In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about Russian attempts to "russify" and completely wipe out the Ukrainian identity in the Eastern Ukrainian territories and Crimea that Russia is temporarily occupying.
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Today The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) published their findings on an extensive investigation spanning over several months, on the harsh reality of Russia's aggressive policy of assimilation in the regions they temporarily occupy in Eastern Ukraine.
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Eyewitnesses and experts have revealed incidences of torture, coercion, deportation, cultural erasure, and military indoctrination in these regions. All this is a violation of the international law and in some cases even amount to possible war crimes and genocide.
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Former police officer, Anton Lomakin from Kherson was detained for four months. During this time, he was given multiple electric shocks, beaten with an iron club & waterboarded. Waterboarding is illegal under the law of war with the adoption of the third Geneva Convention.
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Artem Petrik is currently doing his PhD in History in Vilnius. He was caught in Kherson after the start of the full-scale invasion, and was persecuted because of his profession: Russians consider a historian a propagandist, who is part of the ideological system.
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During the interview, he stated that "if you don't want to be Russian, you will die. If you support the Ukrainian identity, you will have serious problems: imprisonment, death, torture."
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Larysa Borova fled the occupied territories last June. She said that if you don't have a Russian passport, you don't get pension, food or medical services. She said that many elderly require medication and attain Russian passport just to stay alive.
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Leonid Remyga, a medical doctor who worked in Kherson told that they were forced to give out Russian birth certificates. They were forced to memorize the Russian anthem and if they couldn't, they were beaten and tortured.
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In addition, all children have to attend Russian schools and follow the Russian curriculum. Ukrainian children are being denied access to their own culture and their own history, and are being forced to learn the revised history of Russkiy Mir instead.
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Yet,people like @tuckercarlson & the Grayzone "journalists" are complaining because Ukraine is temporarily banning pro-Kremlin Orthodox churches that are basically an extension of the FSB. How corrupt and/or stupid do you have to be completely disregard an ongoing genocide?
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In today’s Wumao Soup, we’ll talk about Taiwan, the sovereign country the Chinese Communist Party insists is not a country, but constantly threatens to invade just like a country, while the “antiwar” crowd is eagerly encouraging them to start that war, endangering millions.
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Taiwan is a country, a state. It has its own territory, government, army, police, courts, taxes, passports and elections, just like any other country.
The only difference? Its neighbor, imperialist China, wants to invade it, and other countries try to please the big bully.
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Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, or ROC. The ROC was founded in 1912, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. The People’s Republic of China, or PRC, was founded by democidal dictator Mao Zedong and his communist party, in 1949, after fighting against the ROC.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce Russian propaganda operations around military targets like Starobilsk. For over a decade, the Kremlin has used similar strategies, combining crisis actors, “independent journalists” and fabricated evidence.
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First, let’s go back to 2014. Russia funded separatist groups and sent its mercenaries to Donbas, which led to the creation of two puppet states, Donetsk and Luhansk, governed by Russian propagandists and soldiers like Igor Girkin.
The fake genocide was touted as one of the main reasons for Russia’s war during the early stages of the full-scale invasion, and the claim was made even by Putin himself. Before his mutiny, late Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said that all this was fabricated bullshit.
In this 9th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss “legitimate military targets”. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, with no declaration of war, hiding behind a “special military operation”. Yet vatniks & useful idiots pretend Russia has any legitimate or lawful targets in Ukraine.
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Russia started the war in 2014 by seizing Crimea with unmarked soldiers, “little green men”. Russians have been waging an undeclared, illegal war with endless war crimes ever since, whether it’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children with genocidal intent…
… the concentration camps for Ukrainians under occupation, conscripting Ukrainians from occupied territories, or the terrorist, deliberate bombing of civilians, including their infamous “double tap” strikes.
So no, Russia does not have any “legitimate targets” in Ukraine.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer and millionaire. He’s best known for his champagne socialism, rabid criticism of the US and Israel, support for the Soviet Union and for Chinese and Russian invasions, and for mistreating his dog.
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Born in 1991, Piker grew up in a privileged and well-connected environment. His father held senior roles at big corporations and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, is the founder of The Young Turks media network. He graduated cum laude from Rutgers, a top-tier university in New Jersey.
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His main activity and primary source of income consists of hours-long livestreams on Twitch where he comments on news and yells at videos. He also keeps his dog in place the whole time with a shock collar.
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.
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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.
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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.