Read 24 tweets
Aug 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the autocratic concept of “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars”: the idea that the leader is wise and just, but constantly sabotaged by corrupt advisors. This narrative shields the ruler from blame, and it’s used by both Putin and Trump today.

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The phrase “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars” (Царь хороший, бояре плохие), also known as Naïve Monarchism, refers to a long-standing idea in Russian political culture: the ruler is good and benevolent, but his advisors are corrupt, incompetent and responsible for all failures.

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From this perception, any positive action taken by the government is viewed as being an accomplishment of the benevolent leader, whereas any negative one is viewed as being caused by lower-level bureaucrats or “boyars”, without the approval of the leader.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.

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On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.

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What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 27
Let me show you how a Pakistani (or Indian, they're usually the same) AI slop farm/scam operates. The account @designbonsay is a prime example: a relatively attractive, AI-generated profile picture and a ChatGPT-style profile description are the first red flags.

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The profile's posts are just generic engagement farming, usually using AI-generated photos of celebrities or relatively attractive women.

These posts are often emotionally loaded and ask the user to interact with them ("like and share if you agree!").

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Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.

Country code for the phone number is in Pakistan.

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Read 5 tweets
Jul 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.

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Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.

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Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.

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Read 23 tweets

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