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No More Nord Stream
In a worst-case scenario for the ages, Russia has pulled the plug on energy to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
“Will Putin Invade?” mused Politico on December 21, 2021, noting: “On the Front Lines of Ukraine’s Long War, That’s Beside the Point.”
“A reporting trip to Donbass reveals the tight hold Russia already has over the lives of Ukrainians accustomed to living with war,” reported David M. Herszenhorn.
“With Russia massing troops on the border and the U.S. warning that an invasion could be imminent, our reporting trip sought to paint a picture of the war that has been going on for nearly eight years, killing more than 14,000 people and displacing more than 730,000,” wrote Herszenhorn.
The Politico reporting team, “also hoped to gauge whether the risk of escalation seemed as dire to Ukrainian soldiers and commanders as Washington claimed.”
Who can blame Politico?
In the closing days of 2021, and in early 2022, while the Biden Administration was insisting- vociferously and correctly- that Russian president Vladimir Putin was planning an invasion, the Kremlin was adamantly denying any such possibility.
That modus operandi- attack and deny- set the stage for this entire conflict. Russian disinformation has made reporting on this conflict very…