Nord Stream Pipeline Video

[iain/hsm]

I'm pretty sure those particular pictures were internet fakes, which is why those particular names...

How exactly are you pretty sure? No you are entirely wrong. But no matter you are free to believe what you like. But the photo is not fake (I'm pretty sure on that ) LOL Iain

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Generally in agreement with most of that. I think those suggesting a military submarine with divers is possible, but overkill. I'd change that graphic from "how it was done" to something that implies probability. Unless they have some first-hand sources who did it.

I hesitate to point at any specific ships that were in the area, on the simple basis. If one used a timer, you could be a long ways away, perhaps months away by the time the explosion occurred. It helps to ask, "if I was going to do this, how would I pull it off?" Because unless the criminal is an idiot, the probably had some of the same ideas. For something like this, I'd probably want to setup the explosives about 2 or 3 months in advance, and 2 different fishing-boats, so that there would be dozens of other culprits looked at first well before anyone looks at me.

That would leave behind a lot of evidence and whatever did it would be nearby. If you don't care about anyone knowing you did it, then sure.

I added the graphic only because it showed an explosives placement that seemed to correspond to the damage observed in the video (linear ruptures as opposed to point charges). Otherwise, I trust it as much as anything else produced by a former SEAL who went the obligatory author route after service, i.e. with large grains of salt - Chuck Pfarrer - Wikipedia

The problem with a long fuse is it's an additional complication - it means more time for the charges to potentially be discovered (there are reports the Swedish Coast Guard was active in those areas >48 hours before the first explosion; while I don't buy that a NATO country was responsible I wouldn't be surprised if they were expecting something), or for something to malfunction. The primary objective is not being left like Marvin the Martian wondering "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" Not being the prime suspect is secondary, depending on what your exposure to consequences is.

 

[SlugLife]

I added the graphic only because it showed an explosives placement that seemed to correspond to the damage observed in the video (linear ruptures as opposed to point charges). Otherwise, I trust it as much as anything else produced by a former SEAL who went the obligatory author route after service, i.e. with large grains of salt - Chuck Pfarrer - Wikipedia

The problem with a long fuse is it's an additional complication - it means more time for the charges to potentially be discovered (there are reports the Swedish Coast Guard was active in those areas >48 hours before the first explosion; while I don't buy that a NATO country was responsible I wouldn't be surprised if they were expecting something), or for something to malfunction. The primary objective is not being left like Marvin the Martian wondering "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" Not being the prime suspect is secondary, depending on what your exposure to consequences is.

I'm going to slightly alter the phrasing, because we don't have enough public evidence to say anyone specific was responsible.

Why don't you buy that a NATO country could have been responsible? Or to phrase it differently: on the list of potential suspects. Motive, means, and opportunity all seem to be there.

 

[admikar]

I'm going to slightly alter the phrasing, because we don't have enough public evidence to say anyone specific was responsible.

Why don't you buy that a NATO country could have been responsible? Or to phrase it differently: on the list of potential suspects. Motive, means, and opportunity all seem to be there.

Easy. RUSSIA BAAADDDD!

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Easy. RUSSIA BAAADDDD!

If by "BAAADDDD" you mean "stupid," then yeah, they've been digging themselves deeper for about 9-10 months now. I believe there's a relevant quote from Tropic Thunder to describe their decision-making processes of late:

I'm going to slightly alter the phrasing, because we don't have enough public evidence to say anyone specific was responsible.

Why don't you buy that a NATO country could have been responsible? Or to phrase it differently: on the list of potential suspects. Motive, means, and opportunity all seem to be there.

I'm going to bookmark the relevant section I mentioned earlier (starting at the 39:44 mark), then summarize for the "tl;dr" crowd. As noted previously, this was posted on September 4, about three weeks before Nord Stream was sabotaged:


Summary: Europe was slow out of the gate in sanctioning Russian energy imports, but by May/June that started to change - technology exports to the Russian energy sector and tanker oil imports were cut, and the stage was set for a larger divestment from Russian energy imports in late 2022/early 2023 timeframe. The fairly immediate Russian response was to throttle back gas deliveries and inflict economic stress on Europe; Poland had been buying Russian gas to this point but was cut off entirely, while Nord Stream 1 deliveries to Germany were cut to 20% of capacity and periodically subjected to extended shutdowns for "maintenance difficulties." This shot natural gas prices up - 2x to 4x depending on what one considers to be the baseline (pre or post COVID) - right as Europe was stockpiling gas for winter. Russia thus got windfall gas revenues while Europe was subjected to increasing costs; however, it seems to have backfired (much as the whole "going to war to push NATO away" deal backfired). Europe basically went looking for other options and was two months ahead of schedule in filling up gas storage; in particular other European nations backfilled Poland's gas cutoff (notably this included Germany, so Poland was probably the indirect recipient of some of that Nord Stream 1 gas delivered before August).

The kicker is at 47:35, and I'm going to quote directly here:

"Now at the time of recording, Nord Stream 1 is due to resume service at 20% capacity relatively soon. To be honest, I'm not sure it's going to turn back on, and if it does turn back on, I'm not sure it won't pretty much immediately turn back off again. I think the Russians are basically done supplying Germany and central European nations with gas through Nord Stream 1. If the goal is maximum economic pressure, then the supply needs to decrease to as close to zero as possible, as quickly as possible."

Funny listening to that now. By blowing the lines Russia arguably would have gone one better; markets don't like when oil and gas infrastructure is threatened (hence why the USN sends carrier groups within cannon-shot range of Iran every time someone in the Persian Gulf cuts a loud fart). And they left themselves an out by leaving one of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines intact.

There are some additional potential motives - I can't find the link now, but apparently in August when the Russians were claiming "turbine issues" due to sanctions were causing the Nord Stream 1 shutdown, Siemens (the manufacturer) called BS and there was some speculation Gazprom could face legal action for failure to fulfill deliveries under contract. Pipelines go boom, Gazprom can't be held liable for not delivering (that or they actually had trashed the turbines, in which case Nord Stream 1 was useless in the near term anyway). More importantly, the lines were blown just outside Danish and Swedish territorial waters - within their exclusive economic zones, but not where it could legally have been construed as an attack and in the Danish case, potentially invoking Articles 4 and 5 and thus potentially justifying NATO retaliation. One set of ruptures bracketed a crossing with the SwePol (Sweden-Poland) submerged underwater power cable. It was an implicit threat that the Russians had the sabotage option in the bag and were willing to use it.

Now, take all that, the known Russian capabilities in the field of undersea sabotage, Russia having naval assets based in the Baltic, Russian Baltic Fleet submarines and support ships being reported in the area a few days before the explosions, the fact that the Russians immediately offered up the intact Nord Stream 2 pipeline for use, and oh yeah, the fact that they were willing to invade another country over a perceived threat earlier this year and it's basically resulted in most of Europe and the US ganging up to strangle them economically ... and the rest of the suspects look like they have too little to gain and too much to lose by pulling something like this. Could a NATO member have done this? Possibly, but their motives were already being fulfilled by diplomatic/economic methods and it would be extremely bloody stupid for them to pull a stunt like this - and those countries have to this point generally been playing winning hands pretty cautiously. Russia on the other hand has backed itself into a corner and it's convinced the only way out is to make someone flinch. We're seeing that now where evidently they've bet the farm on destroying Ukranian energy infrastructure in order to force a settlement, after it's become clear they can't acheive their objectives by taking and holding territory.

 

[SlugLife]

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

seymourhersh.substack.com

 

[HalcyonDaze]

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

seymourhersh.substack.com

Wondered if this would pop up here. Sy Hersh was at one point a very damned good investigative reporter (My Lai and the K-129 salvage being two of his highlights from the late 1960s and early 1970s; he was also responsible for some of the Abu Ghraib reporting) but in the last decade he's pushed some thinly sourced, out-there stuff.

The Other Questions Raised by Seymour Hersh's Syria Scoop

"Obama did not tell the whole story" on Assad's alleged involvement in a chemical weapons strike in Syria last August, begins Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh's latest piece.

www.theatlantic.com

U.S. officials fuming over Hersh account of bin Laden raid

The Obama administration is hotly disputing the investigative reporter’s version of events.

www.politico.com

Soo ... this operation was so super-duper top secret that involving SOCOM was out of the question, and yet apparently involved a regular Royal Norwegian Navy minesweeper and Royal Norwegian Air Force patrol aircraft, as well as notification to Danish and Swedish officials? I think we ought to haul Wookie in here also and ask his opinion on the Panama City guys doing a covert demolition job in the Baltic.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

The claim by a discredited journalist that the US secretly blew up the Nord Stream pipeline is proving a gift to Putin

Russian propagandists appear delighted at the much-criticized claim by Seymour Hersh that Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022.

www.businessinsider.com

Kind of telling who jumped on this and I have to wonder at the timing. A couple weeks ago the German/US standoff over sending tanks to Ukraine broke and I believe later this month there's another meeting of European and American defense officials at Ramstein to discuss further military aid. Someone might have an immediate motive to stir things up. Also telling that the first "mainstream" media outlet I saw report on this was The Daily Mail, otherwise known as "The Daily Fail" for their reporting standards (among other things, they enjoy buying the dive pics of my photographer friends and attaching them to loosely factual and poorly edited articles). Otherwise, it seems the reason Hersh self-published this on Substack was a lack of other takers.

Some notes:

• When the article immediately throws in a popup referencing the author's claim to be "the world's leading investigative journalist," that's probably a red flag. As a side note, I recall reading a 2018 interview that noted he was still sore at never being hired on by the New York Times. Ego speaking?
• The claim is that the divers had to come from Panama City's EOD program rather than SOCOM to avoid notification to senior members of Congress ("The Gang of Eight"). That made my nose twitch as I didn't recall that group being notified about the Abottabad raid; from the little bit of reading I've done it seems as if that "requirement" to notify the Gang of Eight is what Captain Barbossa might call "more like guidelines." So that doesn't check out.
• The article skips over the most likely reason for the administration dropping sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in May 2021 - the last guy spent four years publicly crapping on Germany and we were trying to mend fences with Europe in general and Germany in particular. Which seems to have paid off, given the recent promised deliveries to Ukraine of Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Leopard tanks, and a Patriot SAM battery.
• The article claims the Secretary of State pushed the plan to blow up the pipelines, which doesn't pass the smell test - State is generally charged with implementing foreign policy without blowing things up. Jumping ahead a bit at the implied "overt threats" by Biden and Nuland, it's pretty hard to read those as a declaration of intent to blow up the pipelines - as we saw two days later, all it took was diplomatic pressure on Germany to close Nord Stream 2 down.
• "The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely." Either everyone in that room was high, or Hersh was when writing this.
• Methinks the author doesn't like Norway. All that was missing was the descriptions of modern-day Vikings ready to pillage poor Russia out of old anticommunist prejudice.
• Hersh's account of the planning and execution fails to address why one of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines was left intact, and implies the work was done in one location rather than three (the Nord Stream 1 leaks were 3+ miles apart, and the Nord Stream 2 leak was considerably farther south).
• The timeline doesn't make much sense. As noted earlier in this thread, at the time of the explosions Nord Stream 1's output had been first throttled to 20% and then shut off entirely by the Russians, Nord Stream 2 was shut down by Germany, and Europe was weaning itself off Russian gas.
• Using a low-frequency sonar signal with the power to trigger the charges miles away sounds like a great way to provide evidence to any monitoring system in the area.
• The segue (five paragraphs, or at least a couple paragraphs and a couple five-line sentances) into Hersh's glory days reporting on Vietnam and the Church committee ... way to signal your prime as a reporter was half a century ago, not to mention the lens you view the world through. I'm surprised he didn't namedrop Henry Kissinger (maybe the reason for casting Sullivan as a key figure, for old times' sake?).

Would also be interesting to get some informed second opinions on the statements about the work being done at 260 ft using trimix and the location having "no major tidal currents."

EDIT: Looks like Hersh forgot to check AIS and ADS-B data when cooking up his story.

 

[tarponchik]

• The timeline doesn't make much sense. As noted earlier in this thread, at the time of the explosions Nord Stream 1's output had been first throttled to 20% and then shut off entirely by the Russians, Nord Stream 2 was shut down by Germany, and Europe was weaning itself off Russian gas.
• Using a low-frequency sonar signal with the power to trigger the charges miles away sounds like a great way to provide evidence to any monitoring system in the area.

Would also be interesting to get some informed second opinions on the statements about the work being done at 260 ft using trimix and the location having "no major tidal currents."

EDIT: Looks like Hersh forgot to check AIS and ADS-B data when cooking up his story.

While I'll ignore the argumentum ad hominem you made, here are a couple of my objections to you:
1. Dragging the feet with the turbine replacement may be a temporary excuse not to supply the gas. However, blowing the pipe up killed it once and for all. It would seem logical to me to do one or another, but not both. You seem to ignore the fact that both the USA and Norway were the major beneficiaries of NS sabotage and both Russia and Germany were the losers.
2. Who said that the signal was sent "miles away"?

 

[tarponchik]

Soo ... this operation was so super-duper top secret that involving SOCOM was out of the question, and yet apparently involved a regular Royal Norwegian Navy minesweeper and Royal Norwegian Air Force patrol aircraft, as well as notification to Danish and Swedish officials? I think we ought to haul Wookie in here also and ask his opinion on the Panama City guys doing a covert demolition job in the Baltic.

Hersh's article does not mention any minesweepers. He also states that "Denmark and Sweden had to be briefed in general terms about possible diving activity in the area", not that Danish and Swedish officials were notified of the goals of the operation.

It is a good habit to actually read the articles you criticize.