One of the dumber talking points over the last month regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the idea that masses of Republicans are “Putin stooges,” doing his bidding with their rhetoric and policy positions. Polling has shown that to be a ridiculous contention, with GOP voters matching or outpacing Democrats in regards to denouncing the Russian dictator’s actions.

But as it turns out, leftwingers across the globe have been doing “Putin’s bidding” on a key topic that helped lead Europe to its current crisis. According to The Sun, Russia spent millions of dollars trashing fracking as a way to make its oil and natural gas exports more lucrative on the world market.

How Putin spent millions spreading fake news about fracking

My latest article: https://t.co/OBR4cV0abs

— Matt Ridley (@mattwridley) March 15, 2022

Russian support for anti-fracking campaigns over the past decade took the form of public comments from the Kremlin’s cronies, a blizzard of scare stories on the Russia Today TV channel, some overt political lobbying by the country’s Gazprom and Russian money almost certainly finding its way into the coffers of environmental pressure groups.

In 2011 Gazprom, a firm with a mixed environmental record, claimed wrongly: “The production of shale gas is associated with significant environmental risks, in particular the hazard of surface and underground water contamination with chemicals.”

Alexander Medvedev, the general director of Gazprom Export, said fracking would never work in Europe.

But just in case it did, he added in a speech in Brussels that the Russian state was “ready to wage its war on shale”…

…In just six months Russia Today ran scores of anti-shale stories, with headlines like:

“Wrecking the Earth: Fracking has grave radiation risks few talk about”, “Fracking fluid linked to fish die-off”, “US fracking wells annually produce 280bn gallons of toxic waste water destroying environment”, “We say no to shale gas”, “Fracking nightmare”, “Fracking chemicals disrupt human hormone functions, study claims”, “Living near fracking sites increases infant birth defects”, “Hundreds gather for anti-fracking march in Manchester”.

Well, isn’t that interesting? Russia has long spread misinformation about fracking despite the fact that it’s a safer and far cleaner way to extract oil and gas than conventional drilling (i.e. what Russia does). Yet, instead of accepting that reality, the global left has helped spread Putin’s propaganda, which has emboldened and enriched Russia while making Europe energy-dependent on the controversial nation.

The entire crisis in Ukraine (and more broadly, in Europe) was built off the back of dependence on Russian energy. If Putin didn’t have so many European nations over a barrel, with the ability to crash their economies and cost lives by cutting off oil and gas supplies, he never would have had the leverage to enter Ukraine in the first place. Yet, the greens, so obsessed with pretending fracking is dangerous, did Putin’s dirty work for him, effectively ending the practice in Europe outside of the Nordic countries.

You can also look at the United States as an example of this happening as well. Leftwingers in the states have spent over a decade insisting that fracking poisons water and causes fire to shoot out of faucets. There is no actual evidence of that, yet such claims have formed the backbone of Democrat opposition to fracking, an opposition that has reached the highest levels of government.

In the end, nothing has empowered Vladimir Putin more than that. So tell me again, who are the “Putin stooges” now?