Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
May 20, 2024 22 tweets 10 min read Read on X
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a Russian businessman and financier, Yury Kovalchuk. He’s best-known for being a close friend, confidant and "personal banker" of Putin's, and for strongly supporting the Kremlin's genocidal war against Ukraine.

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Kovalchuk was born in 1951 in St. Petersburg. He started his career during the 80s at the Loffe Physico Technical Institute, eventually becoming the institute's first deputy director. But Yury aspired for more & the fall of the iron curtain gave room for his business plans.

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Kovalchuk quickly learned that one didn't have to play fair to become rich in Russia during the 90s. He joined the board of directors of the Joint Ventures Committee, a government body involved with restructuring companies and finding (foreign) partners.

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Yury's first big mission was to restructure the Rossiya Bank. It had played a major role in the coup attempt of 1990, and many KGB & communist leaders had secretly funneled their money there. Kovalchuk then transformed it into a modern vehicle for foreign investment.

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Rossiya Bank also supported Putin's political rise during the 90s, and Kovalchuk was already at that point working from behind the scenes. The two became close, and Kovalchuk's "dacha" outside of St. Petersburg was right next to Putin's.

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In 1996, all residents of the area united their properties under one umbrella collective called "Ozero" ("The Lake"). Putin didn’t forget about his old neighbours, they all got prominent positions after he rose to power in 1999. Kovalchuk first became the director...

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...of the biggest Russian brewery, Baltica. Later he directed Rossiya Bank, where he had a 41% stake. Due to his powerful political connections, Kovalchuk became a household name in Russia's richest list. Forbes ranked him spot 53 in 2008 with an estimated fortune...

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...of close to $2 billion. His wife's fortune was estimated to be around 600 million USD in 2019. Oppostion figures Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov pointed to Kovalchuk's Rossiya Bank in relation to laundering more than 60 billion USD via the Gazprombank to...

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...offshore accounts during 2000-2010. Therefore, Kovalchuk was an essential cog in Putin's organised cronyism. As is tradition, Kovalchuk’s son Boris got a few prominent positions at an early age, as he was appointed as the director of "The Department of National Projects".
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Media is an essential instrument when it comes to solidifying power. For Putin, Kovalchuk has been an essential ally because of his media empire called National Media Group. This company controls many popular TV channels, newspapers, digital media and production studios.

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@anders_aslund has stated that "When people say Russian state television,they really mean Kovalchuk television." The Kremlin together with their cronies have utilized this same media ownership strategy in Ukraine and Georgia.



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In 2015, Putin used the Foreign Agents Act to smoke out any dissidents from media companies, after which Kovalchuk's NGM bought channels like CNN Russia and Cartoon Network to their portfolio, further reinforcing his media monopoly.

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Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Kovalchuk's media channels have broadcast the most lunatic conspiracy theories and propaganda, ranging from "US-funded bioweapons laboratories" to "Ukrainian Nazi regime".

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In 2021, Kovalchuk acquired the Russian social media platform VKontakte from another oligarch, Alisher Usmanov. This powerful propaganda platform is both an important platform for spreading the Kremlin narratives but also for aggressively collecting data of its users.

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After the takeover, VK fired most of its management, who were then replaced by Kovalchuk's close confidants and relatives. The site has also been actively used for recruiting mercenaries to the meat grinder in Ukraine.

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Some have also speculated that after the Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's death, it was Kovalchuk who took over Prigozhin's infamous troll farms. If this is true, it means that these online trolls are now under direct control of the Kremlin.

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Putin and Kovalchuk are extremely close, and journalist Mikhael Zygar considers Yury to be "number 2" in the Kremlin's pyramid of power. After COVID-19 hit Russia, Putin retreated to his Valdai residence together with Kovalchuk where they quarantined together.

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While there, the two plotted on the return of the "Great Russia". They share an extremely anti-Western, conspiratorial and imperialist worldview with a hint of Russian Orthodox mysticism thrown in the mix. In Jun 2020, Putin published an article on "National Interest"...

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...titled "The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II". In this extremely revisionist take on history, Putin blamed Poland for Hitler's invasion and of course Ukraine and Stepan Bandera for acting as "cronies of Hitler and the Nazis".

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In 2021, the Navalny team exposed that the dacha where Putin and Kovalchuk spent time was actually owned by Kovalchuk since 2003. Yury quickly struck back by starting a massive smear campaign with leaked data such as e-mails against Navalny through his media empire.

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To conclude, Kovalchuk controls two extremely important factors in the Kremlin's genocidal war: funds and media. Allegedly, he also has a strong influence on Putin and has affected his revisionist and delusional worldview.

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This soup was prepared in collaboration with sous-chef @SLAVAUA2022NAFO.

Find us also on other socials:

instagram.com/vatniksoup/
youtube.com/@TheSoupCentra…
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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Aug 18
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 25 tweets
Aug 11
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 24 tweets
Aug 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the autocratic concept of “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars”: the idea that the leader is wise and just, but constantly sabotaged by corrupt advisors. This narrative shields the ruler from blame, and it’s used by both Putin and Trump today.

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The phrase “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars” (Царь хороший, бояре плохие), also known as Naïve Monarchism, refers to a long-standing idea in Russian political culture: the ruler is good and benevolent, but his advisors are corrupt, incompetent and responsible for all failures.

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From this perception, any positive action taken by the government is viewed as being an accomplishment of the benevolent leader, whereas any negative one is viewed as being caused by lower-level bureaucrats or “boyars”, without the approval of the leader.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 28
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergey Kiriyenko. He’s best known for running both domestic and foreign disinformation and propaganda operations for the Kremlin.

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On paper, and in photos, Kiriyenko is just as boring as most of the Kremlin’s “political technologists”: between 2005-2016 he headed the Rosatom nuclear energy company, but later played a leading role in the governance of Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine.

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What is a political technologist? In Russia, they’re spin doctors & propaganda architects who shape opinion, control narratives, and manage elections — often by faking opposition, staging events, and spreading disinfo to maintain Putin’s power and the illusion of democracy.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 27
Let me show you how a Pakistani (or Indian, they're usually the same) AI slop farm/scam operates. The account @designbonsay is a prime example: a relatively attractive, AI-generated profile picture and a ChatGPT-style profile description are the first red flags.

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The profile's posts are just generic engagement farming, usually using AI-generated photos of celebrities or relatively attractive women.

These posts are often emotionally loaded and ask the user to interact with them ("like and share if you agree!").

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Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.

Country code for the phone number is in Pakistan.

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Read 5 tweets
Jul 15
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.

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Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.

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Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.

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Read 23 tweets

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