Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Oct 13 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

Oct 7
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation (@Heritage). Heritage is best-known for opposing military aid to Ukraine and for their political initiative called Project 2025, a potential blueprint for a Trump presidency.

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Before we begin, I want to justify this soup that focuses heavily on US domestic politics. As a strong supporter of Ukraine, I see Donald Trump as a threat to Ukraine’s existence, and the reasoning for that can be found in this previous soup:

2/23

Heritage was founded in 1973, but it took a leading role in conservative politics during the Reagan presidency, whose policies were mostly taken from the foundation’s book series called Mandate for Leadership. Project 2025 is the ninth iteration of this series.

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Read 24 tweets
Sep 28
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss two events, Rescue the Republic and Rage Against the War Machine, that are being held during the last weekend of September 2024 in Washington DC. Both of these events promote pro-Kremlin viewpoints and platform many prominent vatniks.

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Rage Against the War Machine is being organized for the 3rd time, although the 2nd installment, “Defeat the Deep State”, was cancelled, probably due to low interest. The event was organized by the Libertarian Party, a US political party that was recently hijacked by vatniks.
2/11
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Both events are co-organized by craniosacral therapist/chair of the Libertarian National Committee, Angela McArdle, who was leading the Libertarian Party takeover in 2022 and turning it into an extension of Trump’s MAGA Republicans:

3/11

Read 12 tweets
Sep 23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American social media personality, Tim Pool (@Timcast). He’s best-known for being funded by the Kremlin, his right-wing media empire, his connections to several American conspiracy theorists, and for his cool beanie.

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Tim Pool rose to fame during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, which he livestreamed together with a former realtor, Henry Ferry. He was one of the pioneers of doing livestreams where he also interacted with the audience and even let them direct him on the ground.

2/23
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Pool’s footage was aired on NBC and other mainstream networks, and Time dubbed him as “the eyes of the movement”. In 2011, Pool described himself as “an activist 100%”, stating that he doesn’t consider himself a journalist. A year later things had changed…

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Read 24 tweets
Sep 18
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician, Jill Stein (@DrJillStein). She’s best-known for her visits to Moscow, bids for the US presidency, blaming of NATO for the war in Ukraine, and for her inability to condemn Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.

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Stein’s background is in medicine, and she graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979. During the 90s Stein turned to activism and subsequently received various environmental awards for her work. Stein began her political career by running for governor of Massachusetts...
2/23
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...in 2002, but only got 3,5% of the total vote. Her following campaigns were also massive failures, and the only election in which she managed to secure a seat was the local legislative body in Lexington. But that didn’t stop Jill, as in 2012 she decided to run for...

3/23
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Read 24 tweets
Sep 13
In today’s #vatniksoup I’ll introduce a Russian filmmaker, Anastasia Trofimova. She’s best-known for her latest controversial documentary “Russians at War”, and for working as a producer for Russian state-funded media outlet RT.

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Soft power has been part of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare for a long time. It refers to the “ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion” and which can “be cultivated through relations with allies, economic assistance, and cultural exchanges.”
2/19
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Russia has been using soft power to sow division and distrust in the West for decades. Documentaries like Ukraine on Fire offer a revisionist and pro-Kremlin view on what happened in Kyiv and in Ukraine in 2014. It was directed by the Russian master…

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Read 20 tweets
Sep 11
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss why I think it’s important for Ukraine & for Europe that Donald Trump does not become the next president of the US. I’ll share my insights on how Trump has been undermining democracy and supporting authoritarian leaders around the world.

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First of all, I think Trump supports Russia more than Ukraine. Trump has a long history of doing business with the Russians, and he’s even held private meetings with Putin and other high-ranking Russian officials while sharing highly classified information with them.

2/19

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In addition, Trump withheld a 400 million aid to Ukraine because Zelenskyy wouldn’t help him dig dirt on the Biden family. He also “watered down” the toughest penalties the U.S. had imposed on Russian entities after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.

3/19


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Read 20 tweets

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