Tag: sabotage

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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Danish military says it’s monitoring Chinese ship closely after undersea cables severed

The Danish military said on Wednesday that it was staying close to a Chinese ship currently sitting idle in Danish waters, days after two fibre-optic data telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were severed.

Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday, with a Danish navy patrol ship at anchor nearby, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data showed.

“The Danish Defence can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said in a post on social media X, adding it had no further comments.

Two critical undersea fibre optic #cables in the #BalticSea—linking Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Germany—were severed on November 17th and 18th, raising serious security concerns. The Chinese-flagged bulk carrier YI PENG 3 is suspended for its potential involvement.… pic.twitter.com/XRikzko8Pw— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) November 20, 2024

It is quite rare for Denmark’s military to comment publicly on individual vessels travelling in Danish waters. It did not mention the cable breaches or say why it was staying with the ship.

Swedish police later told news agency TT they were also interested in the Yi Peng 3, adding there might be other vessels of interest to Sweden’s investigation.

The Chinese ship left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov.

15 and was in the areas where the cable damages occurred, according to traffic data, which showed other ships to have been in the areas too.

One cable running between Sweden and Lithuania was cut on Sunday and another one between Finland and Germany was severed less than 24 hours later on Monday.

The breaches happened in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone and Swedish prosecutors started a preliminary investigation on Tuesday on suspicion of possible sabotage.

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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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Zero Battlefield Gains Force Ukraine to Send Foreign Mercs on ‘Revenge’ Sabotage Missions – Expert

An attempt by a Ukrainian sabotage team to covertly infiltrate Russia’s Bryansk region was thwarted by Russian border guards, with four enemy saboteurs eliminated. Foreign weapons, equipment, and personal items on the corpses of four saboteurs indicated the presence of foreign mercenaries in the unit.

The lack of any battlefield success has prompted Ukraine and its NATO handlers to resort to expanded use of “revenge” sabotage missions using foreign mercenaries, Joao Claudio Pitillo, historian and researcher at the Center for the Study of the Americas at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), told Sputnik.

“These mercenaries are recruited, trained, and increasingly directed towards this type of sabotage action that takes the form of revenge… The realization of the impossibility of victory for Ukraine and NATO against Russia prompts expanded use of punitive actions,” he said.

“Such training takes a lot of time and requires experienced personnel. Ukraine likely lacks the manpower to cover both fronts,” Brazilian naval reserve officer and defense consultant Robinson Farinazzo added.

As part of Ukrainian sabotage groups, Western military personnel from elite units, such as the US Rangers, are also engaged in collecting intelligence on enemy routes, weak points, etc., which may subsequently prove useful for “NATO command and future operations on Russian territory,” Farinazzo told Sputnik.

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Sabotage Confirmed At Norwegian Air Base

Norway has revealed that one of its most strategic air bases has been the target of sabotage. The announcement comes as other European NATO air bases — namely in Germany — report incidents, one of which remains unexplained, as well as troubling drone activity over critical infrastructure. These incidents come amid increasing warnings about nefarious Russian activity on the continent, part of an apparent wave of ‘hybrid warfare’ as the conflict in Ukraine further stokes East-West tensions.

Reports emerged today from The Barents Observer that a critical communications cable associated with Evenes Air Station, in northern Norway, had been severed. The incident occurred in April and was reported to the police, but has only now been announced, as state prosecutors investigate what happened.

The precise function of the cable has not been disclosed, but reports describe it as being “part of the air base’s critical infrastructure,” and that it was cut outside the airfield’s perimeter. The Norwegian Police have confirmed that it was severed in a deliberate action but that, so far, no one has been charged, and no suspects have been identified at this point.

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DNC Maggots: FBI Investigates the Gross Breakfast Discovery

The FBI is investigating a potential sabotage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago after maggots were allegedly slipped into the hotel breakfast being served to delegates.

Law enforcement agencies suggest activists likely brought the maggots into the hotel to make a statement, while city officials released a statement addressing the delegate breakfast dilemma.

“Multiple unknown female offenders are alleged to have entered a building (200 block of North Columbus Drive) and began placing unknown objects onto tables containing food. The offenders are believed to have then left the area. One victim was treated and released on-scene. Along with CPD, FBI-Chicago is assisting in the investigation. No further information is available at this time.”

It’s unclear if the contamination was found before any delegates ate the food.

Delegates expressed concern over the maggot incident while Chicago police officers and Illinois state troopers gathered in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel near the meeting rooms.

“They protected us, of course, and turned it around in minutes,” said Indiana delegate Tracy Boyd, who is at the convention representing the Indianapolis region. She said her group was notified that breakfast service would be briefly delayed due to the incident.

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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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Paris Olympics Shut Down By Sabotage Attacks On High-Speed Train System

Transportation to the French capital has been seriously disrupted at the start of the Paris Olympics by sabotage attacks on the high-speed rail system in France.

A series of fires caused the disruptions early in the morning local time, hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

Several high-speed TGV lines have been hit to the west, north and east of the capital and Eurostar has also warned customers of longer journey times and cancellations, wrote BBC.

Nobody has claimed responsibility and Mr Attal said that security forces were searching for those responsible. The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating.

“Early this morning, acts of sabotage were carried out in a prepared and coordinated manner on SNCF installations,” Mr Attal wrote on social media.

SNCF earlier described the fires as a “massive attack” involving “malicious acts”. It said it was fixing the cables damaged in the attacks manually “one by one”.

“A French source told CDM, the SNCF is putting a monster IRON DOME on the story, impossible to get info, they are kicking out the journalists of the gares station, this is a monster brothel, it will take 48 h before everything will be repiared. The lags are massive, the amount of people blocked in the gares is just out of control.

“2h delay minimum, with redirection to regional train. 800 000 people blocked in the gare stations.”

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Deadly Blaze Rips Through US-Sanctioned Moscow Electronics Research Building

A huge and deadly fire is raging at a defense technology research center outside of Moscow, which has so far reportedly taken the lives of at least eight people (per BBC citing state media updates, though the casualty count is conflicting).

A building of the Platan Research Institute has been engulfed in flames, widespread social media videos show. It is located in the town of Fryazino in the Moscow region. Importantly, Platan develops radio-electronic systems for Russia’s Defense Ministry, raising suspicion that this could be the result of sabotage or covert attack connected to the war in Ukraine.

Governor Moscow oblast, Andrei Vorobyov, confirmed in a Monday statement that three floors of the building have been overwhelmed by flames. “The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth floors are on fire,” Mash said Monday.

TASS has cited an eyewitness who saw two people tragically fall to their deaths after they jumped from a window trying to escape the flames and thick smoke. BBC writes:

There are conflicting reports about the building’s purpose. It once homed the Platan Research Institute and defence industry, according to Tass.

A statement to the agency from Ruselectronics, a Russia-owned electronics organisation, said the building has been privately owned since the 1990s. However, opposition media outlets recently reported that Platan was based in the building as late as 2023.

It is not immediately clear what caused the fire, but one eyewitness told Tass that it broke out on the sixth floor before spreading.

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