Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Vatnik Soup Profile picture
@P_Kallioniemi
Jan 30 • 5 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
In today’s Debunk of the Day (2), we’ll look at… nuclear blackmail. Vatniks love using Russia’s nuclear threats as a reason for surrendering or for not lifting a finger to help Ukraine: “see, they have nukes, we have to give them whatever they want”.
The argument is absurd:
1/5 Image
Image
Nuclear deterrence has been a reality for decades. Both the US and Russia have lost wars without resorting to nukes. We are not submitting to the whims of Pakistan or North Korea either. For vatniks, it’s just an insidious way of siding with Putin.
2/5
 Image
We can’t just give in to the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail, to the threats their officials and propagandists make five times a day to scare us into letting them have something they know perfectly well is not theirs, with no limit to their appetite.
3/5
 vatniksoup.com/en/nuclear-thr…
Insiders confirm it’s all a bluff. Indeed, Putin and his cronies all have their kids in Europe. Their luxurious mansions. Their favorite vacation spots. Their billionaire yachts, in that West they claim to hate so much and be willing to turn to ashes.
4/5
 Image
Russia’s nukes may also not be operational, as maintenance is expensive and Russia is corrupt. And Russia’s population density profile makes it particularly vulnerable: all a bluff.

We won’t threaten with nukes, but please support our work:
5/5
 vatniksoup.com/en/support-our…

• • •

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

Keep Current with Vatnik Soup

Vatnik Soup 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

Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Mar 29
In this 8th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss complaints about US financing of NATO, in particular how the US allegedly pays for European defense, leading to calls for a US withdrawal from the Alliance — which would only make it easier for Putin to invade more countries.

1/7 A flight of French and Polish Rafale and F-16 fighter jets above a NATO flag during the opening of the exhibition “Powerful because we are united”, dedicated to the 19th anniversary of Lithuania’s 2004 accession to NATO (OTD 22 years ago), in the bastion of the Vilnius defensive wall on March 29, 2023 (OTD 3 years ago) in Vilnius, Lithuania. (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)
NATO by itself costs peanuts. In fact, the core of NATO is a principle, an agreement, that ideally costs nothing. The main cost is defense spending, which the US is eagerly doing anyway: Trump has just announced a 50% increase in military spending for his “Department of War”.
2/7 Trump aides struggle with how to spend $500 billion more on military, Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/02/21/trump-hegseth-budget-military/
Trump calls for US military spending to rise more than 50% to $1.5tn https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy59kxl2xwzo
Image
To sow division and thereby weaken the Alliance, vatniks deliberately mix up different figures, such as contributions to the NATO common budget, with defense spending. And US military spending has been huge by the sheer fact that the US is the world’s largest economy.

3/7 Newsweek falsely claiming that the US pays 68% of NATO’s budget. The real number is 15%.

Elon Musk falsely claiming that the US pays for 2/3 of European defense. In another post he claimed it was 1/4. Both made-up numbers. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1870903805845598428 https://x.com/i/birdwatch/t/1870903805845598428
NATO has annual budgets and programs worth around EUR 4.6 billion in 2025 (representing 0.3% of total Allied defence spending), and up to EUR 5.3 billion in 2026. The US share for 2026-2027 is 15% of that: 0.8 billion. Source: Funding NATO https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/funding-nato
Read 7 tweets
Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Mar 9
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll talk about why we’re doing this: why we think Ukraine is so important and why we believe that souping vatniks and debunking their propaganda narratives is so crucial to counter Russia’s & their allies’ wars of aggression and achieve real peace.

1/20 Image
War is expensive, and Russia is not a rich country that could afford this: Hospitals? Roads? Plumbing? No: everything into terror and destruction.

But not only that. There is a 2nd item in the Russian state budget that remains strong no matter what:

2/20
Image
Image
Image
Manufacturing support for that terror and destruction. Propaganda. Vatniks. “Innocent” travel bloggers. “Independent” journalists. “Patriotic” politicians. Russia spends hundreds of billions of rubles a year ($5 billion) on this, and that kind of money buys you A LOT of BS.

3/20 Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 20 tweets
Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Mar 2
In this second (and possibly last) Basiji Soup, we’ll explore how the Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared for a conflict with the US and Israel. We won’t cover the military aspects, but another kind of war — information warfare.

1/20 Image
In the 1st Basiji Soup, we souped the Islamic Republic, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, its support of terrorism including Russia’s, its (one-sided?) relationship with Putin, and the mass protests against it that started two months ago:

2/20
Image
The Internet blackout has been crucial in allowing the regime to cover up its massacre of the protesters and especially the scope of it, making it difficult to assess the number of victims. They went to great lengths to jam Starlink, after having made its use illegal.

3/20 Image
Image
Read 20 tweets
Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Feb 25
In this 7th Debunk of the Day, we’ll expose the “Chickenhawk” fallacy. The chickenhawk accusation or the “go to the front!” imperative is a dishonest attempt to silence anyone supporting Ukraine by pushing them to go fight. A barely hidden death wish, as it’s always uttered…
1/5 Image
Image
Image
…with zero regard for who you are or what your personal circumstances might be — you could already be there, on your way there, a veteran, or unable to fight. More broadly, not everyone can or should be a soldier, just as not everyone can or should be a policeman or a nurse.
2/5 Image
Image
Yet a society still needs those things to be done, and the fact that not everyone can go to medical school or fight crime does not mean that we have to surrender to invaders and criminals, nor that we cannot all have an opinion on healthcare.
3/5
 Image
Image
Read 5 tweets
Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Feb 18
In this 6th Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about a complex and controversial topic: conscription. It is used by vatniks to attack Ukraine for drafting men to fight, while conveniently ignoring the alternative, including the horrors of conscription into the Russian army.
1/8 Image
Military obligations are a reality in many countries, from the most peaceful democracies to the most tyrannical dictatorships — unless you have “bone spurs”. Some argue it is a necessity for defense against invading armies, especially for small countries.
2/8 Image
Others point out that it goes against individual rights or that a professional army is better. And Zelenskyy might agree: he did in fact end conscription. But then a full-scale invasion happened: exactly why many nations, including the US, still keep some form of draft.
3/8 Image
Image
Read 8 tweets
Vatnik Soup Profile picture
Feb 13
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce the International Olympic Committee (IOC) @Olympics . It’s mostly known for organizing sporting events, and for being supposed to foster the Olympic ideal while actually submitting to dictators.

1/15 Image
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894 in Paris by Pierre de Coubertin with a noble goal: promote peace through sports. Politics out, sportsmanship in: sounds great in theory.

2/15 Image
But in practice, the IOC has a long history of accommodating authoritarian regimes, always in the name of “neutrality,” “dialogue,” and “keeping sports separate from politics”, usually not in a particularly consistent or moral way.

3/15 Image
Image
Read 16 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!

Send Email!

:(