Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Apr 24, 2024 25 tweets 13 min read Read on X
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.

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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
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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...

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...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...

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...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
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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...

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...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
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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
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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...

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...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
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...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

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...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:



12/24 bellingcat.com/news/2019/09/3…
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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...

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...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
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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...

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...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
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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
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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".

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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?

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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

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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:



21/24
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:

22/24


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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
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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.

24/24
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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jul 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.

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Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.

The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.

2/15 Image
The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text:

3/15

vatniksoup.com/en/soups/
Read 15 tweets
Jul 1
In today’s Wumao Soup, I’ll introduce how and where the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda and influence operations work. Due to China’s massive population and advances in AI, CCP-aligned online content has become increasingly visible.

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Like Russia’s troll farms, China has its own troll army: the “50 Cent Party” or “Wumao” refers to state-linked online commentators who are reportedly paid ¥0.50 per post to steer discussions away from criticism and amplify CCP narratives on social media.

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Back in 2017, a research paper estimated that the Wumao produced almost 500 million fabricated comments annually to distract readers and shift topics. In that sense, Wumao operates very similarly to the Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” model:

3/20

Read 21 tweets
Jun 26
In today’s Vatnik Soup and the “Degenerate Russia” series, I’ll show you the brutal reality of Russian war crimes, in particular the horrific tortures and sexual abuses of children, women and men.

Buckle up, this one is not for the faint-hearted.

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For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeted at right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional,family values.

2/24

In the previous “degenerate Russia” series we discussed Russia’s insanely high divorce rates, rampant domestic violence, high murder rates, thriving neo-Nazi culture, corruption of the Orthodox Church, and their massive demographic problem:

3/24

Read 26 tweets
Jun 24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explore how Russia is working with Iran, and how the recent Israel–US strikes on Iran could affect the war in Ukraine. Iran has been one of Russia’s key allies in their genocidal war, but in reality the partnership is deeply one-sided.

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Historically, Russia/USSR has been involved in numerous wars in the Middle East, invading Afghanistan for nearly a decade and desperately trying to keep Syria’s authoritarian leader, al-Assad, in power before his eventual downfall.

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While initially supportive of Israel, the Soviet Union quickly pivoted to backing its enemies, fueling antisemitism, terrorism, and chaos in an already tense region. At times, this meant near-open war, like when Soviet Air Force MiG-21s were shot down by Israel over Egypt.

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Read 22 tweets
Jun 20
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce a Latvian politician and former MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka. She’s best-known for her history in the Communist Party of Latvia, for her pro-Russian politics in the country, and her connections to Russian intelligence.

1/22 Image
Based on Ždanoka’s speeches and social media posts, she has a deep hatred towards the people of Latvia. The reason for this can only be speculated, but part of it could be due to her paternal family being killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police,…

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…a paramilitary force supported by the Nazis, during the early 1940s. Ždanoka became politically active in the late 80s. She was one of the leaders of Interfront, a political party that supported Latvia remaining part of the USSR.

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Read 23 tweets
Jun 16
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the main themes of Russian disinformation on TikTok. Each day, there are thousands of new videos promoting pro-Kremlin narratives and propaganda.

It’s worth noting that Russians can only access European TikTok via VPN.

1/10
There is currently a massive TikTok campaign aimed at promoting a positive image of Russia. The videos typically feature relatively attractive young women and focus on themes of nationalism and cultural heritage.

2/10
Ironically, many of these videos from Moscow or St. Petersburg are deceptively edited to portray Ukraine in a false light — claiming there is no war and that international aid is being funneled to corrupt elites.

3/10
Read 11 tweets

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