Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jun 14 20 tweets 13 min read Read on X
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 Image
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:

2/19artursarmy.com/contribute/reh…
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
Image
Image
Let’s start with some good news: many well-known vatniks failed to go through, including Mick Wallace, Clare Daly, Tatjana Zdanoka & Marcel de Graaff. Thierry Mariani & Maximilian Krah continue their "work" in the European Parliament.

All souped at:

4/19vatniksoup.com/?fuck=putin
First of all, the whole of EU took a hard right turn – the so-called “hard-right” got close to a quarter of all seats, and right-wing parties won big in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Italy. In Nordic countries, “hard-right” lost support to left-wing parties.

5/19
Image
Image
Many successful campaigns can be attributed to effective use of social media. For example Fidias Panayiotou, a man with no political experience but who has 2.6 million YouTube followers, won a seat in the European Parliament representing Cyprus.

6/19 Image
And as we know, Russia and its allies Iran and the CCP thrive in these online environments, where their disinformation campaigns promote anti-Ukraine, euroskeptic narratives that try to undermine any support for Ukraine.

The success of right-wing parties...

7/19
Image
Image
...can be attributed to many everyday issues. Probably the biggest of these is immigration, and it’s also one of the most common narratives where Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns thrive:



Another strongly dividing issue is…

8/19

Image
Image
…the liberal versus conservative debate, where the Kremlin also uses division to sow unrest, while falsely showing themselves as the conservative and traditional safe haven. In the EU, worries over climate change has led to the proposal of environmental regulations…

9/19
Image
Image
…such as carbon tax and restrictions on land use, which has, to some degree, led to price hikes. Naturally, all these themes are also closely connected to each other: rapid changes in climate drive immigration and affects farming.

10/19


Image
Image
Image
Image
My theory is that people didn’t really even consider Russia or Ukraine while voting, rather than just looking for people who could potentially solve problems that affect their day-to-day life. Issues like illegal immigration and asylum-seeking have been a great concern…

11/19 Image
…to some since the 1990s, and employment, inflation & price increases are affecting almost everyone’s lives. Many conservatist parties rallied around these issues, praising traditionalism, nostalgia & “the good old times”, after seeing how well it worked for Viktor Orbán.

12/19

Image
Image
Image
And this can also be seen from the campaigns of the successful parties: many on the right rallied against “wokeism”, the “global elites”, the EU becoming a “federal state”, EU immigration policies, “15 minute cities”, climate policies and the green transition.

13/19


Image
Image
Image
Image
Incidentally, all of these themes are very prominent in the Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation campaigns in the West, and they’ve also started rallying around them long before the elections, going back over ten years. And this is what we in the West often fail to…

14/19
Image
Image
…understand when it comes to Russian active measures – they’re usually trying to change societies with long-term campaigning and information operations. And since we don’t fully understand their strategy, we’re usually reactive when we should be proactive.

15/19

Image
Image
Image
But what does all of this mean for Ukraine?The European Parliament still remains very much pro-Ukraine, but over time,we’ll probably see some MEPs suggesting a softer stance on Russia. For example, since there’s money to be made,some will suggest easing up on the sanctions.
16/19


Image
Image
Image
Image
With groups like Sahra Wagenknecht’s party gaining momentum in Germany, the far-left gang will also constantly talk about peace negotiations, probably suggesting that Ukraine should agree to concessions to Russia:



17/19

Image
Image
Finnish MEP Li Andersson has shared her concerns over this far-left, pro-Kremlin bloc, even stating that Sahra Wagenknecht’s party (along with Wallace & Daly, who weren't elected) is not welcome in the The Left group unless they show their full support for Ukraine.

18/19
Image
Image
To conclude – as in 2019, several pro-Kremlin politicians were elected to the European Parliament. For now, this shouldn’t change support for Ukraine, but we will most probably see some softer stances in the Parliament on Russia in the near future.

19/19

Image
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

Dec 20
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.

1/23 Image
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).

2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
Read 24 tweets
Dec 4
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20 Image
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.

It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.

So here’s the latest:

2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…

3/20 Image
Read 21 tweets
Nov 29
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.

1/25 Image
Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.

Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.

2/25 Image
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.

3/25 Image
Image
Read 26 tweets
Nov 28
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.

1/21 Image
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…

2/21 Image
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21 Image
Image
Read 22 tweets
Nov 11
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.

1/17 Image
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…

2/17 Image
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17 Image
Image
Image
Read 20 tweets
Nov 7
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.

1/17 Image
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.

Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.

2/17 Image
Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.

3/17 Image
Read 18 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!

:(