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 Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the agenda-setting and flood of disinformation that spread on X and other platforms right after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s far from the first or last time a tragedy has been weaponized for political purposes.
1/18
Every major political event, especially those involving violence, attracts massive attention. In the immediate aftermath, reliable information is scarce, making it highly vulnerable to both coordinated and improvised disinformation campaigns.
2/18
As I’ve mentioned in my previous soups and lectures, in disinformation campaigns, being first with a narrative is crucial, as people often remember the first version best — psychology studies show it sets the mental schema, and later updates rarely overwrite it.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce American social media personality David Freeman, AKA Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman). He’s best known for spreading political disinformation on X and shamelessly sucking up to Trump, Putin, and other authoritarian leaders.
1/22
David is a textbook example of someone profiting from MAGA grievance politics. He uses extreme, provocative language to farm engagement on X and never hesitates to flatter anyone who might give him more exposure — or money.
2/22
But David wasn’t always like this. At some point, in his mid-40s, he even tried a real job: he trained to become a cop. He spent three years with the Metro Transit PD, but after that he either got fired or quit, and never looked back.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian-Estonian businessman, Oleg Ossinovski. He is best-known for his deep ties to Russian rail and energy networks, shady cross-border dealings, and for channeling his wealth into Estonian politics.
1/14
Oleg made his fortune via Spacecom Trans & Skinest Rail, both deeply tied to Russia’s rail system. Most of this is through Globaltrans Investments PLC, a Cyprus-based firm with 62% held via Spacecom and tens of millions in yearly profits.
2/14
Ossinovski’s Russian-linked ventures made him Estonia’s richest man in 2014, with an estimated fortune of ~€300M. His business empire stretched across railways, oil via Alexela shares, and Russian bitumen imports from Help-Oil, a supplier to the Defense Ministry.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Swiss/French writer, Alain Bonnet, aka Alain Soral (@officielsoral). He’s best known for his rabid antisemitism and for his pathetic support for all the worst authoritarian regimes from Russia to North Korea.
1/22
Alain’s childhood was problematic, as his father has been characterized as a “narcissistic pervert” who beat his children and did jail time for fraud. Alain himself has said he was “programmed to be a monster.” Born Alain Bonnet, he took the stage name of his sister,…
2/22
… actress Agnès Soral. She wasn’t too happy about this, commenting “How would you like to be called Agnès Hitler?”. Like many grifters, he became a pick-up/seduction artist writer, à la late Gonzalo Lira, writing books and even making a B-movie, “Confessions d’un dragueur”.
3/22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.
1/24
Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.
2/24
Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.
1/23
Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.
2/23
One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.