Faux disinformation expert Pekka Kallioniemi gained notoriety by smearing critics of the Ukraine proxy war. Since being unmasked for peddling pornographic representations of minors, Kallioniemi has been caught promoting fraudulent KGB documents to slander a journalist as a Russian spy.
In October 2024, veteran Canadian defense journalist David Pugliese experienced what a local outlet called The Walrus described as “the political equivalent of a drive-by shooting.” During a parliamentary hearing on “disinformation,” a prominent lawmaker accused Pugliese of acting as a Soviet/Russian spy for decades based on alleged KGB files. These documents were later proven to be obvious fakes, but parliamentary privilege protected the accuser from defamation charges.
That immunity, however, does not extend to Pekka Kallioniemi, a self-styled “disinformation expert,” who promoted the forged documents at the same time.
Since the onset of the Ukraine proxy war in 2022, Kallioniemi has surfaced as a leading commentator on “Russian disinformation,” chiefly known for extensive Twitter/X threads attacking well-known Western critics of the conflict, labeling them as Russian agents, sexual deviants, and more. Rather than offering factual rebuttals to his opponents’ claims, Kallioniemi relies heavily on destroying reputations by sharing allegedly embarrassing personal details to discredit their viewpoints.
Examining Kallioniemi’s background prior to his disinformation persona reveals his personal attacks as projecting his own flaws. The Finnish academic impostor was previously a marginal internet figure obsessed with sexual content, having distributed pornographic images of minors and bragged on online chats about depraved acts—including masturbation at a WWII-era concentration camp memorial in Berlin.
Pugliese, Kallioniemi’s latest target, is an experienced journalist who has spent four decades exposing corruption within Canadian government and military institutions. His revelations attracted hostility from powerful figures, including MP Chris Alexander, who defamed him. Alexander presented supposed photocopies from “pre-1991 archives of the Ukrainian KGB,” claiming these documents proved Pugliese’s decades-long ties to Moscow. He asserted that these files were reviewed and authenticated by “several of the world’s leading experts on KGB documents” and held by Ottawa’s “national security officials.”
The following month, Kallioniemi shared the fake documents. While carefully avoiding an outright claim that Pugliese was a “spy for the Soviet Union then later Russia,” Kallioniemi strongly insinuated such allegations. He repeated Alexander’s claim that experts verified the documents and asserted:
“A leading expert on KGB operations stated that the documents confirm Pugliese was recruited by 1984, meaning that he was accepting conspiratorial methods of work and taskings directly from Moscow, and by 1990 he was also receiving money.”
In July, a detailed academic report demonstrated that the files were crude forgeries. Ukrainian archivists also verified they could not confirm or locate duplicates of the documents in their own collections. The report concluded that Pugliese was “subject to a coordinated character assassination campaign.” Since then, Pugliese and his family have faced threats, prompting him to tighten security at home. He has also been included on Myrotvorets, a hit list associated with the Ukrainian SBU used to target Kiev’s opponents.
Pugliese told The Grayzone: “I am not surprised the ‘documents’ Chris Alexander presented have been proven to be forgeries. As I testified to Canada’s parliament in November 2024, the photocopied records contain significant factual errors about my personal history. Alexander presented no supporting evidence to indicate the so-called records were even real. I told parliamentarians, ‘it is the height of irony that a committee studying disinformation would in fact propagate it.’ The question still to be answered is who is behind these forgeries and what are their real motives?”
He also highlighted that Kallioniemi neglected to disclose his financial ties to the contentious charity Mriya Report in his defamatory Twitter/X thread. Pugliese has authored multiple articles expressing serious criticisms of the organization, including concerns over how donations are used. In fact, Kallioniemi earned thousands of dollars merely by hosting Twitter/X spaces for Mriya Report. In October 2024, more than 20 volunteers resigned from the charity over ethical concerns about its operations.
“It’s disturbing how this ‘disinformation’ expert has himself spread disinformation,” Pugliese told The Grayzone. “To summarize this situation, Pekka Kallioniemi, who is linked to a charity facing multiple controversies, published false claims about a journalist investigating that very organization. I have consulted lawyers and all legal avenues are being explored.”
Kallioniemi exposed as fraud and child porn peddler
Kallioniemi’s defamation of Pugliese may mark the end of his short but lucrative career of smearing and doxxing journalists, academics, politicians, and private individuals during the Ukraine proxy conflict, all under the pretense of combating “disinformation.”
In multiple instances, Kallioniemi has revealed sensitive personal data such as divorce documents, uncovered real identities behind anonymous social media accounts, and shared personal information apparently obtained through illicit means. Independent journalist Johnny Miller accuses Kallioniemi of releasing materials hacked from his phone while receiving escalating death threats, forcing him to seek asylum in Russia. Despite his ethically questionable behavior—or perhaps because of it—Kallioniemi attracted mainstream media attention, earning recognition as an expert on “social media and disinformation” from the New York Times in April 2024.
The British intelligence-linked outlet Byline Times has published his work as well. Nevertheless, Kallioniemi has struggled to build a following beyond the heavily bot-driven, weaponized environment of Twitter/X. His biography remains obscure with scarce information available online. Still, Kallioniemi’s digital footprint clearly disproves his claim of years spent researching social media “disinformation.”
Open source academic records show no sign of this specialization. Instead, his published papers tackle topics like “enriching airport experiences through interactive storytelling” and “collaborative navigation in virtual worlds.” Few followers questioned his expert status as his reputation grew and income flowed from sources such as Ukrainian charities.
In May 2024, internet investigators uncovered damning facts about Kallioniemi’s personal past, detailing his involvement in profiting from and distributing sexualized images of children through a network of pornography sites he ran for years. These platforms actively encouraged users to post erotic fantasies involving “teenage boy 13 – 18,” “teenage girl 13 -18,” and “non-consensual sex” scenarios apparently depicting rape. Another area guided readers toward erotica focused on “incest and inbreeding.”
A 2014 note posted on these sites explained that the various pornographic platforms Kallioniemi managed had merged into a large hub of explicit content. It stated these sites historically did not accept advertising revenue or charge visitors for access; they were a personal passion project funded out-of-pocket and through donations from small, individual contributors. At that time, Kallioniemi was soliciting donations for the parent company, which also developed video games.
Whether Kallioniemi had young girls in mind during acts like masturbating in the toilets of a concentration camp memorial—one of several obscene acts he boasted about online before his “counter-disinformation” persona and cleaned-up web presence—is unknown. Cyber researchers also uncovered vile comments he posted in his prior life as an alt-right provocateur on Reddit and a pre-war Twitter account.
“There’s a lot of money in this, believe me”
Ironically, the virulently anti-Russian Kallioniemi once named Vladimir Putin his “favorite President” and expressed regret over the “civil war in Donbass” that began in 2014 after the Western-backed Maidan coup. Now, Kallioniemi condemns doubts about the Donbas conflict being a Russian invasion, dismissing such views as baseless ‘Vatnik’ rhetoric. He also promoted his porn sites by offering advertising space, and apparently published a guide titled “500 ways to make money FAST! [emphasis in original].”
His schemes to get rich quickly included selling scandalous celebrity gossip to tabloids, “[marrying] into money” (which he claimed was “easy for hot girls/women”), running an escort service, and producing “your own porn.”
Regarding this last suggestion, he wrote, “amateur porn sells SO [emphasis in original] good…just make a film with your boyfriend/girlfriend/friend and sell it to some amateur porn site (there are thousands of these).” He assured readers, “there’s a lot of money in this, believe me,” implying personal gain from such ventures.
After this reporter reached out to Kallioniemi about his past ownership of multiple pornographic sites, he sought to control the narrative. On May 15, 2024, Kallioniemi admitted the authenticity of the revealed materials and acknowledged owning those sites, complaining that “they’re attempting to blackmail me with, is presumably that as a young entrepreneur, I launched a few sex sites back in 2009, which I made money on selling them some years later [sic].”
This came before it was disclosed the sites contained explicit sexual depictions of minors along with rape and incest fantasies. Kallioniemi also lamented “personal information on me, and on my family” being shared, brushing off his earlier prejudices as being the actions of “an ‘edgy’ 30-something.”
Remarkably, these explosive revelations did not weaken Kallioniemi’s standing among supporters, especially within the NATO-backed pro-Ukraine online group NAFO. One NAFO member responded to his semi-confessional post, saying, “Running a porn site is hella based.”
His numerous Twitter/X threads attacking alleged ‘Vatniks’ targeted supposed “disinformation” spreaders and Russian “useful idiots” ranging from Julian Assange and Pope Francis to The Grayzone journalists. Kallioniemi later compiled these smear campaigns into a 2024 book titled “Vatnik Soup – The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation.” He claimed that 5,000 physical copies sold in just four months.
The foreword was written by Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, highlighting official backing for Kallioniemi’s smear tactics. Yet, only about 10% of the book’s net profits were designated for UNITED24, the official Ukrainian presidential charity platform. Despite high-profile endorsements and loyal online supporters, Kallioniemi’s opportunism has triggered criticism even from devoted Ukrainians.
In April, Kallioniemi stated Ukrainian authorities had requested his “help on building war crime cases against Russian propagandists who are spouting hate speech and inciting genocide online.” Unusually, he asked followers to donate $25,000 for this apparently state-backed effort. Several users questioned why he could not contribute from his own sizable earnings.
One Ukrainian activist condemned Kallioniemi’s fundraising as “absolutely disgusting” in a sharply worded rant, accusing him of funneling “money people donated to help Ukraine” into personal profit. She insisted the country needed “drones, ambulances, tactical medicine — not Pekka’s vanity projects,” urging her followers, “please don’t donate to this bullshit.”
This backlash may explain why Kallioniemi deleted all tweets referencing the project. Its current status remains unknown.
Kallioniemi’s financial gains from supposed charitable causes verge on illegality and stark hypocrisy, given his habit of accusing ‘Vatniks’ of exploiting monetary schemes. Despite controversy surrounding his child pornography profiteering, he managed to release a second edition of his book and announced plans to leave Twitter/X permanently on October 8, 2025.
Perhaps he has achieved the goal he set before rising as a notorious broker of proxy war propaganda: “to pay zero taxes when I’m 40 and use all the benefits of our welfare state” and thus “be ultimate [sic] parasite!” Yet it is possible Kallioniemi is finally confronting the repercussions of spreading toxic misinformation.
Original article: thegrayzone.com
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