Nord Stream/Sabotage

 "Explosion,  “Terrorism”"
Nord Stream/Sabotage (Sabotage,  Covert action)

Date	26 September 2022
Perpetrators	US deep state?, NATO?
Blamed on	Unknown
Exposed by	John Helmer, Seymour Hersh
Description	Destruction of Europe's energy supply, under different circumstances it would be considered a declaration of war.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were sabotaged by large explosions on the 26 September 2022. These happened in an area that the USS Kearsarge was crossing shortly before and in which US military helicopters had been circling in early September. The Polish navy in 2021 had interfered and endangered the pipe laying vessels in the same location.

On 27 September 2022, Gonzalo Lira blamed the US government for sabotaging the pipelines, echoing a NATO general who said:

"Our purpose is to keep the Russians out, keep the Americans in, and keep the Germans down”.

Tweeting on 6 October 2022, Jonathan Cook wrote:

"The Nord Stream blasts were an act of international vandalism on an almost unimaginable scale, overshadowing even 9/11. And yet the media response has been decidedly muted, apart from some barely credible finger-pointing at Russia."

Background

A spokesperson for Gazprom said on 10 October 2022 that the underwater drone (used as a mine destroyer) discovered in 2015 near the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, belonged to NATO.

Beginning around 2010 the EU began to push a radical change in rules for pricing natural gas. Prior to that point most gas prices were set in fixed long-term contracts for pipeline delivery. The largest supplier, Russia’s Gazprom, provided gas to the EU, most especially to Germany, in long-term contracts pegged to the price of oil. Until the last several years almost no gas was imported by LNG ships. With a change in US laws to allow export of LNG from the huge shale gas production in 2016 US gas producers began a major expansion of LNG export terminal construction. The terminals take an average of 3 to 5 years to build. At the same time Poland, the Netherlands and other EU countries began to build LNG import terminals to receive the LNG from abroad.

In November 2015, the Swedish Armed Forces cleared a "munitions object" found in close proximity to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline (line 2). The location of the object was in the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) approximately 120 km away from the island of Gotland.

Military exercise

In June 2022, the U.S. Navy held an exercise off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark. In support of the BALTOPS exercise, the U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios. Experimentation was conducted , with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring all under the direction of U.S. 6th Fleet Task Force 68. This exercise may have provided enough disturbance and sound cover to approach the pipeline undetected - the Baltic sea being constantly monitored "enabled by a broad array of national platforms, including coastal radars, maritime patrol aircraft (both manned and unmanned), surface warships with their air defense radars and sonar arrays, submarines, acoustic and magnetic anomaly sensors, and coastal patrol craft".

Concerns

Russian media warned of a military threat to the pipelines in April 2021, after a significant number of civilian ships and warships (mostly Polish), as well as submarines, made dangerous maneuvers around the pipeline construction vessel Fortuna. Polish military aircraft flew around and over the construction site.

Alex Christoforou points out that usually there is an understanding among great powers, that if one were to blow up the other one's infrastructure, it would inevitably draw in a response. So as to not end up in a situation where everything gets destroyed, certain things were in the past agreed to be off-limits. But since the US is not a coherent government anymore in his argument, US state officials are now giving statements that are not unified, which leads him to believe that this was not coordinated with every branch that would otherwise be involved in the decision process; the decision process that would lead to the final order to use covert action.

Alexander Mercouris says that after a while (following investigation) it will be blamed on Russia, but he sees no reason why they should have caused the damage, since Russia could have just cut the gas-flow (which they did in the past) and are now missing this instrument for leverage in negotiations.

A tweet by Polish politician Radosław Sikorski, thanking the United States right away. He later deletes the tweet and gets accused to have served Russian propaganda with it.

An auto translated Telegram post by Vladimir Dzhabarov from 27th September.

Journalist and foreign correspondent John Helmer writes:

“The military operation on Monday night which fired munitions to blow holes in the Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor, near Bornholm Island, was executed by the Polish Navy and special forces.

It was aided by the Danish and Swedish military; planned and coordinated with US intelligence and technical support; and approved by the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The operation is a repeat of the Bornholm Bash operation of April 2021, which attempted to sabotage Russian vessels laying the gas pipes, but ended in ignominious retreat by the Polish forces. That was a direct attack on Russia. This time the attack is targeting the Germans, especially the business and union lobby and the East German voters, with a scheme to blame Moscow for the troubles they already have — and their troubles to come with winter.

Morawiecki is bluffing. “It is a very strange coincidence,” he has announced, “that on the same day that the Baltic Gas Pipeline opens, someone is most likely committing an act of sabotage. This shows what means the Russians can resort to in order to destabilize Europe. They are to blame for the very high gas prices”. The truth bubbling up from the seabed at Bornholm is the opposite of what Morawiecki says.”
John Helmer (27 September 2022) 

Another pipeline from Norway to Poland, the Baltic Pipe, had a ceremony to mark the opening the next day.

Pepe Escobar reports that his sources tell him that there were secret negotiations to solve the issue of deliveries between Germany and Russia. Escobar also points to a remark by Dmitry Peskov, who in his choice of words was hinting at this.

The German think tank German-Foreign-Policy while not mentioning "secret negotiations", mentions to the so-called Japan-solution, in which Japan takes part in the US sanctions regime, but excludes the natural gas sector from that completely. They also point out that there was push back within the governing coalition against the blocking of North Stream 2 (besides the AFD, most notably Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) wanted to get NS2 opened), and popular protest was forming on the streets of Germany.

Reactions

On 28th September, the German Bild publishes an article with the headline: "Western Security Agencies Suspect - Putin had Nord Stream mined during construction" (the paper historically publishing what special interests wants society to believe, or be concerned with).

On 30th September, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the incident: "offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come" - while on his first visit in office to Europe at the beginning of 2021, he called for the Nord Stream 2 project to be stopped.

Peskov points to American culpability:

“There is a party or a party that, in the absence of the functioning of these gas pipelines, is able to sell more LNG at a higher price. This side is well known, it is the United States, [...] there are also countries that have the military-technological capabilities to carry out such sabotage”
Dmitry Peskov (03 October 2022) 

On 3rd October, former CIA director John Brennan warns that Russia will target other pipelines.

Thierry Meyssan writes that Poland and its Central European allies, members of the Three Seas Initiative (modeled on the Intermarium concept) will now take the economic lead at the expense of western Europe (France, Netherlands, Germany).

Forged report

Full article: Forged 2022 Rand report

At the same time as the sabotage, there circulated an alleged leaked research report from the deep state think tank Rand, outlying a US strategy to weaken Germany. From the language used, the report is an obvious forgery, and may well have been circulated in an attempt to discredit independent media not doing sufficient due diligence. Rand issued press release stating it was a fake document.

Cover up

The Wikipedia page is entitled "2022 Nord Stream gas leaks".

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Dave Cullen	“[...] whether it is Covid lockdowns, or raising the price of electricity and fuel, or restrictions on energy usage, such as mandatory rationing, or even powercuts - the result is always the same. Winding down the economy, destroying small to medium businesses, forcing more people to stay at home, reducing human movement and making people dependent on the government for their most basic needs. [...] The plan appears to be, do drag on the Ukraine war for as long as possible, so as to create an excuse to accelerate the transition to completely insufficient power sources such as wind, wave and solar energy, during this process energy rationing will become the norm, [...]”	Dave Cullen	13 September 2022
Germany/Public broadcasting	“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream. The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop. Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”	NOS Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal Ben Meindertsma	12 June 2023
Maximilian Krah	“Nord Stream has been blown up. In other words, critical infrastructure on which the competitiveness of German industry depends has been blown away before our eyes. Now I still have enough contacts in the United States that my American friends can tell me: Of course it was the United States, who else?”	Maximilian Krah	6 August 2023
NOS	“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream. The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop. Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”	NOS Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal Ben Meindertsma	12 June 2023
Neue Zürcher Zeitung	“A year after the Nord Stream explosions, this question is still unanswered. Evidence points sometimes to Russia, sometimes to Ukraine. In wilder theories, the United States has already been suspected.”	Neue Zürcher Zeitung Linda Koponen	26 September 2023
Patrik Oksanen	“If you look at the factors of capacity, interest, and also add documented operational patterns with high risk appetite, there is only one answer. It is the Russian Federation that has blown up Nordstream 1 and 2.”	Patrik Oksanen Svenska Dagbladet	October 2022
Peter Zeihan	“German manufacturing will be dead within a year and a half. I know that we're used to be more worried about China here, but Germany is not coming back. If the war ended tomorrow it's probably already too late.”	Peter Zeihan	8 September 2022
Zeit	“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream. The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop. Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”	NOS Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal Ben Meindertsma	12 June 2023

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline	Article	8 February 2023	Seymour Hersh	Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told Senator Ted Cruz: “Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea” (Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 January 2023).
Document:How Spin and Lies Fuel a Bloody War of Attrition in Ukraine	Article	13 February 2023	Medea Benjamin Nicolas J. S. Davies	President Eisenhower famously said that only an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" can "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. An "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" would surely then demand that our government stop fueling this war and instead support immediate peace negotiations.
Document:Nord Stream 2 requires military protection	Article	14 April 2021

 

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