JRL NEWSWATCH: ‘Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots; Too many European politicians are failing to confront Russia” – The Economist
“… The spectrum of Europe’s Useful Idiots, a cold-war term for unwitting allies of communism, is wide. In politics, parties on both the far right and far left disagree on much; but over Ukraine these extremes have often converged in demanding an instant ‘peace’ that would in effect reward Russian aggression with land. In media and academe, intellectuals still seem happy to ignore evidence of Russia’s imperial intent and its drift into criminality, and instead bemoan European entanglement in what they parse as a proxy war between America and Russia, or perhaps, speculating more grandly still, between America and China. And in the world of business, despite multiple rounds of Western sanctions, Russia still has plenty of ‘friends’ too. …”