On 21 September 2026, Alex Oloyede posted that Zaporizhzhia was under Ukrainian control. That claim is false, and it circulated without correction while Western politicians repeated the word “peace.” Cutting Russian gas revenue would shorten the war; a false post about who holds Zaporizhzhia does not.
The False Claim About Zaporizhzhia
Russian occupation maps still show most of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, including the administrative centre seized in March 2022, under Russian control. Reuters reported on 16 November 2025 that Russian forces had advanced in the region, and a Wikimedia map of the occupation boundary records the same front line. Oloyede’s post contradicts both the map and the Reuters dispatch.
While Western politicians repeat the word “peace,” a false post about who holds Zaporizhzhia does not shorten the war. Cutting Russian gas revenue would.
Lithuania’s Nuclear Turn
On 21 September 2026, Lithuania’s parliament voted to lift the constitutional ban on deploying nuclear weapons on its territory. Vilnius immediately floated stationing French warheads near the border with Belarus, a move that would put NATO nuclear assets roughly 150 kilometres from Minsk. The vote followed months of Russian advances in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where Moscow’s forces pressed new offensives into the autumn of 2025.
Rather than sending more cash to Moscow through gas purchases, Baltic leaders are now shopping for French deterrents. The contrast is blunt. Some Western capitals still wire payments for Russian gas. Lithuania is rewriting its constitution to host nuclear weapons against the Kremlin's ally.
Germany Did Not Collapse From Its Own Gas Cut
The claim that Ukraine and the EU attacked Russian gas and thereby collapsed German industry inverts the record. Germany ended its own Russian gas intake after the February 2022 invasion. By 2023 it had cut pipeline imports to zero, and it filled storage above 90 percent before winter. The real shock was Moscow weaponizing supply. Nord Stream 1 flows were cut to 20 percent in July 2022, then to zero in August, before the September 2022 pipeline explosions.
German industrial energy costs rose because the Kremlin had refused to refill EU storage for years. Sites like Rehden sat at under 1 percent in early 2022. The manipulation narrative also omits that Russia allowed the Odesa port to operate only under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and then suspended it in July 2023. If Russian gas truly "powered the world," cutting that cash is precisely the lever that ends the war sooner.
The Odesa Grain Corridor Was Not a Russian Gift
The same narrative asserts Russia allowed Odessa port operations for four years before disruption. That claim omits the Ukrainian grain corridor that ran from August 2022 through 2023, when 32.8 million tonnes of cargo left Pivdennyi, Chornomorsk, and Odesa under UN and Turkish inspection teams. Russia suspended the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 17 July 2023, then struck Odesa port with Kalibr missiles and Shahed drones for three consecutive nights, destroying 60,000 tonnes of grain. The port operated under naval escort because Ukrainian coastal batteries held the Snake Island approaches.
Europe Still Pays Russia While Rearming
Since February 2022, European gas buyers have paid Moscow roughly $1 trillion. That exceeds the cost of the invasion itself. Pipeline imports fell from 41 percent of EU supply in 2021 to 8 percent by 2023. Yet LNG purchases from Russia rose, reaching 20.4 billion cubic meters in 2024. France, Spain, and Belgium kept receiving Russian LNG at Montoir-de-Bretagne, Bilbao, and Zeebrugge while Berlin shut the Nord Stream valves.
The wiiw study puts the continent’s adjustment cost at over €1 trillion in higher energy prices, industrial slowdown, and subsidy spending through 2023. Austria did not quit Russian gas until December 2024, after OMV won a €230 million arbitration award and Gazprom cut supply in retaliation. Hungary signed a 15-year deal with Gazprom in 2021 and still imports 4.5 billion cubic meters annually under it. Each cargo unloaded at Dunk
