Pekka Kallioniemi Profile picture
Creator of #vatniksoup Inquiries to pekka@thesoupcentral.com
137 subscribers
Dec 20 24 tweets 15 min read
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.

1/23 Image Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).

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Dec 4 21 tweets 9 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20 Image I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.

It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.

So here’s the latest:

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Nov 29 26 tweets 12 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.

1/25 Image Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.

Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.

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Nov 28 22 tweets 12 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.

1/21 Image Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…

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Nov 11 20 tweets 10 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.

1/17 Image Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…

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Nov 7 18 tweets 9 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.

1/17 Image First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.

Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.

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Oct 25 25 tweets 12 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a social media personality and TV presenter, Raisa Blommestijn (@rblommestijn). She’s best-known for her far-right rhetorics, spreading conspiracy theories, and spreading anti-Ukraine and pro-Kremlin narratives on Dutch television.

1/24 Image Raisa studied philosophy of law at Leiden University. The faculty is best-known for one of its professors, Paul Cliteur. He’s a member of the pro-Kremlin party Forum voor Democratie (FvD), where he is one of the leading figures.Cliteur is also known for supervising the FvD…
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Oct 18 23 tweets 13 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American podcaster, Darryl Cooper (@martyrmade). He’s best-known for “Martyr Made”, a history podcast that provides a strongly revisionist and biased analysis on historical events such as the Revolution of Dignity and World War II.

1/22 Image Darryl became known to big audiences in 2021, when he published a Twitter thread in which he basically described a massive conspiracy against Trump during both 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The culprits were predictable: the corporate press, intelligence agencies…

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Oct 13 18 tweets 8 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’m going to outline the current situation in the West’s information war against Russia & its allies. Currently,the West’s counter-disinformation measures are severely underfunded,making it difficult to combat Russian influence operations effectively.
1/17 Image Europe today is repeating the same mistake in information warfare that it made in conventional warfare: we are not dedicating enough resources to counter it. Just as Europe was unprepared to fully support Ukraine and prepare for kinetic warfare against Russia,...

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Oct 7 24 tweets 14 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation (@Heritage). Heritage is best-known for opposing military aid to Ukraine and for their political initiative called Project 2025, a potential blueprint for a Trump presidency.

1/23 Image Before we begin, I want to justify this soup that focuses heavily on US domestic politics. As a strong supporter of Ukraine, I see Donald Trump as a threat to Ukraine’s existence, and the reasoning for that can be found in this previous soup:

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Sep 28 12 tweets 8 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss two events, Rescue the Republic and Rage Against the War Machine, that are being held during the last weekend of September 2024 in Washington DC. Both of these events promote pro-Kremlin viewpoints and platform many prominent vatniks.

1/11 Image Rage Against the War Machine is being organized for the 3rd time, although the 2nd installment, “Defeat the Deep State”, was cancelled, probably due to low interest. The event was organized by the Libertarian Party, a US political party that was recently hijacked by vatniks.
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Sep 23 24 tweets 15 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American social media personality, Tim Pool (@Timcast). He’s best-known for being funded by the Kremlin, his right-wing media empire, his connections to several American conspiracy theorists, and for his cool beanie.

1/23 Image Tim Pool rose to fame during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, which he livestreamed together with a former realtor, Henry Ferry. He was one of the pioneers of doing livestreams where he also interacted with the audience and even let them direct him on the ground.

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Sep 18 24 tweets 15 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician, Jill Stein (@DrJillStein). She’s best-known for her visits to Moscow, bids for the US presidency, blaming of NATO for the war in Ukraine, and for her inability to condemn Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.

1/23 Image Stein’s background is in medicine, and she graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979. During the 90s Stein turned to activism and subsequently received various environmental awards for her work. Stein began her political career by running for governor of Massachusetts...
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Sep 13 20 tweets 10 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup I’ll introduce a Russian filmmaker, Anastasia Trofimova. She’s best-known for her latest controversial documentary “Russians at War”, and for working as a producer for Russian state-funded media outlet RT.

1/19 Image Soft power has been part of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare for a long time. It refers to the “ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion” and which can “be cultivated through relations with allies, economic assistance, and cultural exchanges.”
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Sep 11 20 tweets 9 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss why I think it’s important for Ukraine & for Europe that Donald Trump does not become the next president of the US. I’ll share my insights on how Trump has been undermining democracy and supporting authoritarian leaders around the world.

1/19 First of all, I think Trump supports Russia more than Ukraine. Trump has a long history of doing business with the Russians, and he’s even held private meetings with Putin and other high-ranking Russian officials while sharing highly classified information with them.

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Sep 11 13 tweets 3 min read
As there's clearly not much to say about the debate other than Trump was deranged and he'd clearly abandon Ukraine and appease Russia, I'm just gonna post the best memes and posts about the whole thing.

Post your favorites👇🏻 Image Image
Sep 5 21 tweets 13 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the Kremlin’s funding of Tennessee-based media company TENET Media. TENET Media is best-known for their promotion of Russian narratives and for strong support for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 US elections.

1/20 Image First, it’s worth stating that the funding originated from Kremlin-controlled RT, and that the funding was masked through shell companies in countries like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Mauritius, with the money being described as payments for electronics.

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Aug 28 28 tweets 21 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce further details about South African-American businessman and social media figure, Elon Musk (@elonmusk). He’s best-known for running companies like Tesla, SpaceX & Twitter/X, and for using the latter for political campaigning.

1/25 Image In this soup, I will focus on how his social media platform Twitter/X has become a cesspool filled with racism, propaganda & conspiracy theories. Elon himself, living fully in denial, has stated that “X has the truth” & that X is actually “the only place to find the truth”.

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Aug 25 4 tweets 1 min read
Recently, I have been observing how MAGA Republicans use TikTok in their campaigning. I also noticed, that JD Vance has become a huge meme.

Here are some of favorite JD videos:
Aug 18 23 tweets 13 min read
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician and disbarred lawyer, Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani). He’s best-known for meddling with the pro-Kremlin forces in Ukraine, and for organizing the infamous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference.

1/22 Image Giuliani rose to fame as the mayor of NYC between 1994 and 2001. He adopted an aggressive enforcement strategy and organized crackdowns on relatively minor offenses like graffiti and cannabis possession. His role in the 9/11 aftermath made him a global superstar.

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Aug 8 24 tweets 15 min read
In today’s 300th #vatniksoup, I’ll go through some of the most heroic feats that Ukrainians have achieved since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

In the last 900 days, under-equipped underdog Ukraine has fared well against the imperialist and genocidal Russia.

1/23 Image As in most conflicts, Ukraine relies heavily on leadership. For this reason, the Kremlin first focused their main propaganda efforts on Zelenskyy, even claiming that he had already fled from Ukraine to Poland. Soon after these allegations, Zelenskyy and his cabinet…

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