Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
May 30 20 tweets 11 min read Read on X
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Belarusian politician and dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. He’s best-known for giving up his country to Russia, and for cracking up political opposition and dissidents in Belarus, ruling the country with an iron fist.

1/19 Image
Alexander was born in the Byelorussian SSR, living an unhappy childhood with his mother, taunted by his schoolmates due to being fatherless. His father’s identity is not known, but there’s a rumour that his father was a Roma traveler passing through the region.

2/19
Image
Image
Lukashenko joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1979, and a few years later he became the deputy chairman of a collective farm. By 1990, he had risen to the rank of Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR. He claimed to be an opponent of corruption…

3/19 Image
…and in 1993 he accused 70 senior government officials of corruption, including stealing state funds for personal purposes. Apparently these accusations had no merit, but some high-ranking officials resigned nevertheless due to the embarrassment.

4/19
Image
Image
After the fall of the USSR, Belarus held its first democratic presidential election in 1994. Naturally, Lukashenko ran in the most populist way, claiming to be “neither leftist nor rightist” but “with the people against those who rob and deceive them”.

5/19 Image
Soon after this, Lukashenko started the Russification process of Belarus. He held a referendum that enabled economic integration with Russia and gave him the power to dissolve the parliament. OSCE stated that the referendum didn’t meet the conditions of being free or fair.

6/19 Image
Lukashenko was re-elected in 2001 in the first round in an election that was widely considered yet again not free or fair. Putin supported the Belarusian dictator, but for that Lukashenko had to give up control over their section of the Yamal–Europe gas pipeline.

7/19
Image
Image
In 2004, Lukashenko eliminated presidential term limits, making himself eligible for a lifetime of presidency & he was re-elected again in 2006. This resulted in massive protests, after which he stated that the opposition is “funded by foreign countries,” and is “not needed”.8/19
Image
Image
During early 2000s, Lukashenko allied with other authoritarian regimes, including Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and president Ahmadinejad. He also suggested to Yugoslav President Milošević that Yugoslavia join the Union of Russia & Belarus.

9/19


Image
Image
Image
Image
During the 2010 election, Lukashenko started cracking down on his opposition, as two other presidential candidates were beaten up and at least seven other candidates were arrested. In Dec 2010, several European foreign ministers published an op-ed criticizing Lukashenko.

10/19

Image
Image
Image
In 2020, after being re-elected for his sixth term, massive protests erupted across Belarus. The protesters accused Lukashenko of widespread electoral fraud, and opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya claimed she had received 60-70% of the total vote.

11/19
Image
Image
Like Yanukovych, Lukashenko was also planning on escaping to Russia if he’d become a “former president”. In Aug 2020, the European Parliament declared Lukashenko “persona non grata” in the EU and claimed that he’s not the president anymore. Lukashenko later took revenge …

12/19
Image
Image
… vowing to “flood” Europe with “drugs and migrants”. Soon after this, Belarusian tourist agencies started advertising in the Middle East, promoting a hassle-free entry to the EU and its countries with good social welfare system, doubling flights from Baghdad to Minsk.

13/19
Image
Image
After the election, Alexander became extremely paranoid, walking everywhere wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun. In 2021, FSB claimed that there was a plot by the “Ukrainian nationalists” to launch a military coup and assassination attempt against Lukashenko.

14/19

Image
Image
Image
To protect his friends, Lukashenko formed a Security Council consisting of his close allies. He then signed a presidential decree, saying that in the event that the president is unable to perform his duties, martial law will be imposed and the Council will take over.

15/19 Image
Throughout his career, thousands of people in Belarus have become victims of torture, sexual abuse, and other forms of repression. Several opposition figures have also simply disappeared,and the Belarusian secret service have even plotted on assassinating dissidents abroad.
16/19


Image
Image
Image
Image
Lukashenko managed to turn Belarus into a pro-Kremlin dictatorship by completely destroying the opposition, replacing officials and politicians with his friends, and changing the constitution so that he can stay in power indefinitely.

17/19 Image
The story of Lukashenko’s rise to power is an important one, as it is something that could happen in many other countries that are now considered democratic.

18/19 Image
We’ve already seen how Viktor Orban has taken over Hungary using similar strategies as Lukashenko previously did, and a similar faith was planned for Ukraine, too:



19/19

Image
Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Pekka Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

May 27
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss social media superspreaders. Due to their effectiveness, superspreader accounts are often used to spread "low credibility" content, disinformation and propaganda, and today this is more often done by hostile state actors such as Russia.

1/14 Image
DeVerna et al. (2024) described superspreaders as "users who consistently disseminate a disproportionately large amount of low-credibility content," also known as bullshit. It’s worth noting, that some of these people may actually believe the lies they spread.

2/14 Image
The numbers behind these accounts are astonishing – a study by Grinberg et al. (2019) found out that 0,1% of Twitter accounts were responsible for sharing approximately 80% of the mis/disinformation related to the 2016 US presidential election.

3/14 Image
Read 15 tweets
May 22
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American politician, Angela McArdle (@angela4LNCChair). She's best-known for turning the US Libertarian Party into a wing of MAGA Republicans, and for promoting pro-Kremlin narratives about the Russo-Ukrainian War.

1/20 Image
McArdle received her Bachelor's from the evangelical Christian university Biola in 2009 and paralegal certificate through the UCLA extension progam in 2013. She's also trained as a craniosacral therapist through the Upledger Institute.

2/20
Image
Image
She started her political career as the Libertarian nominee in the 2017 California's 34th congressional district special election, finishing the primary with 0,8% of the total vote. A few years later, she had gained popularity within the Libertarian Party,...

3/20 Image
Read 22 tweets
May 20
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Read 22 tweets
May 9
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 Image
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 Image
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.

3/25 Image
Read 26 tweets
May 6
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 Image
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 Image
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


Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 26 tweets
Apr 29
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 Image
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


Image
Image
Image
Image
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.

3/19 vatnik.today



Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(