PUTIN’S RESET

"This is where everything is being turned on its head," said Fiona Hill, an expert
on Russia at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. "Their days
of dominating the European gas markets are gone."
Any nations that trade in energy could potentially gain or lose.
"The relative fortunes of the United States, Russia, and China – and their ability
to exert influence in the world – are tied in no small measure to global gas
developments," Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government concluded
in a report this summer. 264
Knowing what we know about Vladimir Putin, it is abundantly clear that he
would not take these developments lying down. And he hasn’t. It is well documented
that Putin has publicly opposed fracking of any type. Russia’s Gazprom is on record
claiming that shale gas development is harmful to the environment. Under normal
circumstances and with many heads of state, this would be viewed as political
posturing. In the case of Russia and Putin, however, these pronouncements are
reflective of their strategy.
It has been documented that the KGB funded environmental groups to further
Soviet policy. It seems likely that such efforts have continued under former KGB
officers Putin and Panarin. According to Oleg Kalugin, former Head of
Counterintelligence for the KGB,
The environmental movement was also targeted for KGB infiltration, he says,
with the simple message that the best way to preserve nature was to work against
the system that would exploit it for profits . . .
Kalugin says the new regime in Russia is not to be trusted, and that Americans
must be on their guard. 265
This is significant due to the fact that something as simple as declaring a single
lizard to be endangered has the potential to shut down energy development. 266 In the
case of the Permian basin, the loss could have been as much as 500 million barrels of
domestic oil. Fortunately, despite serious pressure from environmental groups, the
Department of Interior chose not to declare the Sand Dune Lizard endangered,
267 268
allowing the Basin to produce almost two million barrels per day by 2016.
Some might believe it absurd to imagine that a two-inch lizard could prevent the
production of two million barrels of oil per day, valued closed to $200 million at
present.
The Heritage Foundation documented how the UAE funded a Matt Damon
movie designed to turn American opinion against fracking. 269 Their motive is simple
and obvious. It is not a stretch to believe that other major energy producers such as
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