In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American social media personality, Samantha A. (@zukosmadre).
She's best-known for anti-Imperialism (but only when it comes to the US), and for her hot takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War and the conflict in the Middle East.
1/17
After reading the previous tweet, your first thought is probably "Who?"
Well, @zukosmadre is a relatively quickly growing social media account that focuses on commenting on geopolitical issues, occasionally posting seductive selfies and thus addressing her "fans".
2/17
I consider Samantha to be a part of the group of "relatively attractive, young women who promote pro-Kremlin narratives" along with people like Sarah Bils, Maria Butina, Alina Lipp and Liu Sivaya (@liusivaya).
Her activities also closely resemble how @Partisangirl started.
3/17
Like @PartisanGirl, Samantha probably discovered a long time ago that her looks and attractive selfies would bring her followers and reach on social media, which can then be beneficial once you start pushing your ridiculous and genocidal political agenda.
4/17
She's has been actively engaging in Russian war crime denialism and apologism, denial of Ukrainian sovereignty, "US/West/NATO bad" rhetoric, and general pro-Kremlin talking points ever since before the invasion of Ukraine began, ramping it way aggressively up afterward.
5/17
Sam's views seem to stem from the support of feminist communism and socialism, and she's heavily against "colonialism" - except if it's done by the Russians or Soviets in Ukraine.
For her, the US is the "imperial core & global hegemon," yet she chooses to live there.
6/17
She's called Holodomor "literally Nazi propaganda," and opposes any military or humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and according to her, NATO and Ukraine are full of Nazis. She's also stated that the West and Ukraine don't care about women, and anyone who thinks that is a fool.
7/17
Then there's of course the "8 years of shelling of Donbas" narrative,a story that's been debunked so many times that it's extremely difficult to find people who believe in that shit anymore. Well, here's one I guess.She also believes in Taibbi's & Maté's silly RussiaGate BS.
8/17
To Sam, Ukraine's a country full of Nazis and she proves this by sharing a UN voting map on Russia's UN resolution they've used both for propaganda and for justifying their genocidal attack on Ukraine.
Incidentally, she doesn't talk about Russia's massive neo-Nazi problem.
9/17
Sam's often called for people who support Ukraine to "take that energy and go fight for Ukraine". Now this is something that you see quite often, as some people don't realize that war efforts can be helped in many ways, including countering disinformation online.
10/17
Incidentally, Sam is doing what she's accusing other people of - she's arguing with Ukraine and Israel supporters online, often resorting to namecalling and ad hominems.
As of today, she hasn't allegedly done anything other than arguing online to "help" Palestinians.
11/17
After Hamas' terrorist attack against Israelis on 7 Oct 2023, Samantha ramped up her genocidal rhetoric going as far as to say that every single Israeli person, literal babies and toddlers included, are "all settlers", and that they all deserved it.
12/17
She hopes that everyone who "condemns Hamas" drowns in piss and claims that these people "helped manufacture consent for genocide". She also apparently doesn't like the claim that killing and kidnapping civilians are "Hamas methods" (which they of course are).
13/17
Sam's actually working as a bartender/server in a very popular, Jewish-owned bar in Connecticut. She's probably used to serving Jews and Ukrainians every time she is behind the counter.
But I suppose her boss is not part of the "evil Zionists" clan she so much despises.
14/17
Probably due to the lack of tipping culture, She also despises "Europeans" (probably calls them "Nazis") and her messages to work group chats reveal her hate and bigotry against them.
In fact she’s told her work group chat to tell Europeans "tell them to kill themselves".
15/17
She's allegedly studying to become a public defender, and she's paid big bucks for companies to erase her online history.
That's probably a good idea, if you want to become a prominent lawyer, as lately she has promoted threats against people like @drewpavlou.
16/17
To conclude: Sam is an edgy feminist/communist/far-left type that spews typical anti-Ukraine rhetoric and pro-Kremlin narratives. Lately she's been more focused on the conflict in the Middle East, supporting terrorist group Hamas and fighting against "evil Zionists".
17/17
This research was done in collaboration with The Unintelligence Agency (@UnintelAgency).
I have paused personal donations for now, please support @U24_gov_ua by donating to the #HopakChallenge and sending me the receipt:
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
In this 6th Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about a complex and controversial topic: conscription. It is used by vatniks to attack Ukraine for drafting men to fight, while conveniently ignoring the alternative, including the horrors of conscription into the Russian army. 1/8
Military obligations are a reality in many countries, from the most peaceful democracies to the most tyrannical dictatorships — unless you have “bone spurs”. Some argue it is a necessity for defense against invading armies, especially for small countries. 2/8
Others point out that it goes against individual rights or that a professional army is better. And Zelenskyy might agree: he did in fact end conscription. But then a full-scale invasion happened: exactly why many nations, including the US, still keep some form of draft. 3/8