Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Jul 28 21 tweets 11 min read Read on X
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 Image
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 Image
Image
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.

3/20 Image
The concept of political technologist emerged in the 1990s as Russia transitioned from chaos to centralized control. Political technologists blend manipulation, media dominance, and psychological ops to engineer consent and suppress dissent.

4/20 Image
Figures like Vladislav Surkov pioneered “post-truth” politics, where reality is fluid, narratives shift constantly, and confusion reigns. The goal of this is to exhaust the public, neutralize resistance, and make alternatives to the regime seem futile or nonexistent.

5/20 Image
After the fall of Surkov in 2016, Kiriyenko quickly became “Putin’s right-hand man,” shaping domestic and foreign politics based on political technologist ideology. Inside Russia, his goal was to promote the false idea of “conservatism” and “traditionalism”.

6/20 Image
Image
Image
After the launch of the full-scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022, Kiriyenko’s work was expanded to the Russian-occupied territories. Like Surkov before, his main duties were to manufacture support for the occupiers and falsely claim they’re supported by the locals.

7/20 Image
For example, he oversaw the Kremlin’s sham referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — staged votes held under military occupation, with no transparency or legitimacy. Designed to justify annexation, they earned him the nickname “Viceroy of the Donbas.”

8/20 Image
Image
Image
Image
In May and Jun of 2022, Kiriyenko made propaganda trips to occupied cities like Mariupol, where he attended the unveiling of a statue waving the Soviet flag, and Kherson, where he took part in meetings planning to formally annex the territory on Russia’s election day.

9/20 Image
Image
These plans were ultimately thwarted when Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson in a bold and brilliantly executed counteroffensive. Even Elon Musk couldn’t stop the operation, despite reportedly disabling Starlink access in the area to prevent a Ukrainian drone strike.

10/20 Image
Image
Incidentally, Elon Musk allegedly communicated directly with Kiriyenko. According to multiple sources, they discussed topics ranging from business to geopolitics. Did Kiriyenko suggest shutting down Starlink in Ukraine - or did that idea come from somewhere else?

11/20 Image
Image
Under Kiriyenko’s direction, the occupation administration began forcibly Russifying the seized territories, introducing Russian school curricula, distributing Russian passports, replacing mobile networks, and imposing Kremlin-controlled governance structures.

12/20 Image
Image
Image
Image
As Surkov before him, Kiriyenko is also running the Kremlin’s global troll farms. Under his direction, Russia’s influence ops have become more sophisticated, covert, and tech-driven. Under his supervision are organizations like the Social Design Agency and Structura.

13/20 Image
Image
Remember that anti-Zelenskyy meme that Elon shared on X and that got around 100 million views, making Russian propaganda TV very happy? That, and thousands of others, were actually manufactured by the propagandists at Social Design Agency.

14/20 Image
Image
Image
Image
Kiriyenko oversees the Presidential Directorate for Public Projects, which coordinates state-controlled narratives online. He has also been leading one of the most infamous Russian online influence operations, Doppelgänger, famous for spreading pro-Kremlin BS online.

15/20 Image
In Ukraine, the influence operations overseen by Kiriyenko have also had huge negative impact. A 2024 report by Global Rights Compliance found systematic disinformation tied to Kiriyenko’s structures aimed at “manufacturing impunity” for Russian forces.

16/20 Image
Kiriyenko’s tactics aren’t limited to Ukraine. In Moldova, Russian-backed media and troll farms, connected to his networks, have pushed narratives to undermine the pro-EU president Maia Sandu and pro-European forces ahead of the 2025 elections, per @IGTDS1.

17/20 Image
Image
In addition, Kiriyenko now chairs the supervisory board of Russia’s revived Intervision Song Contest — a Kremlin-backed alternative to Eurovision, promoting “traditional values” and resisting “woke” culture, serving as ideological soft power against the West.

18/20 Image
As is tradition in Russia, Kiriyenko’s son, Vladimir, was appointed the CEO of VK, Russia’s flagship social network, in 2021. The Kremlin leadership likes to keep things in the family, especially when it comes to controlling key media platforms.

19/20 Image
Image
To conclude: What sets Kiriyenko apart is his fusion of old-school political technology & modern information warfare. He effectively blends domestic repression, foreign manipulation, and digital propaganda into a seamless strategy to protect the regime and export chaos.

20/20 Image
The 2nd edition of “Vatnik Soup — The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” is officially out!

You can order your copy here:

vatniksoup.com/en/books/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Pekka Kallioniemi

Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @P_Kallioniemi

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.

1/5 Image
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 Image
Image
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.

3/5 Image
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.

1/21 Image
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 Image
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.

3/21 Image
Read 23 tweets
Jul 14
While Ukrainians are terror bombed on a daily basis, rich Russians live in Europe like kings and queens.

This young lady lives in Portugal, and travels freely to Ibiza...
...the Alps...
... and of course Paris.
Read 5 tweets
Jul 7
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 Image
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 Image
Image
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.

3/21 Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Jul 6
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 Image
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 Image
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:

3/15

vatniksoup.com/en/soups/
Read 15 tweets
Jul 1
In today’s Wumao Soup, I’ll introduce how and where the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda and influence operations work. Due to China’s massive population and advances in AI, CCP-aligned online content has become increasingly visible.

1/20 Image
Like Russia’s troll farms, China has its own troll army: the “50 Cent Party” or “Wumao” refers to state-linked online commentators who are reportedly paid ¥0.50 per post to steer discussions away from criticism and amplify CCP narratives on social media.

2/20 Image
Back in 2017, a research paper estimated that the Wumao produced almost 500 million fabricated comments annually to distract readers and shift topics. In that sense, Wumao operates very similarly to the Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” model:

3/20

Read 21 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(