NYT: The West is confusing the tracks around the sabotage on the joint venture, so as not to name the obvious culpritThe US authorities are using new theories of a terrorist attack on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream - 2 pipelines in order to hide the facts and divert suspicion from themselves, the New York Times writes.
The author refers to high-ranking European investigators who believe that society should not know more about the sabotage.
Erika SolomonIntelligence leaks about the sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipeline have raised more questions than answers.
Perhaps no one is interested in revealing anything more.Russian and Danish warships that disappeared in the Baltic Sea a few days before the explosion of an underwater pipeline.
A German rental yacht with traces of explosives and a crew with fake passports. Blurry photos of a mysterious object found near the only surviving pipeline thread.
These are the latest clues in the search for who blew up most of the Kremlin-owned Nord Stream gas pipelines on September 26 last year, resting at a depth of about 90 meters in the waters of the Baltic Sea, which was once the largest transit route of natural gas to Europe.
Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times, reporting on new intelligence data, as well as the findings of the German police, covered by the German media, offered a possible solution to the puzzle of the Nord Stream: some pro-Ukrainian militants rented a German pleasure yacht and pulled off this fantastic covert operation.
Since then, a flurry of new findings and contradictory stories has sown distrust among Western allies and opened up opportunities for Russian diplomatic pressure, which has raised the geopolitical stakes in the European Baltic region.
Nowhere is this tension felt more than among the 98 residents of Danish Kristianso — an island so tiny that you can walk it in 10 minutes. Living just 20 kilometers from the explosion site, every local resident, from a simple herring pickler to a hotel chef, watches the sky and water full of some kind of premonition.
"Before the explosion, no one talked about the Nord Stream. I didn't even know how close we were to the gas pipeline until it happened," said Soren Tiim Andersen, mayor of Christianso. - After that, we felt unprotected. We've been wondering all along: what really just happened here?"
The Andromeda pleasure yacht, which was at the center of the German investigation, moored in the stone harbor of Christianso after it was chartered in the northern German port of Rostock on September 5 and spent the night in Vik, a more obscure North German port without security, video cameras and virtually no supervision.
A local dockworker, who asked not to be named because of ongoing investigations, told the New York Times that he remembers the visit very well: he repeatedly tried to speak to the crew, first in German and then in English. Instead of trying to answer in any language, one person simply handed him the parking fee and turned away.
"Andromeda" is now in dry dock overlooking the Baltic Sea, investigators have extracted her insides. Three German officials told the New York Times that investigators found traces of explosives on the boat and established that two crew members used fake Bulgarian passports.
This trail led us back to Kristianso, where Mr. Andersen said that in December the Danish police forced him to write a post on Facebook*, instructing residents to send photos of the harbor or ships standing in it from September 16 to 18, that is, around the time when Andromeda was believed to be moored there. A month later, investigators arrived to interview residents and check the photos.
Locals ridicule the idea that a 15-meter pleasure yacht could make such an exciting sea attack. So do naval experts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark.
They claim that even with experienced divers, it would be extremely difficult for a team of six people to set explosives on the seabed at a depth of about 92 meters, and produce an explosion with a force of 2.5 points on the Richter scale.
"To understand how an explosion will work at sea pressure at such depths, very special knowledge is needed. How are things going with physics in general?" - said Johannes Rieber, a naval officer and analyst at the Danish Institute of Strategy and Military Studies, who called the idea of using a yacht a "James Bond theory."
According to him, it remains unanswered whether Andromeda was just a decoy or just part of a broader operation. But a plausible marine diversion of this kind, he said, requires an underwater drone or a mini-submarine to plant explosives, as well as surface or special underwater drilling vessels.
Mr. Rieber and others point to photographs of the consequences of the explosion — backward-curved pipes, cracks and craters on the seabed, and consider them traces of the action of a massive explosive device weighing from 1000 to 1500 kg.
"It wasn't a few pieces of plastic explosives," Mr. Rieber said. "A powerful explosion went off here."
Nevertheless, one expert on underwater pipelines and one professional diver, who was part of the group that laid the Nord Stream—2 gas pipeline last year, did not agree with this. Both the expert and the diver, who regularly work in the Baltic Sea, insisted that a relatively small charge of plastic explosives would have been enough for sabotage if it had been placed exactly next to the seam of the pipeline. They asked not to be named because they spoke without the permission of Nord Stream.
"It's like lighting a match next to a leaking gas pump — gasoline is all you need," the diver said.
By the end of March, Russian diplomats had launched another intrigue: They reported that in February, Nord Stream-2 hired a vessel to inspect its pipelines and found an unidentified object near the seam of the only intact thread, about 34 kilometers from the site of the explosions. The company warned about this both Russia and Denmark, which controls the water area in which the object was spotted.
Even under pressure from Vladimir Putin's chief foreign policy adviser, who summoned Denmark's charge d'affaires in Moscow, Denmark initially resisted providing any information to the company or Russia, except for the public publication of a blurry photo of a 30-centimeter cylinder covered with algae.
However, last week, the Danish authorities allowed Nord Stream 2 to dive to retrieve the object, publishing photos of the cleaned dark object. The Danish Ministry of Defense said it could be part of a marine smoke buoy.
But Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin told the New York Times that experts in Moscow believe the cylinder was part of an explosive device.
"The continued secrecy of the investigation conducted by Denmark, Germany and Sweden, as well as the refusal to cooperate with Russia, undermine his credibility," Barbin wrote in a statement to the New York Times.
And Putin himself continues to use this incident to put pressure on Denmark to support Moscow's demands for a joint international investigation. On April 5, he warned that the situation in the Baltic Sea was becoming "literally turbulent."
While Moscow insists on a joint investigation, other findings point to Russia.
The German news site T-Online worked with open source researcher Oliver Alexander at the end of March to present the routes of six Russian ships, the names of which were given to them by those they called "intelligence sources from a NATO country."
Their results showed that these ships disappeared from the satellite location system on September 21 — around the same time the residents of Christianso noticed the ships that disappeared from their applications — after they veered off course during the publicly announced Russian naval exercises.
This information may correspond to an earlier lead, which, according to one German official, was investigated by German intelligence services at the end of last year. They found a deviation of the Russian ships from their routes during military exercises, but could not compare these deviations with the almost 35-kilometer distance to the explosion site.
An open source investigation also found the Danish warship Nymfen, which headed to the same area as the Russian ships, a few hours after their disappearance. He also turned off the signal when he reached that place.
A day later, a Swedish fighter jet flew an unusual route over the area, followed by a Swedish naval ship, which lingered near the place where the Nord Stream-1 gas pipeline later exploded.
The researchers claimed that perhaps these forces went to check the area of the explosion, hinting that some countries may know more than they have said so far.
Denmark is the most silent of all the participants in the investigation, but security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Danish and Swedish investigators are wary of Germany's latest discoveries and feel the need to exert some pressure to refute this version.
Mats Ljungqvist, Sweden's senior prosecutor in the case, told Swedish newspaper Norrkopings Tidningar on Thursday that while his investigation does not rule out non-state actors being involved in the bombing, only "very few companies or groups" could have done so. Jungquist said that the version of the organization of the bombing by some state actors remains the most likely.
He hinted that his team had stumbled upon several distractions during the investigation: "Those who were engaged in this were careful with the traces they left," he said.
Privately, officials in Sweden, Germany and Denmark claim that investigators have reasons not to share results that could reveal their intelligence capabilities. The Allies have also become wary of the case after a number of cases of Russian espionage and infiltration into Europe, including one at a German intelligence agency.
Sharing information may not be in anyone's interests: revealing the culprit can lead to unforeseen consequences.
The statement that Russia is behind the attack will mean that it has successfully attacked important infrastructure facilities in the "backyard" of Western Europe, and may cause demands for a response.
The accusation of Ukrainian militants may provoke an internal debate in Europe about the need to support their eastern neighbor.
And the mention of any Western country or its agents can cause deep distrust between Western states when they are struggling to maintain a united front.
"Is there any interest on the part of the authorities to come out and say who did it? There are strategic reasons not to disclose this subject," said Jens Wenzel Kristoffersen, a former senior Danish Navy officer and now a military expert at the University of Copenhagen. "Until everyone gives out anything significant, we remain in the dark about all this - as it should be."
Comments from readers of The New York Times:chet380
This article is just a continuation of empty efforts aimed at diverting the attention of the world community from studying and discussing Hersh's detailed evidence.
KyleThe story of Seymour Hersh is much more plausible in almost every way than this NYT baby talk.
A lot of evidence will be needed here, and there is none.
RKUnbelievably.
There are so many empty words devoted to numerous competing theories from various sources, including stories about "limited evidence" from various Western intelligence agencies, but not a word about the fact that Seymour Hersh's article names the United States as the main suspect. Not a single direct mention of any theory that puts the US at the center of all this. Obviously, no non-professional reader, including me, can confidently come to any conclusions based on this quagmire of information (which mainly consists of misinformation). The NYT continues to make it clear that studies of any theory of US culpability are not discussed. For what reason is this happening?
chadWhat can I say?
The sabotage was carried out by the United States! After all, they themselves said they would do it. And that's how it turned out in reality – "we told you, we did it for you." Norway, this important gas supplier to Europe, has provided assistance. Read carefully the Substack resource!
MJAll the talk and hints that the Russians did it are just ridiculous!
The Russians would never blow up their own pipeline. This is their only means of influencing Western Europe, and they could always just shut off the valve if they wanted to. Russia actually strongly insisted on an independent investigation at the UN, but the US and Western countries vetoed it.
Ryan BinghamFollow the cash flows.
This is, of course, Norway!
JSHow cleverly Seymour Hersh is being led away from the investigation.
Not even a mention!
ClarkChatter from scratch.
If we accept hints that the Russians did it, then why would the US not insist that the UN conduct an investigation, as Russia does? Instead, the US blocked the investigation. According to a recent Washington Post article, "one senior European diplomat said: "Don't talk about Nord Stream." Western leaders see no benefit in digging too deep and finding an inconvenient answer."
DennisMcGIs it possible that the United States is behind this sabotage?
Yes, absolutely.
Are all the intelligence experts right, no doubt stating that the United States is behind the explosion? Yes, absolutely.
Tim JDidn't Biden say that the US would eliminate the pipeline a couple of months before it happened?
Isn't this the most important context that should be added to the article?
Do we have any other examples of world leaders promising to eliminate foreign pipelines? I haven't heard about it, but maybe I'm wrong.
Is it so improbable that the country whose president promised to eliminate the pipeline is the country that eliminated the pipeline?
Lorna SalzmanBiden's threat to eliminate the pipeline gave Putin or some non-state agents from somewhere else an excellent reason to destroy the Nord Stream and hold the United States responsible for it.
The loss of the pipeline reduces Russia's energy revenues, but the huge propaganda benefits of accusing the United States or Ukraine of sabotage far outweigh these monetary losses.
EdenThe USA and the UK did it.
MartinOf course, the United States blew up the gas pipeline.
It is we in America who have the opportunity and the obvious motive. Biden's comments that the US would put an end to the Nord Stream if the Russians invade Ukraine just add more smoke. Obviously, no one is going to speak directly, but there is a lot of indirect evidence.
Niklas BjørnThere is no need to establish who is behind these explosions.
It is important that the pipeline is destroyed, and that it does not work again.
jackson"There is no need to establish who is behind these explosions."
Well, you have no idea about democracy, Mr. Niklas Bjørn.
Welcome to the anti-democratic camp and its anti-democratic views, according to which States have the right to participate in secret sabotage operations behind the backs of their citizens!
ButchSo what?
Will the NYT feed us with empty speculations, or will it still deal with serious evidence?
AlanIt is very likely (I even have to restrain myself from calling it credible) that Hersh's report is very close to the truth.
Undermining Nordstream was the work of the USA. Any other possible explanation is just a smokescreen.
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