The Kremlin propaganda channel RT recently produced a festive video message for its overseas audiences. Somewhere in ‘Europe, Christmas 2021’ a happy family gathers in a cosy, Ikea-furnished house. A young girl cradles her present: an adorable hamster. Fast forward to Christmas 2022: the family huddles, freezing, under a blanket in a room illuminated only by the feeble glow of fairy lights powered by a tiny generator hooked up to the hamster’s exercise wheel. By Christmas 2023 the luckless Europeans, starving and shivering, celebrate with a thin soup made of… you got it. ‘Merry anti-Russian Christmas!’ trolls the final caption. ‘If your media doesn’t tell you where this is all going, RT is available via VPN.’
In one sense, the advert is perfectly accurate. Threatening Europe with a freezing winter without Russian gas was precisely the Kremlin’s plan to prevent Nato from coming to the aid of Ukraine. But instead of rolling power cuts, factory shutdowns, mass protests and economic collapse, Europe’s midwinter gas prices last week fell to pre-war levels.
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