"The question about subsidized gas supplies is particularly important, since you will frequently hear about how Russia wields its energy supplies as an instrument of policy. First of all, this is not all that incredible or even all that sinister, since the energy companies are state-run industries that are going to be used to give the government leverage overseas. But even then the coverage of the change in subsidy levels was misleading, since it emphasized that the price was going up and neglected to note that Ukraine was still receiving the supplies at a heavily discounted rate. Even so, what would normally have been greeted as a welcome reduction in government distortion of the market price was seen as a dastardly ploy to punish neighboring states."
Get the rest here.
It has been interesting to see how many of us are willing to unthinkingly accept the idea that Russia is in the wrong.
Update: Larison is all over this one, as he ought to be given his interesting fusion of Russian Orthodoxy and paleoconservatism. The following is the best sentence I read all day.
"It’s not just that I find the charges of Russian imperialism a bit tired coming from people who have insisted for years that invading other countries, toppling their governments and setting up puppet states is not imperialism, but I find them very boring."
