Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Oct 13, 2024 18 tweets 8 min read Read on X
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’m going to outline the current situation in the West’s information war against Russia & its allies. Currently,the West’s counter-disinformation measures are severely underfunded,making it difficult to combat Russian influence operations effectively.
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Europe today is repeating the same mistake in information warfare that it made in conventional warfare: we are not dedicating enough resources to counter it. Just as Europe was unprepared to fully support Ukraine and prepare for kinetic warfare against Russia,...

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...we have been neglecting information warfare. Next year, Russia is reportedly set to spend around 3 billion USD on its information operations domestically and abroad, with allies like the CCP, Iran, and North Korea likely following suit.

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In the EU, each country has its own funding for countering disinformation and foreign influence operations, but these budgets are minuscule compared to what our adversaries spend. The farther a country is from Russia, the more vulnerable it becomes to these operations,...

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...and the less it tends to spend — a very troubling trend. For example, Russia continues to carry out large-scale propaganda and “soft power” operations in Italy, and Spain's Vox party was funded in part by a bank owned by Viktor Orban, a close Russian ally.

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I recently attended the Disinfo 2024 conference, where much of the discussion centered on the West’s successes in detecting Russian disinformation operations such as Doppelgänger. Since then, many more campaigns and operations have been uncovered by authorities,...

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...investigative journalist groups, and researchers. Some examples include the money laundering operation involving the US-based social media company TENET Media, the Russian troll farm Social Design Agency (SDA), and a large-scale, automated fake news blog network...

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...organized from Moscow by the American vatnik, John Mark Dougan.

What the EU lacks is cooperation between countries and organizations, as well as a strong enough response to the nations orchestrating these operations.

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As is tradition, the EU regulates, but regulation is always too slow to respond to the rapid pace of online operations. To effectively counter them, the West must develop a rapid response strategy. One such strategy is utilizing social media movements such as NAFO.

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The alarming conclusion is that the EU is consistently one step behind, struggling to recognize that the information war against Russia and its allies is an ongoing conflict—and at the moment, we are losing it badly.

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The situation in the US is even worse. Aside from recent Department of Justice indictments against TENET Media and the Doppelgänger project, the US is quickly heading toward a reality where disinformation becomes a core political strategy,...

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...and foreign influence operations are largely ignored. Strong signals of this shift are coming from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which is said to be a "blueprint for a Trump presidency" should he win the 2024 election:

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The project proposes defunding the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), one of the key organizations combatting foreign influence and disinformation.

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Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter has worsened this problem, and one large Russian operation even concluded that X is currently the only social media platform where you can conduct large-scale disinformation operations effectively.

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Elon himself has spread propaganda memes produced by these troll farms. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has stated that Musk's fake posts on US elections have been seen over 1,2 billion times.

So, the future is looking pretty grim right now.

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However, there have been some positive signs and interesting developments. Through transparency, Western intelligence agencies and think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War have exposed several kinetic operations planned against Ukraine and the West.

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Now, we need to apply the same level of transparency to Russia’s propagandists and their online operations. Doing so would greatly reduce their effectiveness against Western democracies.

Instead of always reacting and debunking, we need to start prebunking.

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My book, titled Vatnik Soup: The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation, has been published. You can order it here:
kleart.dk/webshop/p/vatn…

Or on Amazon:
amazon.com/Vatnik-Soup-Ul…

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Jul 1
In today’s Wumao Soup, I’ll introduce how and where the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda and influence operations work. Due to China’s massive population and advances in AI, CCP-aligned online content has become increasingly visible.

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Like Russia’s troll farms, China has its own troll army: the “50 Cent Party” or “Wumao” refers to state-linked online commentators who are reportedly paid ¥0.50 per post to steer discussions away from criticism and amplify CCP narratives on social media.

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Back in 2017, a research paper estimated that the Wumao produced almost 500 million fabricated comments annually to distract readers and shift topics. In that sense, Wumao operates very similarly to the Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” model:

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Read 21 tweets
Jun 26
In today’s Vatnik Soup and the “Degenerate Russia” series, I’ll show you the brutal reality of Russian war crimes, in particular the horrific tortures and sexual abuses of children, women and men.

Buckle up, this one is not for the faint-hearted.

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For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeted at right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional,family values.

2/24

In the previous “degenerate Russia” series we discussed Russia’s insanely high divorce rates, rampant domestic violence, high murder rates, thriving neo-Nazi culture, corruption of the Orthodox Church, and their massive demographic problem:

3/24

Read 26 tweets
Jun 24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explore how Russia is working with Iran, and how the recent Israel–US strikes on Iran could affect the war in Ukraine. Iran has been one of Russia’s key allies in their genocidal war, but in reality the partnership is deeply one-sided.

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Historically, Russia/USSR has been involved in numerous wars in the Middle East, invading Afghanistan for nearly a decade and desperately trying to keep Syria’s authoritarian leader, al-Assad, in power before his eventual downfall.

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While initially supportive of Israel, the Soviet Union quickly pivoted to backing its enemies, fueling antisemitism, terrorism, and chaos in an already tense region. At times, this meant near-open war, like when Soviet Air Force MiG-21s were shot down by Israel over Egypt.

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Read 22 tweets
Jun 20
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce a Latvian politician and former MEP, Tatjana Ždanoka. She’s best-known for her history in the Communist Party of Latvia, for her pro-Russian politics in the country, and her connections to Russian intelligence.

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Based on Ždanoka’s speeches and social media posts, she has a deep hatred towards the people of Latvia. The reason for this can only be speculated, but part of it could be due to her paternal family being killed by the Latvian Auxiliary Police,…

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…a paramilitary force supported by the Nazis, during the early 1940s. Ždanoka became politically active in the late 80s. She was one of the leaders of Interfront, a political party that supported Latvia remaining part of the USSR.

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Read 23 tweets
Jun 16
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the main themes of Russian disinformation on TikTok. Each day, there are thousands of new videos promoting pro-Kremlin narratives and propaganda.

It’s worth noting that Russians can only access European TikTok via VPN.

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There is currently a massive TikTok campaign aimed at promoting a positive image of Russia. The videos typically feature relatively attractive young women and focus on themes of nationalism and cultural heritage.

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Ironically, many of these videos from Moscow or St. Petersburg are deceptively edited to portray Ukraine in a false light — claiming there is no war and that international aid is being funneled to corrupt elites.

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Read 11 tweets
Jun 8
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about Finland and how pro-Kremlin propagandists have become more active in the Finnish political space since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time since 2022, they’ve gained some political power in Finland.

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Russia’s political strategy in countries with Russian-speaking minorities (such as Finland and the Baltics) is typically quite similar: it seeks to rally these minorities around issues like language and minority rights, and then frames the situation as oppression.

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At the same time, Russian speakers are extremely wary and skeptical of local media, and instead tend to follow Russian domestic outlets like Russia-1 and NTV, thereby reinforcing an almost impenetrable information bubble.

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Read 17 tweets

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