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.
1/17
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,...
2/17
...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.
3/17
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,...
4/17
...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.
5/17
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,...
6/17
...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...
7/17
...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.
8/17
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.
9/17
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.
10/17
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,...
11/17
...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:
The project proposes defunding the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), one of the key organizations combatting foreign influence and disinformation.
13/17
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.
14/17
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.
15/17
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.
16/17
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.
17/17
My book, titled Vatnik Soup: The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation, has been published. You can order it here: kleart.dk/webshop/p/vatn…
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.
1/20
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.
2/20
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.
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.
1/5
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!").
2/5
Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.
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.
1/21
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.
2/21
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.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American national security policy professional and the current under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby). He’s best-known for fighting with cartoon dogs online and for halting military aid to Ukraine.
1/21
Elbridge "Cheese" Colby earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Before entering government, he worked at top think tanks and in the intelligence community, focusing on nuclear policy and strategic planning.
2/21
Cheese quickly became a key voice for a “China First” strategy, arguing the US must prioritize military buildup in Asia over commitments in Europe or the Middle East. He sees (or saw, rather) Taiwan as the core test of US credibility.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.
1/15
Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.
The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.
2/15
The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text: