Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Feb 28 23 tweets 14 min read Read on X
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll re-introduce the American-British social media personalities, Tristan and Andrew Tate (@tatethetalisman and @cobratate).

They’re best-known for their social media grifts and allegations of human trafficking and rape.

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The history of the Tate brothers was introduced thoroughly in my original Vatnik Soup thread, but since then so much has happened that this pathetic duo needs another review. The soup will go through a lot of the evidence and videos in which the Tates incriminate themselves.
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The Tates became (relatively) rich through their webcam (pimping?) businesses and self-help courses targeted at young, desperate (incel?) men. At some point, they had up to 75 women working for them, and the brothers later admitted that the business was a “total scam”.

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Later they launched several pyramid scheme-type platforms like “Hustler’s University”, “The Real World” and “War Room”. All of them were costly, required their users to work for Andrew, and offered very little substance. How do we know this? Lemme tell you.

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In Nov 2024, the Tates’ “Real World” Discord clone was hacked and all the information leaked. The Tates stole the code for the server, along with its vulnerabilities, from another project called Revolt. Tech-savvy people realized this and breached and took over the server.

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The hackers stole detailed information of over 320,000 emails, and contents of all public and private chats which were then given to DDoSecrets for anyone to review. According to the metrics, the site was earning the Tates around 5.6 million USD per month.

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In Dec 2022, Romanian police arrested both Tate brothers and two women. All four were suspected of human trafficking, forming an organized crime group and one of them was suspected of rape. The brothers were formally charged in 2023, naming seven alleged victims.

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In 2024 the case grew even bigger: a second indictment mentioned 35 alleged victims of trafficking, including one who was only 15 at the time.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the bros are being investigated in the UK for allegations of rape, human trafficking and tax evasion.
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According to the documents, Andrew “repeatedly engaged in sexual intercourse and anal and oral sexual acts,” while “knowing she was 15 years old.” According to her, Andrew also beat her up with a belt and choked her – one time so hard that she fainted.

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Because of these serious allegations, the Tates were put on house arrest and barred from leaving Romania. But in February 2025, they received assistance from a group of corrupt kleptocrats, as the Trump administration suddenly pressured Romania to lift these restrictions.

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For quite some time, the Tates have been fully integrated into the MAGAsphere. They’re friends with Don Jr., Andrew has been interviewed by @TuckerCarlson – in turn promoted by Musk, of course, who has also interacted with him and promoted him on a regular basis.

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It’s not actually known who pressured the Romanian officials to release the Tates, but we can always guess.

For example, “free speech platform” Rumble paid Andrew Tate over 9 million EUR annually. Peter Thiel, JD Vance and David Sacks have all invested in Rumble.

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The reason why the billionaire broligarchs are aligning with the Tates could be related to their wealth and social media influence, especially among young men. 80% of British boys aged 16-17 have seen Andrew’s content, and 45% of British men 16–24 view him positively.

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On 27 Feb 2025, Romania caved in to US pressure, allowing the Tates to flee to the US. Romanian prosecutors said they remain “under judicial supervision”. UK lawyer Matthew Jury,however, said that “any suggestion that the Tates will now face justice in Romania is fanciful.”
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After landing in Florida, Andrew Tate told reporters he and his brother were “largely misunderstood,” insisting the accusations were just a conspiracy against them and that they did nothing wrong. He also declined to comment on whether they’d ever return to Romania.

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But the thing about Andrew Tate is that, even though he always denies any wrongdoings, there’s tons of videos where he admits to them. There’s clips where he’s talking to a woman, ADMITTING that he beat her before. There’s also plenty of other evidence like testimonies.

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Yet, MAGA Republicans champion him as a conservative freedom fighter promoting traditional values. After arriving in the US, he and his brother were “formally welcomed” by the Tampa Bay Young Republicans (@TBYR) and invited to speak at one of their events.

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But not everyone welcomed the Tates with open arms – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stated, “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct.” Maybe the Tates thought they’d be more welcome in a state where @mattgaetz (and Jeffrey Epstein) resided.

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And all these allegations are just the tip of the iceberg of the depravity of Andrew and Tristan Tate. They’ve also threatened to sue a victim of a Pakistani-rape-gang in the UK. And, as is tradition, they’ve also scammed people with their own crypto shitcoin, $DADDY.

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The Tate brothers’ & their father’s allegiance to Putin & Russia were extensively covered in the previous soup. Tristan has been more vocal about the war in Ukraine, but otherwise he's quite unremarkable - he doesn't even have his own Wiki page.

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To conclude, the Tates are conmen accused of serious crimes, including sexual acts with a minor.

Yet, somehow, they are being worshipped by most MAGA Republicans who deny their crimes on a regular basis. And now the brothers are fully integrated into the MAGAsphere.

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In Finland, however, the big brother Andrew is best-known for his tendency to “culturally appropriate” Finnish sauna by sitting on the kid’s bench in the measly temperature of 50 ºC, all the while wearing his swimming trunks. And this guy calls himself the “ultimate alpha”.
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The 2nd edition of “Vatnik Soup — The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” is officially out!

You can order your copy here:

kleart.eu/webshop/p/vatn…

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More from @P_Kallioniemi

Feb 24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce Russia’s main narratives and explain how they are being spread online by Russian operatives and MAGA Republicans. After three years of war, Russia still relies on old narratives, now amplified by the Trump administration.

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Throughout the years – or even decades – Russia’s narratives against the West have remained largely the same. Many of them date back to the Cold War era, when the KGB and CIA were bitter enemies. But since then, the media landscape has drastically changed.

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Russian propaganda and disinformation revolves around four main themes:

1) Russia is the victim,
2) Historical revisionism,
3) The “decadent West” is collapsing,
4) The CIA and/or “evil Anglo-Saxons” are behind every revolution & anti-Kremlin activity.

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Read 26 tweets
Feb 22
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a former Ukrainian politician and president, Viktor Yanukovych. He’s best known for selling his country to Russia, trying to turn it into an authoritarian state, and eventually fleeing to Moscow once his plan failed.

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Now that Russia and the US are planning to replace president Zelenskyy with someone who’s more willing to sell the country to them (most probably Viktor Medvedchuk or one of his cronies), it’s a good time to remind people how Yanukovych and Putin almost took over Ukraine.

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Yanukovych’s first attempt at power came in 2004, when he “won” the Ukrainian presidential election through massive fraud. The rigged vote sparked the Orange Revolution, a wave of protests that forced the election to be re-run. His opponent, pro-Western candidate…

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Read 23 tweets
Feb 20
Russia uses Tucker Carlson as a vessel for its propaganda. Many of the most popular narratives originate from his misinformation-filled show, which is funded by Elon. Some of these lies include:

- Bioweapons labs
- Gonzalo Lira being a "journalist"
-Zelenskyy being a dictator
- The banning of the Russian Orthodox Church
- The banning of Viktor Medvedchuk's pro-Kremlin propaganda network
- Putin's interview and revisionism
- That ridiculous St. Petersburg propaganda piece

Bob Amsterdam, who Tucker has interviewed a few times is paid by a Russian oligarch, Vadym Novynskyi.

We now know from the Tenet Media case that Russian state media wants to spread Tucker's verbal diarrhea everywhere. These fake stories have finally made their way to Trump.Image
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Read 4 tweets
Feb 19
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll take out my crystal ball and predict what the alliance between the US and Russia could mean for Ukraine, Europe and geopolitics in general. These recent changes could be a real risk for the whole of Europe, and need to be addressed quickly.

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Some of us have been reporting on Trump’s pro-Kremlin tendencies for years now. His Moscow connections go back all the way to the late 80s, and the 2016 US presidential elections raised a lot of red flags about the close connections of his associates to Russian operatives.

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The recent Rubio-Lavrov meeting in Saudi Arabia was an eye-opening event for many who were still optimistic about Trump and Ukraine – the outcome was that Putin got absolutely everything he’s ever wanted from the war, and at the same time it seems that the US got nothing.

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Read 24 tweets
Feb 18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce how the Elon’s Election Interference Machine™ (EIM) works. Since Musk & his broligarch allies won the presidency for Trump, they’ve now harnessed the machine to interfere in European elections, including the ones in Germany & Romania.

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At this point it is clear why Elon bought Twitter – his grand plan was to promote “free speech absolutism” (which, of course, doesn’t even exist on the platform) and tweak the algorithms so that they allow him to promote political parties that align with his worldview.

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First, let’s talk about “freedom of speech” that the Trump administration, especially Musk and VP Vance constantly rant about. Incidentally, they only blame the EU for “limiting free speech”, and there’s a good reason for this: they are driving for political change.

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Read 24 tweets
Feb 14
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce the Russian disinformation network “Doppelgänger”. Doppelgänger is an influence and hybrid operation spreading Kremlin propaganda via AI-generated fake news websites and social media sites, especially X.

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Doppelgänger is a massive influence operation that was initially exposed back in 2022. Their modus operandi is to create near-identical copies of large, legitimate Western news outlets to spread anti-Ukraine, anti-Western and anti-NATO narratives.

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The operation, overseen by Putin’s top aide Sergei Kiriyenko (who’s reportedly communicated with Elon), uses Russian firms like Social Design Agency (SDA) to create fake news sites that mimick legitimate media like The Washington Post, The Guardian, Bild and Fox News.

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Read 21 tweets

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