In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll intoduce an Italian propagandist, Vittorio Nicola Rangeloni. He’s best-known for producing pro-Kremlin propaganda from Donbas for the Italian-speaking audience, and for breaking the Geneve conventions by interviewing prisoners of war.
1/19
Rango grew up in Lecco, Italy. His mother was Russian, and because of this young Vittorio was told about the virtues and wonders of Russkiy Mir and the superiority of the communist system.
2/19
In his early 20s, Rango was yet to discover his role in this world. He enjoyed traveling, and decided to take his humble savings of 3000 EUR to relocate to his dream destination in the newly formed and completely made-up Donetsk People’s Republic.
3/19
While there, he met Janus Putkonen, a Finnish master vatnik/propagandist in charge of now-closed Doni News and the largest Finnish pro-Kremlin fake news blog MV-Lehti. Janus took the young Italian under his wing, showing him the ropes of the daily "journalism" he was doing.
4/19
It’s worth noting, that Putkonen’s connection to the Kremlin was confirmed through the leaked e-mail dump Egorova Leaks, which showed that Janus received around 1200 monthly for his low-quality propaganda. More on Janus Putkonen here:
5/19
Vittorio, aged 24, aspired a similar path and got into reporting himself. Vito would later state the militia had enough soldiers, probably due to the generous funding coming from the Kremlin, but that there weren’t enough "journalists" to cover the Kremlin’s lies.
6/19
Both Putkonen and Rangeloni were featured in VICE’s 2017 documentary about rave parties in DPR, in which they could freely spread false narratives about the culprits of the war (or the civil war, as they referred to it). Both of course claimed that Ukraine was the aggressor.
7/19
During his trip, Rango also met the DPR "Prime Minister" and terrorist Alexander Zakharchenko. Zakharchenko was notorious for his human right abuses, stating in an interview that he "won’t feel sorry for the civilians or anyone else". In 2018, a bomb in a café took his life.
8/19
Since 2014, quite a few Italians had joined the war in Ukraine, where the split was about 50/50 on the Ukrainian and Russian side. Rango was the go-to-guy for those who wanted to join the Kremlin’s side. Many of the volunteers were part of the Italian far-right movement.
9/19
Rangeloni set up his own "news agency" called LNR Today-Italia, that covered news from the puppet states of Donetsk and Luhansk. It was organized information warfare targeted for the Italian-speaking audience. Soon after this, Ukrainian and Italian intelligence services...
10/19
..started to take interest in the young Italian. In 2021, he was awarded with "One of the most important honours" of the Donbas. This strategy of awarding made-up medals is commonly used by the Kremlin and even the Defense Minister Shoigu has made up hundreds of medals.
11/19
Politically, Rango seems to be all over the place. While he has strong communist sympathies, he’s also leaning towards far-right ideologies, thus confirming the famous horseshoe theory. Some have suggested that his Kolovrat tattoo might be connected to Russian Rusich group.
12/19
Rangeloni, like his fellow UK propagandist Graham Philips, interviewed a prisoner of war against their will, breaking the Geneve convention. I would suggest everyone to report the video on YouTube:
13/19
In 2023, Rango was producing propaganda around Mariupol, and accidentally showed bodies lying on the streets of the city. Naturally, this caught the interest of Ukrainian officials, who downloaded the report as potential evidence for Russian war crimes. Oops!
14/19
As a propagandist Rango lacks any creativity, and he’s just parroting the Kremlin’s classic fake narratives such as the "8 years of genocide in Donbas". He’s also calling the conflict a "civil war".
These messages are then packaged and spread for the Italian audiences.
15/19
In Italy, he sympathizes with Lega, a political party that had a strong alliance with Putin’s United Russia before the full-scale invasion.
In 2019, Buzzfeed revealed that the Kremlin attempted to funnel millions to Lega to support their political ambitions.
16/19
Rangeloni runs a Youtube and Telegram Channel, he’s active on Vkontakte & has even written a book. Rango's also a quite well-known figure in the Italian far-right circles, and spreading Russian propaganda to these marginalized groups is a common Kremlin strategy.
17/19
To conclude, Rango is a pro-Kremlin propagandist serving the typical bullshit propaganda for Italian-speaking audiences. Together with the likes of Janus Putkonen, Graham Phillips and Patrick Lancaster, he produces biased "journalism" for Russia.
18/19
Now here’s a little action point for anyone who thinks that Rango’s awful propaganda shouldn’t be funded - you can report his PayPal through this link:
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Georgian politician &oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili. He’s best-known launching the pro-Kremlin Georgian Dream party, and for running the government from behind the scenes, slowly shifting Georgia’s course from the West back to Russia.
1/25
Ivanishvili was born and raised in a small village in Georgia. Their family was poor but he showed a business mindset from a young age. In 1988, he moved to Moscow and began his first business, importing and selling computers with Vitaly Malkin, a Russian-Israeli oligarch.
2/25
The rapid growth of Ivanishvili’s businesses can be attributed to his close ties with government officials. In 1996, he joined Seven Bankers (семибанкирщина), a group of influential Russian bankers who supported Boris Yeltsin’s re-election.
In today´s #vatniksoup REBREW, I´ll introduce a Hungarian lawyer and politician, Viktor Orbán (@PM_ViktorOrban). He´s best-known for turning Hungary into an authoritarian state, and for cooperating with other authoritarian regimes like the Kremlin, the CCP and Iran.
1/24
Orbán has been Hungary´s Prime Minister since 2010, and under his leadership the country has basically become the first nondemocracy in the EU. Orbán himself has described Hungary as an "illiberal state", and he´s used the Kremlin playbook to create it.
2/24
He created a nationwide right-wing media network and interfering with independent media has plummeted Hungary´s Press Freedom Index into 67th place, one of the worst in the EU. The state has also spied on Hungarian journalists by using the infamous Pegasus spyware.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russian social media personality and vatnik archetype, Mr. G (@Wagnersfamily). He's best-known for sharing the most outrageous Kremlin lies, albeit previously being extremely anti-Putin and Kremlin, even coining the term "vatnik".
1/19
It's worth noting, that G is an extremely irrelevant account and person, but his almost comical descent from an anti-Putin, fully fledged Russian Liberal, to full blown vatnik, who doesn't hesitate to lie and naturally lives outside of Russia, is worth demonstrating.
2/19
In his liberal days G was dedicated to popularizing the vatnik meme. He ran the site together with his friend, and also the @trueVATNIK Twitter account, which went inactive in 2015, but was popular in circles opposed to Putin's imperialist ambitions.
I've actually noticed this trend on TikTok with our videos - they do relatively well on YouTube, Instagram and X, but fail miserably on CCP's spying app. In the second photo you can see views for our videos, on other platforms these ranged from 500 to 120 000.
"TikTok is more focused on entertainment, dance videos and such" - Well, not really. According to a study, account registered as a 13 year old was quickly served with conflict-related content, and the account quickly delved deep into the conflict rabbit hole.
I decided to do a little non-scientific test: I created an account, used VPN to relocate myself to the US, and just watched what the TikTok algorithm offered me. I didn't like or comment any videos and finished every video that was shown. My age was set to 18.
1/4
At first, the algorithm seemed to show me some of the most popular videos on the platform, mostly consisting of cute animals, comedy and babies.
Then, after 30 or so videos, I was shown this video demonstrating the "superiority" of Chinese kindergartens.
2/4
Then, a few more cute animals and a relatively attractive girl dancing. Then, again video about Chinese kindergartens. This time I wanted to see what happens if I interact with the post, and I liked the video.
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...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American propagandist and political commentator, Ben Swann (@BenSwann_). He's best-known for spreading conspiracy theories related to 9/11, vaccines & Pizzagate, and for running several Kremlin-funded disinformation channels.
1/20
Homeschooled with nine brothers and sisters, Benny turned out to be a talented young man, earning his Master's degree in history at the age of 16.
He was also working as a youth pastor at his local Baptist church at the age of 15.
2/20
Ben's family was heavily involved in TV, and he also started working for various channels, first as a cameraman and later as an investigative journalist. Eventually he launched his own news segment called Reality Check, in which he promoted libertarian views and Ron Paul.