Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

How the Ukraine War Spilled Into the U.S. Election

Foreign meddling in campaigns may be the new normal.

July 13, 2017 at 5:42 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

The political side of globalization.
Photographer: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

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U.S. politics as an extension of the Russian-Ukrainian war theater sounds mildly ridiculous -- but, as partisan U.S. forces push competing stories of the post-Soviet nations' interference in the 2016 election, I can't help wondering if that isn't the new normal.

The Russian interference narrative is by now part of the mainstream. Ukrainian interference is a newer, less developed storyline, being pushed by Republicans as a response to the Russia allegations and, by some indications, backed enthusiastically by Russian interests.