Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Mar 17 17 tweets 9 min read Read on X
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian propagandist, Xenia Fedorova (@xfedorova). She’s best known for running Russia’s state propaganda media in France, and then writing a whole book to whine about how it got shut down by the EU after Russia invaded Europe.

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Xenia was born in 1980 in Kazan, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, now Russia. She got an Executive MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership in 2014, and did her whole career (since December 2005) at the Russian state propaganda outlet, RT.

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RT (previously “Russia Today”), established by Putin in June 2005, is active all around the world to spread vatnik narratives. Together with Sputnik, it is the main foreign propaganda outlet for Russian bullshit. Both outlets are led by the master vatnik Margarita Simonyan.

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At RT, Xenia was Simonyan’s protegee. As most of you know, Margarita has openly called for bombing Ukrainian civilian infrastructure & laughed about hoping for a famine in Ukraine.

If you’re interested in Simonyan, check out our video about her:

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Between 2014 and 2017, while Putin was already invading Ukraine, Xenia was still tweeting in Russian about “Banderites” and “Crimea Path to the Homeland” hashtag, spreading the Kremlin narratives justifying the invasion and promoting Putin’ militaristic speeches.

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But at the same time, she was also working as the CEO for a “cool” new Russian-state owned media company, Ruptly. The company was based in Berlin, and it tried to attract a younger left-leaning demographic by promoting its content on social media.

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Ruptly was a highly sophisticated operation that mostly shared real, factual content but at times spread outright disinformation and Kremlin propaganda. This role has now been overtaken by the thousands of AI-generated “news sites” that spread fake news and deepfake content.
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In 2017, Xenia departed Ruptly and was sent to France to create RT France, which she directed up until its closure in 2022. The channel was known for its “high-quality” reporting, such as the article titled “North Korea: The happiest people in the world.”

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Undex Xenia’s leadership, RT France was pure propaganda, and one former employee described the editorial line as follows: “It always had to go along with the pro-Russian line, or at least we had to make sure that the Russians weren’t attacked or couldn’t be attacked.”

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On the morning of Russia launching their full-scale invasion in Ukraine, Fedorova instructed her employees to downplay the brutal war. According to one journalist, she checked absolutely every story while showing a “tremendous deal of interventionism.”

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Fedorova denied the invasion of Ukraine, calling it a mere “special operation” in the Donbas. In a message to journalists, she warned: Be careful with videos & claims that Russia is attacking Ukrainian cities. This information is false. The operation is only in the Donbas.”
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In Mar 2025, Xenia published a book titled “Banned: Freedom of expression under conditions”. In it, she criticizes the Western democracies for “censorship”. The book seems like a big joke, considering that she herself was censoring her employees while managing RT France.

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Now, I haven’t read Xenia’s book, but I bet there’s not much talk about the killings and imprisonments of journalists, opposition figures and activists in Russia, either. Oh, and RT France sued @maximeaudinet because he dared criticize them.

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After all this, Xenia was hired by Canal+ in 2025, and promotes vatnik narratives regularly on CNews. Due to its promotion of French far-right ideas, along with the spreading of fake news and conspiracy theories, CNews has been compared to a French version of Fox News.

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CNews, along with Fayard, her book’s editor, are all connected to French billionaire Vincent Bolloré. Bolloré’s news outlets promoted the Union of the Far-Right alliance between members of The Republicans and the National Rally for the 2024 French election.

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To conclude, Xenia Fedorova is a 100% vatnik propagandist, who formerly worked for heavily censored and biased Russian state-media, but recently found a new home in the French version of Fox News. She’s keen on critizicing the West for censorship, but stays quiet on Russia.
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This soup will soon be published in French and German, make sure to follow @vatniksoup_fr and @vatniksoup_de.

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

Aug 18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explain the Alaska Fiasco and how it marks the peak of Trump’s two-year betrayal of Ukraine. What was sold as “peace talks” turned into a spectacle of weakness, humiliation, empty promises, and photo-ops that handed Putin exactly what he wanted.

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Let’s start with the obvious: Trump desperately wants the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, mainly because Obama got one. That’s why he’s now LARPing as a “peace maker” in every conflict: Israel-Gaza, Azerbaijan-Armenia, India-Pakistan, and of course Ukraine-Russia.

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Another theory is that Putin holds kompromat — compromising material such as videos or documents — that would put Trump in an extremely bad light. Some have suggested it could be tied to the Epstein files or Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

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Read 25 tweets
Aug 11
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll talk about engagement farming: a cynical social media tactic to rack up likes, shares, and comments. From rage farming to AI-powered outrage factories, engagement farming is reshaping online discourse and turning division into profit.

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Engagement farming is a social media tactic aimed at getting maximum likes, shares, and comments, with truth being optional. It thrives on provocative texts, images, or videos designed to spark strong reactions, boost reach, and turn online outrage into clicks and cash.

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One subset of engagement farming is rage farming: a tactic built to provoke strong negative emotions through outrageous or inflammatory claims. By triggering anger or moral outrage, these posts often generate 100s or even 1,000s of heated comments, amplifying their reach.

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Read 24 tweets
Aug 6
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the autocratic concept of “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars”: the idea that the leader is wise and just, but constantly sabotaged by corrupt advisors. This narrative shields the ruler from blame, and it’s used by both Putin and Trump today.

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The phrase “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars” (Царь хороший, бояре плохие), also known as Naïve Monarchism, refers to a long-standing idea in Russian political culture: the ruler is good and benevolent, but his advisors are corrupt, incompetent and responsible for all failures.

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From this perception, any positive action taken by the government is viewed as being an accomplishment of the benevolent leader, whereas any negative one is viewed as being caused by lower-level bureaucrats or “boyars”, without the approval of the leader.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 28
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 21 tweets
Jul 27
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.

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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!").

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Then there's the monetization part. This particular account sells "pencil art", which again are just AI-generated slop.

Country code for the phone number is in Pakistan.

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Read 5 tweets
Jul 15
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.

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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.

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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.

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Read 23 tweets

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