JP Lindsley 1/ Beijing and Moscow are preparing for war—while the West sleeps. China has bought farmland near more than 30 U.S. military bases. Russia is building churches overlooking European nuclear plants & security sites. Are we stupid? 🧵⤵️
2/ Well, Texas and Finland aren't stupid. Texas just made it illegal for citizens of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to buy or rent land. And Finnish authorities have shut down a Russian Orthodox church located near the naval base in Turku. What’s going on? ⤵️
3/ In Texas, a Chinese tycoon—ex-PLA officer & Communist Party member—had bought 140,000 acres near Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio. Officially it was for a wind farm. But it gave potential access to the grid, to water, and to a key U.S. military flight-training hub.⤵️
4/ And Del Rio isn’t unique. In North Dakota (2021), a Chinese firm tried to build a corn mill 12 miles from an Air Force base used for drone & space operations. Nationwide, Chinese-owned U.S. farmland has surged from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres by 2020. ⤵️
5/ Russia’s method looks different—but the strategy seems the same. In Västerås, Sweden, Russian state nuclear giant Rosatom funded an Orthodox church just 500m from a nuclear energy plant and military airfield. Its 22-meter spire violated zoning laws—an ideal spy perch. ⤵️
Russia knows what others pretend not to: nuclear is a strategic asset. Countries ignoring it are handing away their energy security.
6/ Russia has strategic churches all over Sweden: ⦿ Stockholm: 4 km from ministries, 6 km from military HQ ⦿ Gothenburg: 2 km from a power plant, 12 km from a military facility ⦿ Uppsala: 250 m from a gov’t site, 2.7 km from an airbase ⦿ Boliden: 500 m from a mining hub ⤵️
7/ Norway shows the same pattern: ⦿ Oslo: Russian church 1 km from parliament, ministries, embassies ⦿ Kirkenes: close to a military garrison & port ⦿ Trondheim: near submarine bunker, Air Force academy, & military base
8/ Elsewhere in Europe: Bulgaria (2023): three Russian priests expelled for activities “threatening national security.” Czechia: intelligence flagged a Russian Orthodox church in a spa town used for covert meetings & influence ops. Ukrainians are not surprised ...⤵️
9/ Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians have found Russian passports, rubles, even instructions from Moscow hidden in monasteries. They know these aren’t houses of worship. They’ve been forward bases—ever since Stalin revived the Moscow church as a Kremlin tool⤵️
10/ The Russian Orthodox Church was nearly destroyed in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Stalin later revived it—as a KGB instrument to mind people at home and extend influence abroad. Today, the Moscow church isn’t even recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Orthodoxy. ⤵️
11/ Back to the USA: Chinese farmland holdings in the U.S. have surged more than 20× in a decade, now topping 350,000 acres. As retired U.S. Air Force General Robert Spalding warns, these acquisitions near sensitive sites are “strategic footholds.”