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.
1/21
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.
2/21
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.
3/21
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.
4/21
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.
5/21
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...
6/21
...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...
7/21
...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...
8/21
...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".
9/21
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.
10/21
@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.
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.
12/21
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".
13/21
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.
14/21
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.
15/21
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.
16/21
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.
17/21
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"...
18/21
...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".
19/21
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.
20/21
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.
21/21
This soup was prepared in collaboration with sous-chef @SLAVAUA2022NAFO.
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.
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.
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...