We know that huge resources have been invested already. In the past decade, Russia has funneled many millions of dollars into its public propaganda arms, the television channel RT and the website Sputnik, which now exist in multiple languages, including German. Less visibly, Russia has invested an equivalent sum in friends: think tanks, businessmen, even politicians. Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer who knew Putin in his KGB days, is managing director of Nord Stream AG, the company that operates the gas pipeline that links Germany and Russia beneath the Baltic Sea. Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, is now the chairman of the shareholders' committee of that same company.