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.
3/24
After taking over the media, Orbán started working on the court system, firing anyone he saw as a threat. Later he reshaped the voting system to favor his party Fidesz, a process that´s often referred to as "gerrymandering", giving Fidesz supermajority in Parliament.
4/24
Some have suggested that Orbán´s closeness to Russia and Putin stems from his early days as a politician, when he allegedly received cash from Russian mafia boss Semyon Mogilevich. The incident was allegedly recorded and then passed over to Russian secret services.
5/24
Orban´s fans in the West see him as a Christian conservative who´s standing up to "woke" European bureaucrats. But when taking a closer look at his policies in the last 14 years, we quickly see that his government´s most consistent policy direction has been embracing China.
6/24
His (alleged) Christian conservatism has also made him a rock star of US conservative politics & he was recently interviewed by the infamous pro-Kremlin conspiracy theorist,@tuckercarlson. Orbán also hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference.
7/24
This year´s CPAC featured many prominent conservative speakers, including Orbán himself, Prime Minister of Georgia, PVV leader Geert Wilders, Jack "Agent Poso" Posobiec and Trump lackey @VivekGRamaswamy, who has incidentally named China as the biggest adversary of the US.
8/24
Usually, authoritarian states tend to become allies and do business together. Since 2009, Orbán has been very close with the Kremlin and Putin, but what people often forget is that he´s been doing close cooperation with the Chinese leadership at least since 2010.
9/24
Already back in 2011, Orbán was praising the CCP regime because it "was not dominated by that Western, liberal idea that fiddling with the books is the way to get the best economic indicators." After this, Chinese investments started pouring into Hungary.
10/24
By 2022, China had become the largest foreign investor in Hungary. For example, Huawei´s largest logistics center in Europe is located in Hungary, and China is financing the Hungary-Serbia railway, the Kaposvar solar power station, and the Debrecen battery factory.
11/24
Interestingly, the Trump administration banned Huawei & many of its subsidiaries from the US due to a trade war, espionage and other national security threats. Canadian authorities even arrested Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US in 2018.
12/24
While meeting Trump in the US in Mar 2024, Orbán also met with Heritage Foundation leadership and @VivekGRamaswamy. Ironically, Heritage (and Ramaswamy) calls Orbán´s closest ally, the CCP, "the most persistent and consequential threat facing the American people today".
13/24
For Hungary, the CCP is a great source of funding without any string, like advocating human rights, attached. But like with Russian energy imports, it also increases Hungary´s dependency on China. This cooperation and money flow can also create a "debt trap" for Hungary.
14/24
As they´ve done in many other countries, the CCP is also attempting to promote the Chinese culture within Hungary. Hungary hosts five CCP-funded language and cultural centers, known as "Confucius Institutes," and they´ve also attempted to build a...
15/24
..Shanghai Fudan University campus in Budapest. This sparked large protests, & the Budapest mayor even announced that the streets around the university would be renamed to commemorate human rights abuses by the CCP. The university was labeled as a "CCP influence operation."
16/24
Orbán has also invited the Chinese police to patrol in Hungary. Setting up Chinese police stations in the EU is of course alarming, not only because the CCP has a "well-documented history of harassing and intimidating overseas Chinese citizens and diaspora members".
17/24
And it appears that the CCP already has leverage on Hungary - In 2016, Hungary blocked an EU statement on China´s maritime claims in the South China Sea, and vetoed an EU statement condemning CCP´s security law in Hong Kong.
18/24
In Feb 2024, Hungary again blocked EU´s sanctions package against Russia. But according to diplomatic sources, the package wasn´t blocked because of Orbán´s friendship with Russia, but because the sanctions also targeted four Chinese companies.
19/24
For Orbán, all this seems to be a straightforward transaction: a source of money and influence as China’s leading partner in Europe. In the meantime, Chinese companies can build factories in the heart of Europe with little apparent oversight.
20/24
This deal has led to Hungary becoming the CCP’s most valuable ally in Europe, with economic ties evolving into common security interests. As Hungary is also a NATO member, this has raised concerns on issues such as intelligence sharing.
21/24
This is also the reason why the CCP leader Xi Jinping will be meeting Orbán during his Eurotrip. Due to dire economic conditions, Hungary is desperately seeking for a economic support, which the CCP can of course offer. Xi´s other official visits will be to France & Serbia.
22/24
To conclude, Orbán is a typical politician whose words & actions hardly meet. He´s good friends with the most anti-CCP organizations in the US,while at the same time he´s doing massive deals with China, making himself rich & his country more dependent on this foreign power.
23/24
This has led to a absurd situation, in which Orbán is considered a rock star in the US even though his political decisions and EU voting is undermining the American interests in the geopolitical arena.
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.