In today’s #vatnik soup, I’ll introduce a Spanish-Russian “journalist” & political scientist, Liubov “Liu” Sivaya (@liusivaya). She’s best-known for her YouTube channel where she spreads pro-Kremlin narratives and denies war crimes conducted by the Russian military for money.
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I consider Sivaya to be a part of the group of “relatively attractive, young women who do pro-Kremlin propaganda” along with people like Mira Terada, Maria Butina, Alina Lipp and Anna Chapman.

She’ll probably join some Prigozhin-run propaganda committee in the near future.

2/18

Sivaya has lived in Spain for 10 years, and she’s claimed and received Spanish citizenship, and on occasion she has exhibited both passports online in order to defend herself from critics, whilst being fully aware that Spain does not allow double citizenship with Russia.

3/18

Liubov’s been actively trying to get into politics for years, and she’s tried all political parties ranging from left to right: in Spain, she’s toured the PSOE (center left), Ciudadanos (center to center right), PP (right) and VOX (far right).

4/18

This identity crisis finally landed her into the political landscape of “anti-woke”, where she emphasizes the importance of traditional values - you know, the kind that Russia preaches but does not practice.

5/18

She’s gained quite a lot of traction with the Spanish speaking audience by criticizing the current Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez.

6/18

Liu has participated in several talk-shows on channels such as Cuatro and 7NN where she tells the fairy tale of “eight years of bombing of the Donbas” and spouts on about the alleged persecution of Russians “unlike we’ve never seen before in history of mankind”.

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She’s among the group of pro-Russian propagandists or so-called “independent journalists” that claim to “show you what the mainstream media won’t show you”, meaning that they travel around Donbas with Russian soldiers and produce solid propaganda for the information war.

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In April 2022, Liu, together with notorious denialist of Russian war crimes and lawyer, Ruben Gisbert, visited the occupied Donbas under an armed escort by the authorities of the Russian puppet states DPR and LPR.

9/18

Soon after that, Liu decided to settle on an apparent permanent basis in the Russian occupied territories, from where she keeps working under the protection of the Russian authorities.

10/18

Liu’s discourse has evolved from open and staunch denial of the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, up to a repeat of all Kremlin talking points on short videos, in a way similar in both presentation and content to Alina Lipp, Vanessa Beeley and Sonja van den Ende.11/18

She’s also occasionally interviewed Finnish propagandist Janus Putkonen on her videos. Putkonen’s financial ties to Kremlin we’re proved through the 2016 Doni News e-mail leak. Liu even visited Finland where she interviewed people about their NATO stance.

12/18

Amongst the arguments that she keeps repeating are the false flag claim regarding the Mariupol Theater attack, a war crime where over 600 civilians were killed in a Russian air-raid whilst hiding in a building marked with the word “children”.

13/18

She’s also reported from “rebuilt Mariupol” where the Russians have been building a Potemkin village for propaganda purposes. In her YouTube video she showcases playgrounds, brand new apartments for the residents and other reconstruction projects around the city, ...

14/18

...and of course interviews pro-Russian actors who condemn the evil Ukrainian Nazis and thank their liberators. For obvious reasons, Mariupol has become the main stage for crisis actors and fake “rebuilding efforts” initiated by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

15/18

One can only guess why Liubov is doing this: based on her “political tourism”, one could argue that it’s all for attention, yet another motivator could be just money.Some have even suggested that she’s infiltrated the Spanish society for years, only to become active later on.16/18

It may be that Sivaya has moved to Russia and/or to the illegally annexed areas for good. She’s still producing pro-Kremlin propaganda on almost daily basis for her Spanish audience - her latest video focused on “debunking the disinformation spread by the West” - which...

17/18

...indicates that there’s still money to be made in this arena of lies.

As I have said before, the West has a blind eye for the Russian propaganda and disinformation spread throughout the Global South, which may partly explain their pro-Russian attitudes towards the war.

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