Thread by @P_Kallioniemi

In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.

1/20

Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.

2/20

Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.

3/20

A month later, Fidias released a video of himself traveling across Japan by free—dodging fares, begging for cash, and sneaking hotel breakfasts. He faced heavy criticism and later posted — and then deleted — an apology.

4/20

After breaking up with his girlfriend in 2021 — and making a 2-video publicity stunt about it — Fidias started working seriously on climbing the social media influencer ladder and becoming more famous. At this time, he also started heavily monetizing his channel.

5/20

At this point, his strategy seemed to be clear: do collabs with bigger YouTubers and rising stars like Airrack, and do even more ridiculous, scripted stunts to grow the subscriber base. And to be fair, he wasn’t all that bad at producing clickbait.

6/20

Fidias’s big break came soon with “I Shook The Top 100 YouTubers’ Hands,” in which he shook the hand of world’s biggest YouTuber, MrBeast. After this, both the production values and views of his videos skyrocketed, and he became a well known figure in the YouTuber scene.

7/20

His most popular video with 15 million views is the one where he hugs the “world’s top 100 celebrities”. His final mission was to hug Elon Musk. He even called for his fans to spam Elon’s mother, Maye Musk, with the hug request. She called the campaign “malicious”.

8/20

At the same time, Fidias was cozying up to pro-Kremlin propagandists and likeminded grifters on his podcasts. He had extremely biased discussions with vatniks people like Russell Brand, Jeffrey Sachs, Nigel Farage and Andrew Tate.

9/20

In 2024, Fidias announced his run for the European Parliament on an anti-partisan platform. With no political background, he was seen as a novelty candidate — but quickly gained traction, especially among young voters, probably due to his YouTube fame.

10/20

Fidias campaigned on reforming education — calling to scrap exams and promote self-learning — while also backing AI and Bitcoin. He shocked many by finishing 3rd with 19,4% of the vote, topping the polls and winning a seat in the European Parliament.

11/20

Initially, he claimed to be running a “direct democracy platform” where he ran social media polls for his voting decisions. For example, he voted against Ursula van der Leyen remaining the president of the European Commission based on the results of a Twitter poll.

12/20

But not all votes were left to be decided by his fans. In July 2024, Fidias abstained from a key vote reaffirming the EU’s support for Ukraine — military, political, humanitarian, and diplomatic. His stance raised eyebrows across the Parliament.

13/20

In Feb 2025, Fidias posted a video titled “How the US forced Russia to invade Ukraine,” featuring Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs, who recently spoke at the European Parliament, blamed the war entirely on the West and NATO, while absolving Russia of any responsibility.

14/20

On May 8, 2025, yet again without a poll, Fidias voted against an EU resolution condemning Russia for abducting Ukrainian children. The motion called for their immediate return & accountability under international law. Only 2 other MEPs opposed it.

15/20

The next day, Fidias visited Moscow for Russia’s Victory Day, claiming his trip was about “dialogue and peace.” During the visit, he met with the chairman of the State Duma. He didn’t mention whether Russia’s war crimes and bombing of civilians in Ukraine were discussed.

16/20

Fidias plays the classic “peacenik” role — claiming that if we just stop sending military aid to Ukraine, Russia will magically end its invasion. It’s a delusional take that ignores reality and whitewashes Russia’s long-standing imperial ambitions and aggression.

17/20

And as always, Fidias avoids talking about Russia. He’s made cozy travel vlogs there, but steers clear of politics. Instead, he blames the EU — while pushing his “direct democracy for the people” gimmick, conveniently skipping polls on anything involving Russia & the war.

18/20

Fidias’ anti-EU stance is also echoed by his old friend and hug buddy, Elon Musk. They’ve shared views on tech moderation and online “freedom,” and at one point, Elon even called for making Fidias the “EU President.” You can’t make this shit up.

19/20

To conclude, Fidias is a social climber with a broken moral compass. He’s inserted himself into serious geopolitical issues — and for some reason, has chosen to simp for Russia while pushing the absurd narrative that the entire conflict is the West’s fault.

20/20

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…

A little bonus: Fidias was recently an election observer in Georgia, and called the elections 'fair'.