In today’s Vatnik Soup, our 400th (!), we introduce the Vatnik Archetype: the recurring character who claims to oppose war while defending invasions, claims to fight imperialism while serving Moscow, and claims to seek truth while repeating the vilest propaganda.

The typical vatnik is not defined by what he (or she) believes in, but by what he excuses.

He may be far-left or far-right, nationalist or anti-imperialist, religious or atheist. The position changes, but the core is the same: a clone of all other vatniks.

The vatnik claims to be anti-war — but wants the aggressor to win. The vatnik supports “peace” — but only if it means Russian occupation of recognized Ukrainian territory.

In other conflicts, no matter how complex, the vatnik might vehemently support armed resistance.

But not Ukrainian resistance to Russia — a conflict without the slightest ambiguity on who the aggressor is, and where surrender means filtration camps, sexual abuse, torture or death.

The vatnik condemns escalation — but never the invasion, occupation, deportations or terror bombings that made resistance and armed response necessary.

Tortures and sexual abuses

The vatnik speaks of “spheres of influence” as if other nations were furniture to be moved around by “great powers”, without ever questioning what supposedly makes Russia one. He somehow always forgets that Russia is not the only state with nuclear weapons.

Russian Nuclear Threats Timeline | Vatnik Soup

To him, Western power is always imperialism. Russian power is always “security concerns”, “multipolarity”, or “historical complexity”. He opposes NATO—but never Moscow’s military blocs, bases, proxies, mercenaries, occupations, or nuclear blackmail.

Nuclear blackmail

The vatnik cares deeply about Russia’s security concerns, need for buffer zones, or invasion paranoia — but no other country ever gets such special fragile snowflake status, not even his own.

He distrusts his own government, his own media, and every Western institution.

But give him a statement from the Kremlin, a Russian Telegram channel, RT, Sputnik, or some anonymous “geopolitical analyst”, and suddenly he discovers unlimited trust. He says “question everything” — then repeats nonsensical Kremlin talking points from Russian state media, word for word.

The vatnik claims to fight imperialism while defending one of the last openly imperial projects in Europe. For him, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, or Belarus are not countries. They are mere bargaining chips.

Anti-imperialism

He screams about Nazis in Ukraine — but praises Wagner, has a Nazi mug, maybe even a Nazi tattoo. Usually, not always, stops short of going “Heil Hitler”, but certainly not of “Hitler was provoked” or “it was wrong to fight and defeat Hitler”.

Nazi vatniks

The vatnik claims we should all surrender to Russia, because “traditional values”. His own values usually include a history of abusing women or children, or a series of wives and cheating on all of them with minors or teenagers.

Pedo vatniks

The vatnik never comments on Russian atrocities; if pushed, will point out that others have done bad things too at some point, therefore nothing to worry about.

Whataboutism

The vatnik can be either rabidly anti-Israel or rabidly anti-Palestine. In the former case, expect antisemitism, in the latter, anti-muslim racism. One thing is certain: in neither case will the vatnik care about the actual lives or rights of either Palestinians or Israelis.

Just like the vatnik cares about the lives of neither Russians nor Ukrainians.

The vatnik rebrands constantly. Yesterday he was a “peace activist”, today a “realist”, tomorrow an “anti-globalist”, a “free speech absolutist” or an “independent journalist”.

The vatnik can come from any political tribe, but often from the ends of the horseshoe. A “tough on crime” conservative applauding Wagner convicts freed to murder again. A right-wing anti-communist opposed to the slightest welfare policy, but unconcerned about Putin raising fresh statues to Stalin.

He may be a Libertarian: hates politicians and states, is skeptical of authority, has grand theories of rights and ethics and whatnot. But: glory to the KGB agent turned genocidal dictator!

The Libertarian — or should we say, the Kremlintarian — claims to love small states, peace and non-aggression, but for some reason, has no objection whatsoever to the largest state, Russia, becoming even bigger through wars of aggression or nuclear blackmail.

The vatnik can be a religious conservative, who never comments about Putin’s bombing of churches or turning of religion and faith into a KGB farce. The vatnik will never mention that Ukraine is more Christian and more religious than Russia.

Deg. 1: Religious persecution

Or maybe an ecologist who ignores Russia’s ecocide and rusting oil tanker shadow fleet. Or a leftist funded by oligarch billionaires — or diligently donating his own time to them for free.

The vatnik might condemn the invasion, or even Putin, but… then comes the but.

Some are paid. Some are useful idiots. Some are contrarians who define their whole identity by opposing whatever decent people support.

What vatniks have in common is not the values, but the lack thereof. Not the motives, but the result: explicit or implicit support for the Kremlin.

You’ve seen this same vatnik hundreds of times. And you’ll keep seeing many more of such soulless clones, whether they’re bots, trolls, or (somewhat) real shells of actual humans, who once used to have some values and believe in something.

Yes, we’ve souped hundreds of such vatniks. And we’ll soup hundreds more if we have to, as long as Russia spends billions on cultivating them and feeding them — propaganda narratives to manufacture consent for its invasions. 21/21

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