"Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say"

Post #442,773 by a6l6e6x 3/7/23 9:23:55 PM 3/7/23 9:23:55 PM Reply	"Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say" NY Times article. New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months. 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. The brazen attack on the natural gas pipelines, which link Russia to Western Europe, fueled public speculation about who was to blame, from Moscow to Kyiv and London to Washington, and it has remained one of the most consequential unsolved mysteries of Russia’s year-old war in Ukraine. Without identifying the executors of the attacks, they say a Ukraine favoring group did the work. I can't say it's irrational. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #442,774 by boxley 3/7/23 10:26:01 PM 3/7/23 10:26:01 PM Reply	need sat diving capabilty and ship/boat support in a heavily patrolled area "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
Post #442,777 by Another Scott 3/8/23 12:25:19 AM 3/8/23 12:25:19 AM Reply	"Suggests" There's a whole lot of weasel words in that piece. Here's a Substack article on what seems to be a reasonable story of what happened and why: [...] I theorize that the initial Nord Stream 2 rupture was an accident, potentially the result poor workmanship by the Akademik Cherskiy due to an inadequate vessel and inexperienced crew. Once this pipe had ruptured, the remaining pipes would probably be inspected to ensure that there was no risk of further leaks. This process would have revealed the explosives planted on the Nord Stream 1 pipes. Due to this the plan to potentially destroy Nord Stream 1 in the future was accelerated and the explosives were detonated 17 hours after the initial rupture at 19:03 local time. Destroying Nord Stream 1 would allow Russia to increase pressure on Germany, while at the same time not being a massive loss, as they stated that it was “out of commission”. Russia had stated that the decreased flow and eventual shutdown of Nord Stream 1 was caused by European Union sanctions against Russia, which had resulted in technical problems they could not remedy. This would leave the operational, but never opened Nord Stream 2 available to supply Germany with natural gas immediately after the shock of the destruction of Nord Stream 1. This is something Putin still offered Germany through the one remaining Nord Stream 2 line. Germany turned down the offer. I believe that the charges were in place on Nord Stream 1, hoping for Germany and Europe to be in a more dire situation during the winter. They would then be blown in an attempt to pressure Europe to give up on Ukraine. [...] Worth a click. FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
Post #442,783 by CRConrad 3/9/23 7:47:43 AM 3/9/23 7:47:43 AM Reply	AIUI (from other src, not read these yet), it all boils down to "Could have been a tiny 'private'... ...operation, so lots of lovely deniability and opportunity for false-flagging for whichever larger (state-level) interests -- if any -- lay behind it". Oh sure, they "looked and sounded Ukrainian"? How hard is it for Russia to fake that? Or vice versa? (And did they even; that's only hearsay. Could have been Nigerians, Maori, or Japanese for all I know.) It's not as if you can't find people who look and sound Ukrainian -- mainly because they are Ukrainian -- pretty much anywhere: The second-largest city in the world, by number of Ukrainians living in it, right after Kyiv, is AFAIK: Toronto, Canada. And there's been an exodus of refugees from the war Ukraine for a year now; lots of time for intelligence services (or private actors) all over the world -- certainly all over Europe -- to recruit and train agents for all kinds of ops, including this. Could still have been absolutely anyone. Sure, a bunch of private Ukrainians -- scuba diving hobbyists from the Black Sea coastal regions, financed by some Odessa oligarch pal of theirs? -- feels like quite a plausible option. Almost as likely, though, that they raced off to somewhere in Europe back in March-April '22 and got recruited by private Western rich folks with interesting political views... Or the domestic intelligence services of weherever they ended up, or of the country two over to the left. Quite possible one posing as the other, to them, so they didn't even know who they were working for. Sure, that all sounds like tinfoil-hattery... That's because it is. I'm not saying that's what happened. Only that at this stage, it's not much more unlikely than anything else -- and fun to speculate about. As for who this possible actor hiring this gang (be they Ukrainians or not) could be... Anything from Statoil (Hi, Gryge!) to Mossad, via Japan's security services and a cartel of Argentinian and Brazilian cattle ranchers. The least unlikely perhaps some British M-whatever agency; motive: The Germans need stiffening their backbone. The most funny(-Macchiavellian): The Germans themselves. Either private(-slash-political) actors, presumably on the right; motive: Scholz and the SPD need stiffening their backbone. Or, perhaps most fun of all: Private(-slash-political) actors on the left, or even the BND / GSG9() / Kampftaucher unit of the Bundeswehr Marine; motive: Scholz himself* felt "the Germans need stiffening their public backbone", in the sense that he felt politically trapped into maintaining his foot-dragging and pandering to the "pacifist" Putin-Versteher and the large proportion of the populace they've turned into cowardly useful idiots, but didn't actually want to run too far in that direction, and therefore wanted to make sure he physically couldn't (and therefore couldn't be made to) re-open it. Yeah, that last one is really twisted... Must be why I like it the most. :-) ___ (): Successor unit called something else nowadays, can't recall what. -- Christian R. Conrad* The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi

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