I just had an interesting interaction with somebody on Twitter who is totally worked up about a Financial Times (and other Pravda outlets') reports that Donald Trump is getting ready to hand Vladimir Putin a huge victory by pulling US troops out of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. 

The FT is reporting Trump plans to withdraw troops from the Baltic states at least, giving Russia a huge strategic win, and weakening NATO's eastern flank at a critical time.https://t.co/12P9vfwav1 pic.twitter.com/8VN9cYKzae

— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) February 17, 2025

The Financial Times, the Daily Mail, and even The Telegraph are discussing this bit of "news" in breathless terms and a lot of anti-Russian/pro-Ukraine people are freaking out. 

Russia is going to invade the Baltics! Trump is pulling troops out to allow it!

Financial Times reports that European officials believe the U.S. may withdraw its troops from the Baltic states amid negotiations with Russia.

Some believe U.S. forces could also be withdrawn from other parts of Central Eastern Europe. pic.twitter.com/6HCGwy7fbi

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 17, 2025

Only...the US has no troops in the Batics to pull out, although occasionally some rotate in for training purposes. In fact, NATO barely has any troops there at all.

According to the Congressional Research Service, here are the numbers:

Do you see any US troops on that list? How about on NATO's?

I am not here to dunk on my X friend (not EX-friend, but friend on X). He just made the mistake of believing what Pravda Media keeps selling us.

It's hard not to buy the BS a lot of the time. Can we spend our lives just assuming that everything we read is a lie? It's really, really hard to do so. And Pravda is where most of the things we see come from. 

Why don’t we have troops in the Baltic States? pic.twitter.com/6RjbFzX5fN

— Ali (@DilwrAli) February 14, 2025

But these days, you HAVE to assume that any politically fraught discussion will be flooded with misinformation, and you shouldn't trust anybody without checking. And since Pravda has a narrative to sell you just as Vladimir Putin does, don't assume Putin is the one lying to you. Maybe both, maybe neither. 

Of course, you can't assume that the Financial Times reporter was the originator of the lie; he might have just been lazy as hell and taken the word of some spinning bureaucrat, lobbyist, Ukrainian shill, Russian shill, defense contractor shill, or some bulls**ter in the halls of Brussels. 

Who knows? 

What I do know is that an entire narrative was built around something completely false. The lie circled around the world, all because people still believe Pravda™. 

We are in the midst of a propaganda war on many fronts, and Ukraine, in particular, has been at the center of many propaganda campaigns for decades. As one of the most corrupt regimes in the world (Russia is too!), it has been a piggy bank for a lot of people. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake in this war, and too few people seem to care that north of a million people have died on both sides. 

I supported helping Ukraine push back on Russia's invasion but have never supported accepting Ukraine into NATO. Are you willing to go to nuclear war over Hunter Biden's piggy bank? Poland, yes. Ukraine, no. WE are not fighting for democracy or our values in the country; this is a great power proxy war. The media has glossed over this, but Zelenskyy canceled elections and is ruling by martial law. 

The situation is a mess. There are no white hats or black hats. Everybody is wearing a hat of one shade of gray or another. Putin's is a shade grayer than Zelenskyy's, and he started the evil war, but Ukraine is not like the Baltics or Poland, which are actually free Western countries in most ways. 

So don't believe anyone if you care about the issue. Dig into something if it makes your blood rush in your veins. 

Definitely don't just buy the Pravda spin. It is almost certainly BS.