For several months, the American public has been forced to endure a tidal wave of stories focused on the supposed Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. While the media has remained eagle-eyed for any minute development in that story, another incident of Russian collusion has gone largely unreported.
Now, Republican Representatives Lamar Smith and Randy Weber are coming out with new information that Vladimir Putin and Russian authorities have been actively funding and supplying anti-fracking protest groups in an attempt to destabilize the United States oil and gas market.
This Sounds Familiar Doesn’t It?
If this information doesn’t sound altogether original, that’s because a similar report surfaced a few months ago. At that point, sources pointed a finger at RT, the Moscow-based media outlet that published articles that glamorized fracking protest efforts in the United States and the United Kingdom. On the surface, it’s no big deal to find a news source playing the anti-fracking card, but RT’s stance is suspicious when one takes into account the news service’s reputation. US officials called RT, “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.” According to intelligence experts, the United States believes that RT is commonly used to spread support for Russian interests around the world.
In short, in January, several US news outlets made the connection that the Kremlin was using RT to help fuel the fire of anti-fracking protestors in the states. These accusations were largely dismissed by the mainstream media because they sound tenuous at best.
House Reps Drop a Bombshell
According to Smith and Weber, two high-ranking members of prominent House energy committees, sources close to the situation have reported an active effort to stir up trouble among new and existing oil and gas projects. One former secretary-general of NATO reportedly stated, “Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations—environmental organizations working against shale gas—to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas.”
Vladimir Putin Wants to Be Number One
As much as people are fired up about Russia’s involvement in the last presidential election, it’s utterly shocking that so few are taking an interest in one of the United States’ most reliable and important industries. Weber and Smith have now called for Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin to launch an investigation into potential Russian involvement in the anti-fracking movement.
As it stands, Russia is the number two oil and gas exporter in the world, and experts truly believe that Vladmir Putin would do pretty much whatever it took to insure that he was the international top dog. As the United States inches closer and closer to insurmountable energy independence, Putin’s tactics have taken a much more active turn.