Tag: nordstream

Six bombs used in Nord Stream sabotage – media

At least six bombs were used to cripple the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and all four of the gas connector’s lines were mined, German newspaper Die Welt has claimed, citing court papers.

The pipelines, built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Western Europe, were destroyed by blasts at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in September 2022.

It was previously believed that the sabotage involved four explosive devices, the outlet noted in an article on Tuesday. However, Die Welt said its journalists had reviewed documents from a court case between Nord Stream AG and insurance companies, which suggest at least six bombs were detonated.

According to the paper, two additional damage sites have recently been found on the pipelines. They had not been noticed before because no gas leaked from the areas, the document alleges.

One of the damage sites was photographed by Swedish engineer Erik Andersen, who has investigated the explosions, the article said. One image reportedly captured traces of a blast on one of the lines of Nord Stream 2.

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US Investor Lynch Eyes Nord Stream 2 Purchase, Citing Strategic Value for US

American investor Stephen P. Lynch has expressed an interest in buying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if it is put up for auction as part of the bankruptcy proceedings in Switzerland, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“An American investor with a history of dealmaking in Russia has asked the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline 2 if it comes up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding,” the report said.

According to sources cited by the newspaper, Lynch expressed determination to buy the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline and applied to the US Treasury in February for a license to negotiate its construction with entities under US sanctions, noting that many investors might avoid the auction due to the difficult geopolitical situation.

Lynch has advocated to US officials and lawmakers that owning the pipeline would give the United States a powerful tool in negotiating peace with Russia to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, while also supporting broader American strategic objectives.

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Germany’s AfD Urges UN to Investigate Nord Stream and Potential Government Role

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has called on the United Nations to prosecute an inquiry into the Nord Sream pipelines explosions and find out whether government officials were aware of this incident, party’s co-chair Tino Chrupalla said.

“We believe that the incident needs to be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be held accountable. In particular, we need to find out if members of the German government were aware of this incident before or after it occurred. We have called for the establishment of an inquiry commission in the European Parliament and are now calling for a UN investigation,” Chrupalla told Turkish newspaper Aydinlik.

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“Apologize and Keep Quiet”: Polish PM Tells Germans To Shut Up about Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk took to Twitter to scold Germans who are outraged at the possibility that Ukraine, in collusion with European governments and the US, destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, depriving Germany of Russian natural gas.

“To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet,” Tusk tweeted on Saturday.

Tusk was responding to August Henning, former head of the German Federal Intelligence Service, who alleged in a recent interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper that Tusk’s predecessor, Andrzej Duda, knew about plans to sabotage the pipeline.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Ukraine was responsible for the operation, which took place in September 2022.

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Poland received German request to arrest Nord Stream suspect but he’s left country, prosecutors say

Poland received a European arrest warrant issued by Berlin in connection with the 2022 attack on Nord Stream pipelines, but the suspect, a Ukrainian man named as Volodymyr Z, has already left Poland, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.

He was able to leave as Germany had failed to include his name in a database of wanted persons, added the prosecutors.

The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of explosions in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

German investigators believe Volodymyr Z, a Ukrainian diver, was part of a team that planted the explosives, the SZ and Die Zeit newspapers reported alongside the ARD broadcaster, citing unnamed sources.

Polish National Public Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Anna Adamiak said German authorities sent a European warrant to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw in June for Volodymyr Z in connection with proceedings conducted against him in Germany.

“Ultimately, Volodymyr Z was not detained because at the beginning of July he left Polish territory, crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border,” she wrote in an emailed statement in reply to Reuters questions.

“Free crossing of the Polish-Ukrainian border by the above-mentioned person was possible because German authorities … did not include him in the database of wanted persons, which meant that the Polish Border Guard had no knowledge and no grounds to detain Volodymyr Z.”

Polish law does not allow for publication of the full name of suspects in criminal investigations.

Germany said its relationship with Ukraine was not strained by the Nord Stream inquiry.

“The procedures have no bearing on what the Chancellor (Olaf Scholz) has described as the support of Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s illegal war of aggression, as long as necessary,” the spokesperson added.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The German federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the media reports.

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UK insurers refuse to pay Nord Stream because blasts were ‘government’ backed

The legal team representing high-powered insurers Lloyd’s and Arch says that since the Nord Stream explosions were “more likely than not to have been inflicted by… a government,” they have no responsibility to pay for damages to the pipelines. To succeed with that defense, the companies will presumably be compelled to prove, in court, who carried out those attacks. 

British insurers are arguing that they have no obligation to honor their coverage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which were blown up in September 2022, because the unprecedented act of industrial sabotage was likely carried out by a national government.

The insurers’ filing contradicts reports the Washington Post and other legacy media publications asserting that a private Ukrainian team was responsible for the massive act of industrial sabotage.

A legal brief filed on behalf of UK-based firms Lloyd’s Insurance Company and Arch Insurance states that the “defendants will rely on, inter alia, the fact that the explosion Damage could only have (or, at least, was more likely than not to have) been inflicted by or under the order of a government.”

As a result, they argue, “the Explosion Damage was “directly or indirectly occasioned by, happening through, or in consequence of” the conflict between Russia and Ukraine” and falls under an exclusion relating to military conflicts.

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WaPo Drops Bombshell On The Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Narrative: A Ukrainian Colonel, Covert Ops, & The CIA’s Shadow

No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.”

The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West. By targeting the pipeline, the operatives (whoever they were) struck a blow to a critical artery of Russian energy exports, a sector that has been at the heart of European-Russian economic relations.

Additionally, as the Goebbels-ian narrative that ‘Russia did it’ was pushed by mainstream media (and politicians), it enabled further ‘aid’ to be sent to Ukraine, to ‘protect interests’.

Chervinsky, a senior figure within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was allegedly the “coordinator” of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The operation, executed with precision and secrecy, involved deep-sea diving and explosive charges, ultimately resulting in substantial damage to the pipeline which Ukraine had long complained would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.

Of course, as one would expect, the Ukrainian Colonel, via his counsel, refutes any involvement in the pipeline sabotage, blaming Russia for this accusation.

“Without merit, Russian propaganda is spreading all rumors regarding my participation in the assault on Nord Stream,” Chervinsky stated in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which jointly investigated his activities.

It would not have been out of character as WaPo reports that Chervinsky is a decorated officer with extensive experience in covert operations, reportedly including plans to ensnare Russian Wagner mercenaries and targeting pro-Russian separatists, highlighting a pattern of aggressive, high-stakes operations against Russian interests.

Furthermore, WaPo reports that Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, again “according to the people familiar with his role,” but instead took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, “according to people familiar with how the operation was carried out.”

More problematically, Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream assault is in direct opposition to Zelensky’s public denials regarding Ukraine’s involvement.

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CIA-run Nord Stream Attack Was Aimed at Germany

A US intelligence source has told journalist Seymour Hersh that President Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines to prevent Germany from backtracking on promises to abandon Russian energy.

In a blog post on Tuesday, the veteran reporter alleged that the German economy was of no concern to the White House.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connected Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea, were destroyed in a series of underwater explosions a year ago. Competing theories have emerged as to who was to blame, with mainstream media in the West blaming a Ukrainian commando unit and Hersh claiming that the CIA carried out the operation under direct orders from Biden.

In his blog post, Hersh alleged that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened a series of meetings in late 2021, tasking intelligence officials with coming up with a means of deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin from sending troops into Ukraine.

The White House’s policy was to deter Russia from an attack,” an intelligence source told Hersh. “The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability.”

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New evidence from Nord Stream underwater expedition refutes official claims

Observers have drawn a number of conclusions based on a recent series of visits to the site of the Nord Stream pipeline rupture via drone. There’s just one problem: all of them seemed to have missed the location of the explosions.

After a recent underwater expedition, The Grayzone can now reveal where they went wrong, and what the real blast sites tell us about the worst act of eco-terrorism in history.

On September 26, 2022 and 3 minutes past midnight UTC, a magnitude 1.8 seismic wave struck the Baltic Sea. Finnish and Norwegian researchers placed the epicenter just southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. 17 hours later, another 2.3 magnitude event occurred. The Swiss-based operator of the Nord Stream pipelines, which once fed huge quantities of Russian natural gas to Germany, reported a sudden drop in pressure from 105 to 7 bar in one of Nord Stream 2’s two offshore lines.

Overhead, aircraft filmed as an estimated 75,000 – 230,000 tons of methane bubbled up from the Baltic. Earthquake researchers said the force of the man-made blast was equivalent to 700 kg of TNT.

But what if the seismic readings they observed were not a result of the explosion itself, but rather, the subsequent force of the pipeline rapidly depressurizing?

Nine months later, several European countries have conducted investigations of the attack. But none have released their findings, and the question of who ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines remains the subject of intense public debate.

In an effort to shed light on the episode, the Grayzone has obtained never-before-seen footage from the scene of the crime.

The Grayzone acquired the underwater images and footage from Erik Andersson, a Swedish engineer who led an expedition to the Nordstream blast sites. This visual evidence refutes the widely-held theory that “hundreds of kilograms” of explosive materials were used to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines last September.

Experts consulted by the Grayzone say the footage indicates that the bulk of the damage suffered by the pipelines was not a result of the explosions themselves, but from the rapid release of extremely high pressure. For the first time, The Grayzone is releasing these images, which enable observers to ascertain the positioning, size, and type of charge used in the blast.

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CIA Knew Ukraine Was Planning To Bomb Nord Stream Pipelines

Several Western media outlets reported Tuesday that the CIA warned Ukraine last year not to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that connect Russia and Germany.

In recent months, US and other Western officials speaking to the media have suggested Ukraine was behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Most reports on the issue have ignored or dismissed the fact that journalist Seymour Hersh has sources who said President Biden ordered the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.

According to unnamed US officials speaking to The New York Times, Dutch intelligence officials told the CIA in June 2022 that they learned of a Ukrainian military plot to attack the pipelines. The CIA then warned Ukraine not to carry out the attack, and US officials now believe it was postponed to September 2022.

A European official told the Times that Ukraine’s original plan involved Ukrainian special forces renting a submersible vessel to attack the pipelines. The CIA was also said to warn Germany about a potential plot to sabotage Nord Stream.

The latest Nord Stream allegations were first reported by the news outlet Die Zeit and NOS, a Dutch broadcaster. They claimed that the Ukrainian plot was overseen by Valery Zaluchny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied Kyiv was involved in the destruction of the pipelines. “I am president, and I give orders accordingly,” he said. “Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way.”

The idea that the US suspected Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings first surfaced in a New York Times report that was published on March 7. Sources told Seymour Hersh that the report was a cover-up planted in the paper by the CIA to discredit his story that points the finger at President Biden.

Hersh’s reporting on the Nord Stream plot hasn’t been confirmed, but the US is still a prime suspect as it had a clear motive and US officials made threats against the pipelines. On February 7, 2022, President Biden vowed to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine.

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