In today´s #vatniksoup REBREW, I´ll introduce a Canadian propagandist & social media personality, Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate). He´s best-known for whitewashing al-Assad´s & Russia's war crimes in Syria & for denying Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.
1/24
Maté´s biography reads an awful lot like his collaborator @MaxBlumenthal´s. Another failson of a well-to-do and famous father, in this case, of bestselling Canadian pop psychologist Gabor Maté, Aaron similarly fought a losing struggle to make a career in liberal journalism.
2/24
Maté´s personal life is also a bit weird. Records show he was married to a former NPR reporter named @StarleeKine, yet neither he nor Kine have ever publicly acknowledged their marriage on social media,even at the time it took place. Perhaps this is because it also...
3/24
...coincided with Maté´s move from Canada to NYC & his acquisition, thanks to Kine, of US citizenship. Was it true love or a Green Card arrangement?
Around 2010, Aaron landed a job for Democracy Now!, a far-left cable news site, which occasionally hosts experts on Syria...
4/24
...who tell the actual truth about that conflict - earning Maté´s enmity that his former employer has sold out to the CIA and regime change industrial establishment.
After this, he worked for a time at a website called The Real News, but was fired some time around 2019.
5/24
Little birds told me that Aaron angered a board member of The Real News by doctoring a debate between Mary Ellsberg, the daughter of famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and one Max Blumenthal. The debate was on Nicaragua and Maté sneakily tried...
6/24
...to make Blumenthal come across as less ignorant and unhinged than he was on tape. It was a match made in vatnik heaven, and from then on, the two praised authoritarian regimes around the globe together through their fake news outlet @TheGrayzoneNews.
7/24
Despite having no background in chemical weapons or even any real experiencing in reporting on the Middle East, Maté has become one of the most visible proponents of a conspiracy theory about Bashar al-Assad´s use of chemical weapons against Syrian rebels and civilians.
8/24
Namely, Maté doesn’t think Assad used them – he has claimed that "Every major chemical weapons allegation against the Syrian gov´t has been undermined by Western leaks" and/or "other damning evidence". This fake narrative, which exonerates the Assad regime from some of...
9/24
...its most notorious crimes, is also one prized by the Kremlin. Maté has even admitted that he was working with RT to doxx Syrian eyewitnesses to one horrific chemical weapon attack in Douma, Damascus, in 2018. He even traveled to Syria, at the invitation of the Assad...
10/24
...regime and under the supervision of the Syrian intelligence services, to further peddle his claim that the Douma attack was a hoax. However, in 2023, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, found that it was all-too-real. This report even engaged...
11/24
...with the various alternative explanations advanced by Maté and others, debunking their validity with forensic precision. Maté has received funding for his propaganda from an organization that funds apologists for the Assad regime:
Another big obsession of Maté´s is that Russia´s election interference in 2016 – which he derisively labels "Russiagate" – never happened. He has claimed, for instance, that there is "no evidence" the GRU hacked the Democratic National Committee, when in fact there is...
13/24
...plenty, starting with Mueller´s indictment of a dozen GRU hackers for doing just that. Actually, the GRU´s hack-and-leak operation against the Democrats was a central finding of the Mueller Report, which also noted that Russia´s goal was to help the Trump candidacy.
14/24
Even with the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference, Maté claims that the Mueller report found no "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016. But as the term has no legal basis in the US, "collusion" was dismissed by the very same...
15/24
...Mueller report as a premise for federal investigation.
For Aaron, the US intelligence community is both a cynical and pathological liar and the definitive word on any subject, depending on how what it says confirms or disconfirms Maté´s worldview.
16/24
For example, the Republican-led subcommittee identified Konstantin Kilimnik, a former associate of convicted Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, as a "Russian intelligence agent."
Maté’s response was to call Kilimnik on the phone and ask him if he was a Russian spy.
17/24
Kilimnik told Aaron he wasn´t, and why would he lie? Case closed for Aaron Maté, whose standard of proof for other, real journalists is usually much higher than that. For example, he´s called the respected investigative journalism group @bellingcat a "NATO state psyop".
18/24
Maté, like Blumenthal, caters to an ill-informed audience who think that everything the US government says is false and therefore everything its enemies say must be true.
Uyghur Muslims interned in concentration camps in China and deemed victims of genocide?
19/24
They’re doing just fine, according to the Grayzone boys, who even come up with new lines of attack against Uyghur defenders, propaganda which the Chinese Communist Party later uses. As is tradition, propaganda boys defame the messenger and disregard the actual message.
20/24
When it comes to Ukraine, Maté can´t stop talking about "Ukrainian neo-Nazis". His favorite topic seems to be the Odesa clashes, which were heavily influenced by pro-Kremlin agitators. More on the incident here:
To be fair, Maté has "never claimed expertise on Russia, Ukraine, or Syria" & it shows. For example, he´s falsely claimed that Russia was not a signatory to the two Minsk agreements. His dishonest takes on Ukraine have been dissected thoroughly here:
Dmitry Polyanskiy,the Russian SVR officer residing in NYC, loves Maté even more than he does Blumenthal. Dima refers to Maté as "dear Aaron", and he´s even invited Aaron to speak at the UNSC.
For some reason Maté crops his SVR handler out of all the content they´re in.
23/24
To conclude, Maté is a propagandist whose work is strongly supported by authoritarian regimes like the ones in Syria and Russia.
As @neil_abrams put it, "Aaron Maté isn’t dumb," only "dishonest", which makes him a valuable asset in spreading pro-Kremlin and pro-Assad BS.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the Wagner Group, its founders Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, and the mutiny they started on 23 Jun 2023. The event marked the climax of the Wagner Group–Russian MoD conflict, and finally led to the deaths of Prigozhin and Utkin.
1/22
Wagner has been used in many conflicts around the world, but they came to global prominence during the war in Donbas in 2014-2015. Wagnerites helped the Donbas separatists fight against the Ukrainians during the conflict, which helped Putin to “outsource” the insurrection.
2/22
The group doesn’t have any central ideology, but many of its members and leaders have ties to various neo—Nazi movements in Russia. For example, Wagner leader Dmitry Utkin had several Nazi symbols tattooed on his body. Neo—nazi group Rusich has also fights as part of Wagner.
3/22
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an Amsterdam-based propaganda channel, Bonanza Media (@bonanzamedia2). It’s best-known for producing & spreading online pro-Kremlin propaganda videos while closely coordinating & collaborating with the Russian intelligence agency GRU.
1/19
Russian intelligence has been extremely active in the Netherlands for a long time. For example in 2018, four GRU agents were caught while trying to hack into OPCW,an organization that monitors the use of chemical weapons. In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC)…
2/19
…and the MH17 investigation have become targets for the Russian intelligence and propaganda operations. These operations are often complemented with “investigative journalism” media outlets, that often echo the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll talk about the recent EU elections and what are their implications for both the Kremlin and Ukraine. Right-wing political parties, some pro-Kremlin, won a lot of seats around Europe, and this result can also change the EU’s stance on Ukraine.
1/19
But before we start, I want to promote a truck fundraiser I'm doing together with the fantastic @ArturRehi and @69thSB.
Our goal is 20 000 USD, and you can contribute to this important fundraiser here:
EU’s support of Ukraine is essential for their survival against genocidal Russia. So far,this support has been delayed mostly by Orban’s Hungary (& to some degree, Fico’s Slovakia). Now, this support will probably be challenged by many new members of the European Parliament.
3/19
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss a specific propaganda/disinformation that the Kremlin likes to use – antisemitism. I also talk about how the Russian society itself has become riddled with antisemitism & how this has led to a decrease in Jewish population in the country.
1/19
Russian antisemitism works on many levels, and their narratives vary depending whether they’re targeting a local audience or people in Europe and the US. For example for the latter, Russia attempts to create a false narrative of Ukraine being an antisemitic “Nazi state”.
2/19
But before diving deeper, let’s look at a survey data of Russians in 2023: Nearly 30 million Russians harbour antisemitic attitudes, and 15% of those surveyed believed that “Jews were responsible for most of the world’s wars.” 38% think that the Jews have...
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian media personality and propagandist, Diana Panchenko (@Panchenko_X). She’s best-known for betraying her own country by peddling anti-Zelenskyy and anti-Ukraine propaganda and disinformation for the Kremlin.
1/22
Panchenko was born in 1988 in the Mykolaev Oblast in Ukrainian SSR in 1988. She studied publishing and editing at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and later graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in law.
2/22
After graduating, Diana worked briefly for the news site . Between 2010 and 2015, Panchenko was a presenter for KyivTV, but she found her true calling as a pro-Kremlin propagandist after she was hired by a national “news channel” called NewsOne.