In today's Holiday #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American social media personality and fifth columnist, @Zagonel85. He's best-known for his strong anti-Ukraine rhetoric, and hosting Spaces on X featuring prominent vatniks like convicted sex offender Scott Ritter.
1/18
This investigation was done in collaboration with @UnintelAgency.
Looking at the description, you can clearly see that he's just your typical social media vatnik, spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.
What you probably didn't know is that he's also a Tolstoy.
2/18
Let's start with the rather interesting bit - Mr. Tolstoy is, as a matter of fact, the great grandnephew of author Leo Tolstoy, and son of the late Count Vladimir Tolstoy. Vladimir was influential figure in Russian emigree circles in Washington DC until his death in 2020.
3/18
Count Tolstoy helped with the development of the St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, and organized the Annual Russian Ball popular in the "White Russian" (exiled Tsarists) community.
The Tsarist community are by and large not fans of Communists or Putin's fascist regime.
4/18
Tolstoy even worked briefly an Office Manager at the Cathedral where his father was Sub-Deacon, a job his father no doubt got for him.
Incidentally, the Cathedral is currently collecting donations for Ukraine.
5/18
Tolstoy really doesn’t like the "decadent West" and its values, often complaining about LGBT+ issues and calling Ukraine’s supporters "f**gots" when the identity of @vonClownsewitz was revealed.
Incidentally, Tolstoy's brother regularly attends Pride parades.
6/18
For obvious reasons, Tolstoy has been extremely hostile against many published investigations conducted by @UnintelAgency and yours truly, saying that there's "a cold place in hell" for us. In his case, he probably wants to protect the family name.
7/18
It probably goes without saying, but Tolstoy is very anti-Ukraine. Interestingly, his views contrast with public statements made by The Russian Ball of Washington.
But we all should be entitled for our own opinion, even when it has no basis in reality.
8/18
He's claimed that "there's zero evidence of Russian genocide [in Ukraine]", and that Bucha was fabricated by the SBU. According to him, the shoot down of MH17 was "propaganda", and that Euromaidan and the following Revolution of Dignity were an "illegal coup".
9/18
He's also supported various false claims, including the one where Zelenskyy allegedly bought a 5 million USD villa in Egypt. Then there are the "Ukrainian Nazis" - according to Tolstoy, Ukraine is simply full of them!
10/18
In addition, he's called the January 6 Capitol Attack a "democrat BlueAnon conspiracy theory", said that "white supremacist militias aren't real", and that the West is constantly attempting to "provoke Russia". He also thinks Zelenskyy is a drug addict.
11/18
According to Tolstoy, Ukrainian soldiers are "holed up" in civilian buildings, and that this strategy was actually recommended to the Ukrainians by NATO. Apparently, the Russians can do no harm and have not targeted any civilian targets in Ukraine, Syria or Chechnya.
12/18
As is the case with many of these extremely hostile accounts, there's an infinite amount of examples like this. In addition, he's made fun of Ukrainian PoW's, compared Hamas with Zelenskyy, and used plenty of ethnic slurs against Ukrainians.
13/18
Tolstoy's also commented on conflict in the Middle East, calling Oct 7 terrorist attack a "military action against Israel". He's also called Israel a "Russian cuck".
14/18
There have been some hints about Tolstoy's connections to Russian power figures: he once even claimed to have met Putin himself, continuing that he has "extensive Russian connections". These family connections have been to Tolstoy's personal advantage,...
15/18
...although given he lived with his mother until recently, it doesn't seem he took advantage of them. His employment history contains a series of internships followed by an attempt at launching an app. These days, he averages ~17 hours on social media.
16/18
Most of this time is spent on X's Spaces, where he hangs out with like-minded people like the decadent Westerner and sexual deviant Scott Ritter, X's biggest liar @ShaykhSulaiman, neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, and Malaysian US expert and RT columnist @stillgray.
17/18
To conclude: Tolstoy is a great example of a "kid" (to be fair he's almost 40) who tries too hard to distance themselves from their parents and their heritage, and hangs out with fellow communists like @vonClownsewitz.
Ironically, he's also a Lockheed Martin share owner.
18/18
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, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.
1/23
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).
2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.
It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.
So here’s the latest:
2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.
1/25
Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.
Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
2/25
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1/21
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…
2/21
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
2/17
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.