In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an Irish social media personality and propagandist, Chay Bowes (@BowesChay). He's best-known for his collaboration with a Russian SVR operative @Dpol_un, and for spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda while working as a correspondent for RT.
1/20
For years, Bowes was looking for his place in this world, trying his wings as a gunshop owner and health insurance middle manager. At some point, he did some online studies so that he can put up "MA in strategic studies" in his bio to gain some credibility.
2/20
For some years, Chay has claimed to be an "investigative journalist". In 2021, Chay, businessman Paddy Cosgrave and few others launched an Irish political news website called The Ditch. It was funded by Cosgrave, and Chay was one of the three main shareholders.
3/20
Bowes' buddy Cosgrave is also the founder of the annual technology conference called Web Summit. Paddy platformed Chay at the conference, and strongly defended him on Twitter in Jan 2022, stating that Chay being pro-Kremlin is nothing but a "conspiracy theory".
4/20
Cosgrave also invited The Grayzone boys over to Web Summit after the full-scale war broke out in 2022, but eventually cancelled their attendance after strong protests. Eventually, Bowes faded away from The Ditch and moved to Moscow to work as a...
5/20
..correspondent (read: propagandist) for RT. In Oct 2023, after commenting on the Israel-Hamas war, Cosgrave was forced to resign as CEO of Web Summit. After this,Web Summit's remaining board members cut all funding to The Ditch & Chay became fully dependent on the Kremlin.
6/20
As Cosgrave was defending his old buddy, Bowes was living a double-life: he had an alternative Twitter account called "Truth Defender", that already in 2014 was spewing out the extremely pro-Kremlin, and most racist, homophobic, conspiratorial content one can imagine.
7/20
Even though already in 2015 "Truth Defender" was calling for Russia "to enter Ukraine and destroy these nazi dogs" and "murdering liars", on the day that Russia launched their full-scale invasion, Chay posted a series of tweets on his main profile, condemning all violence.
8/20
Now Chay, if you're so anti-war, why don't you organize anti-war protests in Moscow? Putting enough domestic pressure on Putin would surely end the war. Because it's not the "profit-fueled neo-liberal hegemony", as you refer to the West, that attacked Ukraine. It's Russia.
9/20
Anyway, like so many failed journalists who can't manage to land a job in Europe, Chay moved to Moscow where he was quickly employed by the Kremlin's biggest propaganda factory. His main job at RT is to bash the West and at the same time seem relatively professional.
10/20
Listening to Bowes spout about Ukraine is very similar to listening to any other pro-Kremlin mouthpiece. For example, he claims that the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a coup orchestrated by the Nuland gang, which led to a "far-right regime" taking over Ukrainian politics.
11/20
Like his propagandist fellow @aaronjmate, Chay likes to share a made-up version of the Odesa fire of 2014, leaving out the fact that the fire department failed to act accordingly and the fire chief later fled to Crimea where he got a well-paying job:
12/20
He spread conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer's crazy theory about a US neo-Nazi Kent McLellan fighting in Ukraine. The story was quickly debunked by @bellingcat and others, and most people saw through Loomer's crude photoshop edits of McLellan's photos.
13/20
In one of his most disgusting takes (and there are many!), Bowes claimed on RT that the Christchurch mass shooter Brenton Tarrant was "trained by Ukrainian neo-Nazis", a claim without a shred of real evidence. Who comes up with this vile garbage? It's @M_Simonyan, isn't it?
14/20
He also sees Nazis absolutely everywhere BUT in Russia. Chay, any thoughts on openly neo-Nazi Russian figures like Alexey Milchakov,Dmitry Rogozin,Pavel Gubarev & Yan Petrovsky? As an "unbiased journalist", you should probably have some sort of neutral take on these people.
15/20
Due to his online course in strategic studies,he provided a thorough analysis on how Russia in 2022 retreated from both Kherson & Kharkiv in "good order" & how Ukrainians allegedly lost 20 000 men while recapturing the former.He's also called Russian leadership "pragmatic".
16/20
Then there's of course the Kremlin propaganda "classics" like bringing up alleged corruption, "genocide in Donbas", jailing of "journalists", banning the "opposition", and refusing to hold elections during war time (which is forbidden by the constitution).
17/20
Bowes is a well-known guest on many vatnik podcasts. Right after the full-scale war begun, he was guest on @georgegalloway's Kremlin-sponsored Sputnik show. He also appeared on the Donbas Devushka podcast, hosted by a US-citizen who claimed to be a "poor girl from Lugansk".
18/20
Like the Kremlin stooges @aaronjmate and @maxblumenthal, Chay was also invited to speak at the UNSC on behalf of Russia by the SVR operative, @Dpol_un, where he was introduced as a "scholar specialising in small arms and munitions" and as a "famous journalist".
19/20
And Chay, I understand - you sold your soul to an authoritarian regime and now you simply have to produce them propaganda so you have some food on the table.
Because Russia is pretty much the only place (or maybe China later!) where you're not ridiculed and despised.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) and how pro-Kremlin propagandists, oligarchs and lawyers are using its "persecution" as a tool to reduce support for Ukraine and its government.
1/20
In Oct 2023, @tuckercarlson published an episode on Joe Biden "backing the Ukrainian government as it throws priests in jail," in which he interviewed Bob Amsterdam, a lawyer representing the UOC-MP. He was hired by a Russian oligarch, Vadym Novynskyi, for the job.
2/20
The case is related to so called Draft Law 8371, a bill that would give Ukrainian authorities power to investigate the connection of religious groups in Ukraine to the Russian Federation and to ban those that have leadership under the control of the Kremlin.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll talk about hybrid operations in the context of information operations. Hybrid operations are a blend of political warfare and influencing methods like employing troll/bot farms, and spreading fake news, propaganda and disinformation.
1/21
In this thread, I will demonstrate four case studies on how Russian operatives conduct hybrid operations on three different continents. All of them have distinct characteristics, but rely on the same mechanisms, like using social media to spread the message.
2/21
Hybrid operations often combine real-world, and orchestrated and pre-planned scenarios with online activities. Sometimes Russia shills attempt to mobilize people for real-life events like protests by inflating these events on social media and fake news sites.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Belgian political activist, Luc Michel (@LucMichelPCN). He's best-known for his extreme far-right views, supporting and promoting Russia-orchestrated fake elections, and organizing a vast African fake news network, Russosphère.
1/18
In his early years, Michel became part of Front de la Jeunesse, a far-right militia. In 1980, members of the organization killed a French-Algerian man in Brussels. In 1981, they burned down a publishing house for a magazine who exposed the organization's internal structures.
2/18
During the 80s Michel become an assistant of Jean Thiriart, a Belgian far-right political theorist and former Waffen SS member. Thiriart and Michel moved later towards National Bolshevism, and they also collaborated with Russian fascist Alexander Dugin.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an Australian hacker, publisher and activist, Julian Assange. He's best-known as the founder of WikiLeaks, leaking hacked and stolen data, cooperating with the Russian intelligence, and for being under criminal investigation in the US.
1/22
Julian's activism probably comes from his father, John Shipton, an "anti-war activist" who's helped Julian with launching WikiLeaks and the WikiLeaks Party. He also arranged a trip to Syria to meet with Bashar al-Assad and even planned to open an office for the party there.
2/22
In recent years, Shipton has been seen regularly at Australian "Z-rallies" in support of the Kremlin's war on Ukraine. Incidentally, Shipton got interested in Julian after he became famous in Australia - before that, he was almost completely absent from Julian's life.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Dutch right-wing activist, conspiracy theorist & social media personality, Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@evavlaar). She's best-known for her promotion of the "decline of the Decadent West" trope, and for promotion of pro-Kremlin narratives.
1/19
Eva's main audience is conservative traditionalists, and basically everything she does revolves around this theme. She also promotes various conspiracy theories about the "global elites", COVID-19 and vaccines, World Economic Forum and digitalisation of society.
2/19
She's also a raging populist, and is not afraid to take current events and rally around them to get more attention to her conspiratorial ramblings. Recently, she's been involved with the protests by European farmers against increasing costs and tiny margins.
There's a wild theory going around on X, that @AdrianDittmann is actually a fake persona created by @elonmusk. This theory came to be already around 6 months ago, after which "Adrian" and Elon spoke together at a Space full of Musk fanboys.
Short thread.
1/6
Dittmann has attended Alex Jones' X Spaces at least twice, and even Jones himself has suggested that Adrian is actually Elon. Some have even speculated that it could be a deepfake voice cloned from Elon's.
2/6
Now, IF Adrian is actually Elon, he is the most egoistic, delusional person on this planet. I mean, who creates a fake persona and then comments on their own posts with praise like "You're an amazing father, Elon"?