In mid-April of this year, I was sitting in a Starbucks (renamed Stars Coffee) in the Galleria Mall in downtown Saint Petersburg, Russia, watching the massive crowds of shoppers that looked like something out of a mid-1990’s Christmas season in the USA. The place was packed with people shopping.

As I sipped my coffee, on my phone I was reading a Wall Street Journal report about the devastating impact of the Western sanctions against Russia, “according to those with an understanding of Moscow’s situation.”  I read a paragraph, looked up at the crowd, read a paragraph, looked around and the bags being carried, I laughed.

A little later, I filled the gas tank in my rent-a-car for $15 and drove past miles upon miles of towering apartment buildings under construction, having just read about the shortage of ‘steel’ in Russia, “according to sources familiar with the matter.”  Stopping to buy a week’s worth of groceries for $70, I referenced the other article from the Washington Post that day about massive inflation in Russia, “according to expert western economists.”

Several weeks later I had another cup of coffee at a cafe’ in eastern Ukraine, while reading a New York Times article about mass casualties and alarming bombing that was apparently happening all around me.  The sun was shining, but it was a little chilly.  It was very odd, to read the USA publication describing “despair” evident to them, somehow, while I see smiling faces of people all around me doing ordinary things and enjoying sausage rolls.

The journey to understand the manipulation of information flow from the U.S. Intelligence Community to Americans, really solidified in those moments.  Yes Alice, this is why the IC controls social media, I thought to myself.

Now, all of that said, listen to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan:

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