This conspiracy theory doesn't hold water. Two things can be true at once - Putin (and Germany) can sincerely want Nord Stream 2 AND Putin could have a desire

This conspiracy theory doesn't hold water. Two things can be true at once - Putin (and Germany) can sincerely want Nord Stream 2 AND Putin could have a desire to invade Ukraine - or at the very least intimidate Ukraine into stop their westward leaning. The author loses credibility when he states: "What’s left unsaid is that Russia has not invaded any country since the dissolution of the Soviet Union" Maybe his definition of invasion is different than mine. But they invaded the Ukraine in 2014 to annex Crimea. They invaded Georgia in 2008. They invaded Chechnya in 1999. They might not have "invaded" Syria in 2015 but they sure played a large part in that conflict... My point is that Russia is not the "dove" that Mike Whitney (the author) tries to paint.