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Posts Tagged ‘sabotage’

Per the Financial Times:

Sławomir Cenckiewicz, who leads Poland’s national security bureau and is a key adviser to President Karol Nawrocki, told the Financial Times in an interview that Germany should not continue the prosecutions if it wanted to align Russia policy with Poland and other Nato allies.

“From our point of view, this investigation doesn’t make sense, not only in terms of the interests of Poland but also the whole [Nato] alliance,” Cenckiewicz said, adding that prosecuting Nord Stream saboteurs might serve German justice, but also “Russian injustice.”

Whether or not the sabotage was justified, finding out who directed and executed the destruction of economically important energy infrastructure should have been a high priority for Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. Sweden and Denmark conveniently opted out after lengthy investigations, leaving only Germany to pursue what many believe to be a half-hearted inquiry.

Meanwhile, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, which has gained considerable strength in the polls, supports a Nord Stream restart.

Why would Germany oppose Nord Stream 2 gas flow as part of a Ukraine peace agreement?

Nord Stream “whodunit” summary

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sailboat Andromeda
testing candidate bomb designs

Der Spiegel: “Wie ein ukrainisches Geheimkommando Nord Stream sprengte

Observations:

  • Der Spiegel’s detailed account is based on interviews with the perpetrators whose identities are being withheld.
  • ~a dozen men and one woman, all Ukrainians, were involved in the sabotage. Some were soldiers, some were civilians; some had past connections with the CIA.
  • <$300,000 budget funded by a Ukrainian businessman
  • Saboteurs received no payments
  • Low tech operation using the sailboat Andromeda
  • The article includes details on how the mission was accomplished.
  • To the commandos, Nord Stream sabotage was viewed as a military objective, a legitimate act of self defense.
  • The team understood that only a small hole in the outer wall would suffice to burst the pipe given the gas pressure in the lines.
  • Tested bomb designs in a lake, and trained in a flooded mine to depths of 100 m.
  • Zelensky was not fully trusted and was intentionally not informed of the plan. (However, the authors are not completely ruling out some Zelensky involvement in the planning.)
  • Western intelligence heard about the plan 3 months before the operation. Zelensky was then informed by a CIA officer in Kiev.
  • A CIA agent contacted one of the commandos who he knew. To protect the mission, the commando said he didn’t know anything about such a plan, but would inquire further.
  • The commandos decided they needed to get on with the operation before sea conditions worsened in the fall.
  • 6 bombs were planted under sometimes difficult conditions. One did not explode, so the Nord Stream 2 B pipeline remained intact.

Der Spiegel’s account seems credible. If that is the case, Seymour Hersh and his informant have some explaining to do.

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Swedish engineer Erik Andersson has personally investigated the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. He is perhaps the most informed independent investigator of the incident and the associated legal and political drama.

Andersson provided an updated defense document filed by the pipelines’ insurers (attached) and posted his observations on X. His X comments are consolidated below.

  • Nord Stream insurers Lloyds & Arch just filed an amended defense document (attached) which reveals technical details confirming a fifth Nord Stream bomb, which failed to break the NS1B line, placed just 90 meters from the successful bomb on NS1 line A.
  • Lloyds & Arch intend to prove in court that the government of Ukraine ordered the destruction.
  • The insurers have access to classified information in the criminal investigation which not even the victims have had up to now.
  • The insurers doubled down on their previous claim that the destruction was an act of war (and thus they are not liable). They all but say it was ordered by the Ukrainian government, and will rely on “expert evidence” of this.
  • The locations of the northern Nord Stream bombs are marked on the nautical chart (pasted below). The previously known bombs have orange markers and the new bomb we learned about in the NS vs Lloyds filing is marked red.
  • I (Andersson) have repeatedly said that I dismissed Seymour Hersh claim of 8 bombs after my expedition, and have assumed there were exactly four bombs. This has now been proven false, and I think that we again have to account for the possibility that there were perhaps 8 bombs, and that Sy Hersh is perhaps right in his claim that “the Americans sped back to the crime scene to remove the unexploded bombs.”
  • Andersson’s personal view is that it doesn’t matter much if Team USA trusted and protected the Ukrainian sailboat crew so they could place the bombs, or if they just waited for the sailboat cover operation to finish before detonating the bombs they had placed there by other means (making sure they didn’t do anything that couldn’t have been done from a sailboat).
  • The presence of American, Danish and Swedish warships in the area, with all their surveillance capabilities, including the underwater surveillance, makes it a very hard sell that the Ukrainians did this alone without American participation.
  • American warships were also present at the crime scene when it was closed off (justified by an erroneous interpretation of international law) and cleaned up by the Swedish investigation. If any materials were found which contradicted the sailboat narrative, these materials could have been removed.
  • It’s impossible to trust the investigations when (1) the crime scene was illegally blocked & cleaned with US military protection, (2) international investigation was blocked, and (3) the Swedish and Danish investigations were closed with a bogus justification contradicting the premise of “jurisdiction” which was used to seize control of all information in the first place. (Very interesting point about Sweden and Denmark. After 16+ months of investigation, they both punted. Sweden suddenly didn’t have jurisdiction and Denmark decided they didn’t have sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case.)

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Either the investigators were incompetent (unlikely) or the political pressure was too great (likely).

“The investigation has led the authorities to conclude that there was deliberate sabotage of the gas pipelines. However, the assessment is that there are not sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case in Denmark,” a Copenhagen police statement said.

Reuters

After 17 months of investigation, that’s a pretty lame statement. Will we see their report?

The ball is now in Germany’s court. Should we expect more of the same?

Our June 2023 summary remains unchanged.

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No, because it provides no evidence in support of either of the two prominent Nord Stream sabotage theories: (1) the Seymour Hersh account and (2) the rental yacht narrative.

When the findings from important investigations are delayed, information leaks serve to control the narrative and satisfy political or economic objectives. Why are these intelligence organizations so eager to assign blame within the Ukrainian government? Why are the actual findings of the investigations not being released? Perhaps the WP and Spiegel reporters can answer those questions.

Former secret service agent Roman Chervinskyi in court in Kyiv in April; photo: Nikita Galka

According to the joint research by DER SPIEGEL and The Washington Post, Chervinskyi’s name is circulating both in Ukrainian and international security circles in connection with the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. The former agent allegedly coordinated the attack and also provided support for the specialist unit behind the sabotage operation.

Cautionary note:

People in Western security circles say that the Ukrainian security apparatus is plagued with rivalries and infighting, and that information obtained from sources there must be handled with caution.

both quotes from Der Spiegel

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Not only have no official findings been released, but there has been little new speculation since our June 2023 update. Given the political stakes, it is increasingly unlikely that the responsible parties will be identified.

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This intelligence leak seems rather convenient in that it absolves both the US and Ukrainian governments, but who knows?

U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.

New York Times

Meanwhile, Seymour Hersh is promising a followup Nord Stream report next week.

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link to the podcast

Much of the discussion was about his career and the state of journalism. Some of Hersh’s comments on his Nord Stream story:

  • He will protect his sources as he always has
  • The Nord Stream Pipeline sabotage was “stupid beyond belief”
  • “Pipeline industry knows what happened”
  • Only one major news show (Tucker Carlson) has contacted him and Hersh chose not to be interviewed
  • He was shocked that no other news organization pursued the story
  • He has received 1600 emails in 2.5 days since the article was published

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I’m posting this link without comment.

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

Seymour Hersch

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“There is no evidence at this point that Russia was behind the sabotage,” said one European official, echoing the assessment of 23 diplomatic and intelligence officials in nine countries interviewed in recent weeks.

Washington Post

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