Russian History: Call For Papers: Reinterpreting Russian History after Feb. 24, 2022

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

Discussion published by Lawrence Langer on Sunday, June 4, 2023 Russian History invites essays on the implications of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine for Russian history. Articles should address a significant problem in the study of Russian History, the state of the field and the historiography concerning this issue, and the significance of the topic for an understanding of Russian history […]

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JRL NEWSLINK: “Stephen Cohen (1938-2020): Professor Emeritus, NYU Russian and Slavic Studies” – NYU Jordan Center/ Yanni Kotsonis

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

“Steve was hired to NYU after … Princeton. He was a masterful lecturer who packed in 400 students each time he taught his survey of Soviet history, and he helped keep alive Soviet and Russian studies at a time when interest was falling […]”

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RUSSIALINK: “Russia’s Natural Resources Make Up 60% of GDP” – Moscow Times

Oil Well file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 14, 2019) Russia’s Natural Resources and Environment Ministry estimates that the combined cost of the country’s oil, gas and other resources amounts to 60 percent of its gross domestic product, the RBC news website reported on Thursday. As one of the world’s top producers of natural gas and oil, Russia’s economy is heavily reliant […]

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NEWSLINK: “Russia spread ‘disinformation’ on Skripal attack; Report says state media spread seven different conspiracy theories about the attack” – Financial Times/ Solape Alatise, David Bond

Artist Rendition of Barrel with Poison Symbol on It, Oozing Green Material

“Russian state media published 138 contradictory accounts of the nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal last year …”

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RUSSIALINK: “Lessons for Leaders: What Afghanistan Taught Russian and Soviet Strategists ” – Russia Matters/ Simon Saradzhyan

Afghanistan Map of Ethnicities

“… the Soviet leadership made a number of mistakes, first when contemplating whether to intervene in Afghanistan, then during the intervention and, finally, when withdrawing the troops. Some of these mistakes were particularly costly, such as the failure to take full stock either of the hierarchy of vital national interests at stake in Afghanistan or of the costs and benefits […]

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RUSSIALINK: “State of Play: Russia and the Fraying West; Despite their troubles, Europe and the US are not withering away. It would behoove Moscow to avoid escalations” – Carnegie Moscow Times/Security Time/ Dmitri Trenin

Vladirmir Putin and Donald Trump Sitting in Chairs with Flags Behind, adapted from image at whitehouse.gov

“… Western economies, even if they may be facing yet another recession, are fundamentally strong. The United States still basically controls global finance and leads the world by a huge margin in both technology and innovation. For all the talk of fake news and Russian propaganda, mainstream Western media continue to dominate the information landscape across the globe. Migration waves […]

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NEWSLINK: “IN MEMORIAM: SEWERYN BIALER (1926-2019)” – Columbia University Harriman Institute

Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

“Seweryn Bialer, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Columbia University, MacArthur Fellow, and survivor of Auschwitz, died on February 8, 2019, at his home in Manhattan. …”

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NEWSLINK: “Is Mueller taking orders from Russia?” – American Thinker/ Taylor Day

Robert Mueller file photo, adapted from image at fbi.gov

“… Though he was an integral part of the sketchy deal that delivered a considerable amount of uranium to Russia, and as I’m forever the silver-lining kind of girl, it would be charming if Democrats came full circle and investigated Mueller for his own involvement with Russia. …”

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NEWSLINK: “The INF Quandary: Preventing a Nuclear Arms Race in Europe. Perspectives from the US, Russia and Germany” – Russia Matters/ William Tobey, Pavel Zolotarev, Ulrich Kühn

Iskander Missile with Launch file photo

“This issue brief is a joint product of the Russia Matters project and the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism (IPNT). …. I. Introduction: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, Treaty, signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, was a profound achievement. It was the first bilateral nuclear arms control treaty […]

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NEWSLINK: “‘Winter. What do we do in the village?…’ Pushkin ‘Зима. Что делать нам в деревне?’ Пушкин [PHOTOS: Manzherok Village, Altai Republic Siberia, New Year Holiday 2019]” – Medium/ Sarah Lindemann-Komarova

Snowy Scene with Trees and Hills file photo, adapted from NWS image

“Manzherok Village, Altai Republic Siberia, New Year Holiday 2019 Манжерок Новогодный праздник 2019 … Photos: “

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NEWSLINK: “25 years after Ukraine denuclearized, Russian aggression continues to rise” – Brookings/ Strobe Talbott, Maggie Tennis

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

“Twenty-five years ago this week, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine signed the Trilateral Statement and Annex, in which Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear stockpile to Russia. In exchange, Ukraine received compensation for the value of the highly enriched uranium in the nuclear warheads, assistance in eliminating the strategic delivery systems on its territory, and security assurances from the […]

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NEWSLINK: “U.S. Policy on Russia? Trump and His Team Might Give Different Answers” – New York Times/ Peter Baker

Vladirmir Putin and Donald Trump Sitting in Chairs with Flags Behind, adapted from image at whitehouse.gov

“President Trump says that he has done more to counter Russian aggression than other recent presidents. But, officials say, Mr. Trump has gone along with such actions reluctantly or under pressure.”  

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NEWSLINK: “Are we now over 50 major news stories that have had to be retracted or seriously corrected, all in the same direction, wrt Russia since 2016?” – Doug Johnson Hatlem – Twitter @djjohnso

File Image of Laptop Computer, Tables and Mobile Device, adapted from image at energy.gov

“Are we now over 50 major news stories that have had to be retracted or seriously corrected, all in the same direction, wrt Russia since 2016? I’ll start a thread here to count them  ….”

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NEWSLINK: “The Strange Persistent Troubling Russian Hang-Up of Donald Trump; Trump’s agenda in Europe is Putin’s agenda in Europe. Is that really a coincidence?” – New York Times/ Roger Cohen

New York Times Masthead from 1913 adapted from image at loc.gov

“… The central thrust of Russian foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin is the dismantlement of NATO….”  

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NEWSLINK: “Is Russia Solely to Blame for Violations of the INF Treaty? The New York Times says so, but this MIT professor emeritus says there’s more to the story.” – The Nation/ Theodore A. Postol

File Photo of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan at Table Signing Documents

“A recent Sunday New York Times editorial bemoaned the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was signed 31 years ago last month by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan. The treaty, as the Times correctly notes, “eliminated an entire class of weapons, some 2,692 ground-based missiles that can fly in the […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Pragmatic Paternalism: The Russian Public and the Private Sector” – Carnegie Moscow/ Andrei Kolesnikov, Denis Volkov

Men Sitting Around Long Oval Boardroom Table, File Photo of FIFA Officials Meeting with Vladmir Putin

“Russians have a dream for their children and their grandchildren of a different environment that is favorable for entrepreneurship and private initiatives. This is where the true interests of Russians and their perceptions about the future diverge radically from the interests and perceptions of the state in which they live. …”

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NEWSLINK: “Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy; Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia” – The Nation/ Stephen F. Cohen

Vladirmir Putin and Donald Trump Sitting in Chairs with Flags Behind, adapted from image at whitehouse.gov

“… This commentary is based on the most recent of [Cohen] weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. …”  

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NEWSLINK: “Ukraine Wants to Be a Part of the West; But it’s strategy is yielding mixed results” – The National Interest/ Nikolas K. Gvosdev

Petro Poroshenko file photo, with additional men in background, adapted from image at state.gov

“Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has staked his country’s future and his own chances at re-election to a second term on three gambles. He hopes that these gambles will permanently rupture Ukraine’s connections to Russia and ensure that Ukraine becomes a full member of the Western community of nations. So far, however, the scorecard is showing mixed results. …”

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NEWSLINK: “The Daily 202: From Brexit to NATO and the shutdown, Putin is winning so much he might get tired of winning” – Washington Post/ James Hohmann

Historic Washington Post Masthead, adapted from image at nlrb.gov

“James Hohmann is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post. He is the author of The Daily 202, The Post’s flagship political newsletter.”  

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NEWSLINK: “American Charged in Russia Also Holds British, Canadian and Irish Citizenship” – Wall Street Journal

File Photo of British Parliament Building, Big Ben, Thames, adapted from image at loc.gov

“A former U.S. Marine arrested on espionage charges in Russia was removed from the military for trying to steal more than $10,000 in government cash while deployed at a base in Iraq, according to details of Defense Department court records released Friday. …”

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NEWSLINK: “Russian Effort to Influence 2016 Election Targeted African-Americans” – New York Times/ Scott Shane, Sheera Frenkel

Montage of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook Logos, adapted from image at nps.gov

“The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee. …”  

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NEWSLINK: “The ‘Global Cybercrime Problem’ Is Actually the ‘Russia Problem’; Convincing Putin that further attacks will trigger automatic, severe responses is the best path to deterrence.” – The Atlantic/ John P. Carlin

File Image of Laptop Computer, Tables and Mobile Device, adapted from image at energy.gov

“John P. Carlin is the author of Dawn of the Code War: America’s Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat. He served as the assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice and currently chairs the Aspen Institute’s Cyber & Technology Program.”  

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NEWSLINK: “Jihadists from Ex-Soviet Central Asia: Where Are They? Why Did They Radicalize? What Next?” – Russia Matters/Edward Lemon, Vera Mironova, William Tobey

Map of CIS Central Asia and Environs

“… This research paper attempts to answer four basic sets of questions adapted from the ones mentioned in the foreword: (1) Is Central Asia becoming a new source of violent extremism that transcends borders, and possibly continents? (2) If so, why? What causes nationals of Central Asia to take up arms and participate in political violence? (3) As IS has […]

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NEWSLINK: “Arms For All? Khodorkovsky Says Russians Need Guns” – RFE/RL/ Timur Olevsky, Tony Wesolowsky

Mikhail Khodorkovsky file photo

“Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a staunch Kremlin critic who went from Russia’s wealthiest man to its highest-profile inmate, remains upbeat about the country he fled upon his release from prison in 2013. His vision of a future democratic Russia would be anchored by a decentralized government, including improved criminal investigations, and also offers a few surprises. …”  

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RUSSIALINK: “What Does the Kremlin Want Out of Putin and Trump’s Meeting?” – Carnegie Moscow/ DMITRI TRENIN, ALEXANDER GABUEV, ALEXANDER BAUNOV

File Photo of Country Flags Outside 2017 G20 Meeting in Hamburg, adapted from image at state.gov

“There will be many issues at play when the Russian and U.S. presidents meet at the G20 leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires. …”

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NEWSLINK: “Putin Will Understand Only One Response: Escalation; Russia’s president cannot be allowed to attack another country to solve his own domestic problems” – Bloomberg/ Eli Lake

Vladimir Putin file photo with VOA logo; screen shot from video still » Read more

NEWSLINK: “Trump’s weakness begets Russian aggression” – Washington Post/ Jennifer Rubin

File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

     

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NEWSLINK: “85 Years Later, Ukraine Marks Famine That Killed Millions” – New York Times/ Iuliia Mendel

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“His frail hand covering his heart, Mykhailo Matvienko, 92, peered at the yellow flame of a candle on his kitchen table on Saturday and recounted his childhood during the Great Famine. A searing event seen as one of the great atrocities of 20th-century Europe, the Ukrainian famine of 1933 killed more than three million people, by most estimates, and has […]

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NEWSLINK: “James H. Billington, 89, Dies; Led Library of Congress Into Digital Age” – New York Times/Robert D. McFadden

Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

“James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress for nearly three decades, who led the nation’s treasure house of knowledge into the digital age and added millions of books, films and cultural artifacts to its historic collections, including a trove of tweets, died on Tuesday in Washington. He was 89. His daughter Susan Harper Billington said the cause was complications of […]

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NEWSLINK: “James H. Billington, long-reigning librarian of Congress, dies at 89” – Washington Post

Library of Congress Aerial View adapted from image at usembassy.gov with credit LOC, Photographer: Carol M. Highsmith, adapted by Steven C. Welsh www.stevencwelsh.info :: www.stevencwelsh.com

“James H. Billington, an eminent American scholar of Russian culture who reigned for three decades as librarian of Congress, propelling the expansion of the world’s largest library but struggling to lead it through the challenges of the digital age, died Nov. 20 at a hospital in Washington. He was 89. …”

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RUSSIALINK: “Losing the Plot – Ukraine’s Opposition Seeks a Strategy; Ukraine’s pro-Russian opposition is targeting next year’s parliamentary elections, not the presidential ones-so is Russia. But they cannot agree among themselves on who their leader should be and what their strategy is” – Carnegie Moscow/ Konstantin Skorkin

Verkhovna Rada File Photo

“Disoriented since the downfall of former president Viktor Yanukovych, the parts of Ukraine’s opposition more sympathetic to Russia have not disappeared. They are regrouping, with an eye mainly to next year’s parliamentary elections, seeing the presidential election as all but lost. But they have yet to find a common leader or unifying idea. …”

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NEWSLINK: “Robert Legvold on Russia: Insights and Recommendations” – Russia Matters

Kremlin and River

“This evolving compilation of observations and policy ideas about Russia by Robert Legvold is part of Russia Matters’ ‘Competing Views’ rubric, where we share prominent American thinkers’ takes on Russia, U.S.-Russian relations and Washington’s policies toward its Cold War-era foe. Robert Legvold is one of America’s most authoritative experts on Russia and the international relations of the post-Soviet states. He […]

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NEWSLINK: “European diplomats mount last-ditch effort to stop US scrapping INF treaty” – The Guardian

File Photo of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan at Table Signing Documents

“European officials are seeking to act as intermediaries between Russia and the U.S. in the hope of salvaging a cold war-era arms control treaty that Donald Trump has threatened to scrap.  However, the diplomats involved are not confident of success in the effort to save the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Although they have the support of senior officials […]

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NEWSLINK: “3 Days Stranded in Siberia? Flight Delays Don’t Come Much Worse Than This” – New York Times/Sophia Kishkovsky

File Photo of Airplane Approaching Runway About to Land

“Pretty much all seasoned travelers know the frustration of flight delays — the time wasted puttering in an airport, waiting in a hotel room or, perhaps worst of all, stuck on the tarmac in an idled plane. But how about three days stranded in Siberia? That was the nightmare experienced by the passengers and crew of Air France Flight 116 […]

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NEWSLINK: “Walter Laqueur obituary; Influential but pessimistic historian who tried to find answers to the Holocaust and was among the first scholars to study terrorism” – The Times (London)

Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

“… Laqueur’s curiosity, interest in the future and anxiety remained into his nineties …. As always he was interested in the attacks societies faced, and how internal weaknesses made them vulnerable. … He spoke sometimes of hope, but the searing experience of seeing the society he was born into collapsing into barbarism had never left him. Walter Laqueur, historian, was […]

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NEWSLINK: “Russia’s Mission” – Journal of International Affairs (Columbia University)/ Nicolai N. Petro

File Photo of G7 Leaders and other Officials Around Round Table at the Hague, with Flags

“… Storm clouds are gathering once again over the European continent. Rather than coming together, Russia and the West seem to be drifting further and further apart. …”

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RUSSIALINK: “No Left Turn in Russia; A protest vote is growing in Russia. But this is not a pivot toward socialism; rather, it is an expression of anger that the government has torn up the Putin-era social contract.” – Carnegie Moscow/ Andrei Kolesnikov

Arm and Torso of Person in Brown Sweater Placing Paper Ballot into Ballot Box

“… The success of opposition candidates in September’s regional elections across Russia was much more a vote against the Kremlin-backed ruling party, United Russia, than in favor of the Communists. It wasn’t just that people were angry with the government about its pension reforms; they were angry that the government had revoked a fundamental item in the unwritten Putin-era social […]

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NEWSLINK: “Russia Seen Adopting New Tactics in U.S. Election Interference Efforts” – Reuters

Montage of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook Logos, adapted from image at nps.gov

“Russian agents believed to be connected to the government have been active in spreading divisive content and promoting extreme themes ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. mid-term elections, but they are working hard to cover their tracks, according to government investigators, academics and security firms. Researchers studying the spread of disinformation on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other platforms say the new, subtler […]

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NEWSLINK: “VLAD’S KGB SPIES: Vladimir Putin has up to 75,000 Russian spies in Britain, shock report reveals; Dr Andrew Foxall revealed up to half of the 150,000 Russian ex-pats in Britain are feared to be spy service ‘assets'” – The Sun (UK)

Stylized Artist's Depiction of Shadowy Figures in Dark Coats and Dark Hats, One Carrying a Briefcase

“Russia has up to 75,000 spies on our streets, a shock report claimed yesterday. Vladimir Putin’s army of spooks has risen five-fold in eight years, with 200 ‘case officers’ each handling hundreds of agents, it warned. …”  

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NEWSLINK: “No Significant Foreign Interference Seen on Midterm Vote” – Wall Street Journal

Multilingual Polling Place Sign from U.S. Election Polling Place

“U.S. security officials and social media firms said Tuesday they spotted a limited amount of deliberate disinformation targeting the midterm election, but that they hadn’t observed any significant efforts to directly breach election infrastructure with cyberattacks. …”

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NEWSLINK: “Russia and the 2018 Midterms: Laying Out the Publicly Available Evidence” – RussiaMatters/ Mari Dugas, Natasha Yefimova-Trilling

U.S. Capitol in Bright Sunlight

“This week’s midterms offer a good opportunity for a status update on the latest evidence of Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Over the past six months, there has been no shortage of alarming warnings. In August, five of the country’s top national security officials spoke to reporters at the White House about the threat posed by Moscow and efforts to […]

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NEWSLINK: “Mystery of the Midterm Elections: Where Are the Russians?” – New York Times/ David E. Sanger

File Image of Stylized Eye Surrounded by Binary Code

“… From the cyberwar room that the Department of Homeland Security runs round the clock in a bland office building in Arlington, Va., to Microsoft’s threat-assessment center at the other end of the country, in Redmond, Wash., every form of digital radar is being focused on America’s election infrastructure — and particularly on the Russian military intelligence agency once known […]

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NEWSLINK: “Why It’s Still in Russia’s Interest to Mess With US Politics” – AP

Multilingual Polling Place Sign from U.S. Election Polling Place

PARIS – Sweeping accusations that the Kremlin tried to sway the 2016 U.S. election haven’t chastened Russian trolls, hackers and spies – and might even have emboldened them. U.S. officials and tech companies say Russians have continued online activity targeted at American voters during the campaign for Tuesday’s election, masquerading as U.S. institutions and creating faux-American social media posts to […]

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RUSSIALINK: “A New Nuclear Arms Race Has Begun; President Trump says he plans to withdraw from a nonproliferation treaty that I signed with Ronald Reagan. It’s just the latest victim in the militarization of world affairs” – Mikhail Gorbachev/ New York Times

File Photo of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan at Table Signing Documents

“Over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and I signed in Washington the United States-Soviet Treaty on the elimination of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles. For the first time in history, two classes of nuclear weapons were to be eliminated and destroyed. …”

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NEWSLINK: “How Russian Trolls Inflamed the NFL’s Anthem Controversy; Russia-linked Twitter accounts sent more than 12,000 tweets about the NFL or the anthem in their alleged efforts to sow discord” – Wall Street Journal/ Andrew Beaton

Montage of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook Logos, adapted from image at nps.gov » Read more
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