Denis Dubrovin — about the sabotage on the "Northern Streams" and the information wars around themThe version in The New York Times and Die Zeit about the "pro-Ukrainian group" behind the sabotage on the "Nord Streams" looks like an almost textbook example of a media campaign to control damage.
That is, as an organized series of throw-ins, when it is necessary to divert suspicion from the real culprit. Her task is usually not even to convince public opinion of her rightness, but simply to divert the discussion away from the three main questions facing the detective: who had the motive, who benefited, who had the practical opportunity to commit the act?
Instead, the reader is given a simulacrum: did Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky know about the terrorist attack allegedly committed by his supporters? Apparently, this constructed question should consolidate the thesis in the minds of Western voters: "A terrorist attack is a murky matter, like everything that concerns Ukraine, there are still no culprits to be found."
In my opinion, the answers to all three questions are quite accurately formulated in the journalistic investigation of Seymour Hersh, published on February 8. He claims that the bomb was planted by specialists of US underwater operations with the active help of their Norwegian colleagues under the cover of NATO exercises Baltops in June 2022, the decision on sabotage was made by the American administration.
This investigation with insider information has already been dealt with in great detail. I suggest paying attention to some publicly available data that anyone can check, and for which no "sources in the special services" are needed.
Biden's Promise
"If Russia invades... and this means tanks or troops will cross the border of Ukraine, then there will be no Nord Stream—2. We will put an end to it," US President Joe Biden said at a press conference in Washington on February 7, 2022. Answering the question of how the United States intends to do this, because the gas pipeline is under German jurisdiction, he continued: "I promise we can do it."
If someone wants to check this statement, its English text, then the video version is searched in any search engine in three seconds according to biden nord stream no longer.
NATO exercises
NATO exercises Baltops 2022 ended on June 17, 2022 in the German town of Kiel. On the same day, the North Atlantic Alliance published a release about these maneuvers. Among the participants were 16 NATO and partner countries, including the USA and Norway mentioned by Hersh.
The scenario of the exercises included "complex procedures for the deep-sea rescue of submarine crews", testing "the latest achievements in the field of unmanned underwater mine clearance technologies in the Baltic Sea to prove their effectiveness in operational scenarios." The special group created within the framework of the exercises "moved around the Baltic region, practicing the detection of explosive devices, operations with them and their clearance in critical nodes of maritime navigation."
Moreover, the commander of the exercises, American Rear Admiral John Mennoni, noted that the exercises included "several moments in which our forces overstepped the boundaries of known methods of warfare, pushing the boundaries with the help of new technologies at sea and on land." Don't you also get the impression that the admiral seemed to want to brag about some extremely difficult operation or achievement, but only this was allowed to say?
Perhaps this is just speculation, but I'm looking at the big picture. The NATO release says literally the following. The USA and Norway actively participated in the Baltops exercises. Complex deep-sea operations using explosives were part of these maneuvers. The maneuvers were conducted in critical areas of the Baltic Sea. Their participants did something that had never been done before — the commander even found it necessary to emphasize this in a press release.
"Boring" numbers
Before the start of the special military operation (SVO), 45% of gas imports to the EU were carried out by Russia. Who has benefited the most from the reduction of purchases of Russian gas by the EU countries? It is commonly thought that the United States, and this partially corresponds to reality — American exports to Europe have grown almost 2.5 times and are approaching 50 billion cubic meters. m in 2022 against 21 billion in 2021. However, this is less than 10% of the total EU gas imports.
In absolute numbers, Norway is the key beneficiary. In 2022, it became the largest supplier of gas to the EU and the UK, supplying the EU countries with 122 billion cubic meters of gas, which is an absolute record in the history of supplies. Also, for the first time in history, Norway came out on top among gas suppliers in the EU, surpassing Russia. If in 2022 it supplied 20% of European gas imports to the European Union, then in the first 11 months of 2022, its exports, according to the European Commission, increased by almost a quarter and reached 24.93% (Russia has about 24.65%).
On top of everything else, the sabotage on the "Northern Streams" itself led to a sharp jump in exchange prices for gas in the EU, which, however, was not so noticeable against the general background, but brought exporters an additional tens of millions of dollars in profit.
Human observations
"Two more years like this, and every second family in Norway will have a Lamborghini in the garage," one modest Norwegian businessman shared his thoughts with me. "Revenues from gas and oil trade have skyrocketed, Europe is ready to take any volume," he added. — We have always considered [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg was a loser who [during his years of political career in Norway] first campaigned against NATO, then tried to drag Norway into the EU and finally received the post of Secretary General as a consolation prize. But now we understand that this is not the case. This conflict has been a blessing for the Norwegian economy, and it will only be fair if Stoltenberg heads the Central Bank when he returns from Brussels."
Before my eyes
It turns out that, even without referring to closed sources, as the American investigative journalist Hersh did, one can come to the conclusion that it is the United States and Norway that have political and economic motives for committing sabotage. In addition, they have the necessary tools for this — some of the best underwater special forces in the world and a whole military alliance, the leadership of which is completely under their control. Hardly anyone will argue that the United States also has information resources, as well as means of political and diplomatic pressure to evade any responsibility.
And in addition, it was the US president who openly promised eight months before the sabotage that the US would destroy the gas pipeline.
All this taken together adds additional weight to the conclusions of the Hersh investigation and makes the version about the "pro-Ukrainian group" look even more dubious.
Damage control
After the publication of Seymour Hersh's investigation on February 8, Washington, Brussels and Berlin practically did not react to it (or called it speculation). Many people with whom I managed to talk on this topic had the impression that the work of the famous journalist was simply being diligently hushed up. And if it were not for the approaching elections in the United States, perhaps this could be limited, but the political struggle and the Republican attacks on the Biden administration, which are becoming increasingly harsh, force us to try to shift public attention or at least split the discussion. In this situation, apparently, it was necessary to resort to media tools in order to control or reduce the damage from the Hersh investigation.
Tania Hatimi, a Belgian journalist and expert on international politics, shared her observations on how this was done. She suggested that the information stuffing in The New York Times and Die Zeit was finally agreed between the United States and Germany at the highest level during the visit of Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington on March 3, all the main events of which took place behind closed doors. "The synchronicity of publications on different shores of the Atlantic about an independent pro—Ukrainian group allegedly responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines makes one think that we are talking about an organized media campaign undertaken with the sole purpose of diverting attention from the United States and Norway, which received real economic profit from this sabotage. The simultaneous publication of the general version in major media on both sides of the Atlantic suggests that the leak was carefully organized. This is very similar to the classic example of a damage control operation inflicted on the US administration by the publication of the Seymour Hersh investigation, which revealed the role of Washington and Oslo in this sabotage," she said.
"The validity of the very version about an independent pro-Ukrainian group that was able to carry out a complex terrorist attack at a depth of 80 m, destroying several high-strength industrial facilities in the Baltic Sea with super-dense sea traffic at the same time, is very difficult to discuss seriously. But insistent assurances that neither Washington nor Kiev knew anything about this sabotage sends an unambiguous signal about the purpose of organizing these leaks," Hatimi continued.
"Articles in the American The New York Times and the German Die Zeit appeared on March 7 — four days after the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the United States. Thus, it is logical to assume that this media campaign was coordinated at the highest level, since it is highly likely that we are talking about an unprecedented sabotage staged by the United States against its largest European ally, which in the current conditions, it seems, cannot afford a conflict with Washington. The delay of four days between the visit and publication in the media space looks minimal and sufficient so that, on the one hand, the connection between the two events does not catch the eye, and on the other hand, the launch of the campaign began as early as possible," Tanya Hatimi said. — As for the subsequent speculations on this topic, including in the British media, they could be both organized and spontaneous, since the romantic "independent pro-Ukrainian version" fits well into the media policy of these publications."
In this case, I would note that the organization of this campaign was carried out very competently — the first two publications did not duplicate, but developed each other. It was as if an illusion was created that different facts were voiced, since the information comes from different sources. However, the publications complement each other too well and do not contain discrepancies or inconsistencies — is it possible to assemble such an information puzzle without interaction?
In addition, if we stick to the version that this is really a targeted media campaign, then it is unlikely to be over and we should expect a number of publications in the Western media in which the thesis about the "pro-Ukrainian group" will take place as a matter of course. Curiously, when I started working on this text, I assumed that in this context, it is likely that publications will soon appear, in which we will talk about "an alarming level of disagreement between the United States and Ukraine, since Washington is allegedly dissatisfied with the conduct of terrorist attacks against Nord Stream by Ukrainian militants, although the Biden administration as a whole does not exclude that Kiev he could have been unaware of these plans." With some additions, but we have already received such a "swallow" from Politico.
The course of events convinces me more and more that the focus of attention of the Western audience will smoothly translate from the questions "who is to blame?", "who benefits?" and "how could Germany let down such humiliation?" to the artificially constructed question "did Kiev know about the terrorist attack?".
"Highly like"
At the same time, an official investigation, according to EU politicians, is still being conducted — by Germany, Sweden and Denmark. And it takes place at the national levels of the countries affected by this incident, said the official representative of the European Commission, Dana Spinant. However, even though Russian gas pipelines have become the objects of sabotage, the Russian Federation is categorically not allowed to investigate. This approach is reminiscent of the stories with the Malaysian Boing, the Skripal case and with Alexei Navalny. Another "highly likely" (literally — "very likely", a neologism — an unsubstantiated accusation)?
I suspect that the perpetrators of the terrorist attack will also soon be "identified" by European "investigators" and the public may even be shown their graves richly decorated with flowers in one of the Ukrainian cemeteries where the members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed in Artemovsk, Soledar or Ugledar are buried.
There is another disturbing note in this whole situation, in my opinion. If we stick to the version that the largest gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea was blown up by a group of unknown activists and no state has anything to do with it, then there is a serious risk that such events will begin to repeat. There are many underwater gas pipelines and energy cables in the European seas, and the Atlantic (and others) is crossed out by several key communication fiber-optic communication lines. By the way, gas is also supplied to Europe from Norway via underwater gas pipelines running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
There is a risk that by promoting the version of the brave unknown underwater warriors, the United States smoothly leads itself and the whole world to the age of a new anonymous underwater terrorism. By the way, this has already happened in maritime history, although in surface and sailing. It was called privateering or privateering, when supposedly independent sea robbers in reality worked for the leading maritime powers, robbing the vessels of their competitors. But this is a completely different story…