you could see russia doing inside and around ukraine? if putin really wanted to stress the alliance and our relationship with the eu, he would send russian troops transparently into the areas moscow already occupies. there are already russian troops there but he would do that transparently. saying we shouldn t sanction moscow for that and i believe we should. pushing hard to make sure we do sanction moscow for that. that would be the smart move by putin. he can also see snake island in the black sea, relatively ease for him to do and perhaps not too many pictures to excite world attention and enhance the chances of major sanctions. understood. regarding nord stream 2, this crisis put further tension on the leverage that russia has over europe. supply 40 to 45% of natural gas.
nord stream 2. seen as exacerbating that dependence. the biden administration position is that russia invades further, nord stream 2 is done. but if he doesn t invade further, they still keep that leverage, do they not? look, i believe the biden administration made a huge mistake when it caught on germany and waived sanctions. we should have put that baby to rest back in the spring but now i m delighted to see at last the crisis the state spokesman if russia goes into ukraine, again, nord stream 2 put. that s at least a good thing. but nord stream 2 is a measure for putin to put leverage, the leverage gas against the countries of eastern europe and also increases russia s influence in germany which is a very dangerous thing. it s definitely against american interests. the columnist josh rogan wrote a piece for the washington post saying that one thing russia succeeded in doing here is for yet another american president who said