Past covert ops and sabotage provide clues to the apparently deliberate destruction of Nord Stream pipelines
By Rachel Marsden, RUSSIA TODAY
This handout photo taken on September 28, 2022 from an aircraft of the Swedish Coast Guard (Kustbevakningen) shows the release of gas emanating from a leak on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, in the Swedish economic zone in the Baltic Sea. © Handout / SWEDISH COAST GUARD / AFP
Speculation abounds since both Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, designed to carry cheap Russian gas to Europe, were damaged this week in what officials widely describe as deliberate acts of sabotage. Who could be responsible? Incidents buried in the past may provide a clue.
Speculation abounds, and typically in a direction colored by the preexisting biases of the person speculating – which is hardly helpful.
Let’s start with the end result and work backwards.
The outcome ultimately means that Europe’s economic impetus for ever seeking peace with Russia has been seriously undermined, if not literally destroyed. Someone has taken it upon themselves to demolish the remaining bridges between the two. Until now, there was always a chance of reconciliation. Russian President Vladimir Putin said himself recently that all the EU needed to do to pull itself out of its self-imposed energy crisis was to push the button on its gas supply from Russia and drop the anti-Russian sanctions that prevent it from doing so.
People in the streets of German cities protesting against Berlin’s blind following of Brussels’ anti-Russia sanctions also knew that was the answer. But now that option has been taken off the table. The EU is now adrift amid a deepening energy crisis and someone burned its last sails. It’s clear that Europe itself wouldn’t benefit from that. Nor does it benefit at all from any of its own anti-Russian sanctions. But who gave Brussels that idea, to harm its own economy in the first place?
At the onset of the Ukrainian conflict, it was Washington that egged on the EU to mirror measures that Washington itself had adopted in an effort to deprive Moscow of revenues to fuel its interests and objectives in Ukraine. The problem is that the EU’s economy was far more entwined with Russia’s than America’s. Any sense that US President Joe Biden and his administration may have given EU leaders, that they’d be there to help the bloc soften the blow of its self-sacrificial sanctions, has since been replaced by a harsh, pragmatic reality. US shale executives have explained to Western media that they simply lack the capacity to ramp up production for Europe’s winter crunch, even amid the growing rationing, deindustrialization, and risk of blackouts.
So, pressure has recently been increasing on EU member states to achieve a rapid diplomatic, peaceful resolution. But any reconnection of Nord Stream gas would have been a blow to US economic ambitions, which eventually include turning the EU into a dependent liquefied natural gas client.
To that end, US officials have even tried to market their natural gas in the past as “freedom molecules,” in contrast to the “authoritarian” Russian gas.
Biden himself said of Nord Stream 2 during a press conference on February 7, before the Ukraine conflict had even popped off, that “we will bring an end to it,” despite it being out of American control. But even long before that, the US was sanctioning and bullying European companies into halting construction on Nord Stream 2 under the pretext of saving Europe from Russia. It’s worth noting that Europe didn’t really have problems with Russia this century until the US decided to make Ukraine an outpost for the State Department.
Not only did Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned operator of the pipeline, persist against all odds to finish it, but it’s really the only leverage that Moscow has in Europe. Attributing to Moscow the recent sabotage of their own economic interests in Europe seems absurd. The damage done to the pipelines now means that to prevent them from being completely filled with sea water and destroyed, Russia is forced to keep pumping gas through them and into the sea at their own expense. What exactly does Moscow gain from any of this? Conversely, what does Washington gain? Nothing less than Brussels’ full dependence, which proved elusive when Europe could split its interests between the east and west.
As for who possesses the technical ability to execute underwater pipeline sabotage, both Russia and the US do. Much has been made in the past of the potential for cutting undersea cables – defined as an act of war by UK defense chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. The US actually has a history in such operations, having tapped into undersea cables to spy on the Soviet Union in the 1970s Operation Ivy Bells, according to public records about Operation Ivy Bells. Washington also has sabotaged Soviet gas pipelines before, albeit indirectly – according to Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who served on the National Security Council in 1982, when then-US President Ronald Reagan allegedly approved a plan for the CIA to sabotage components of a pipeline operated by the Soviet Union. The objective was to prevent Western Europe from importing natural gas from the Soviets. Sound familiar?
Time and inquiry will uncover the culprit eventually – if we’re lucky. EU officials are vowing to get to the bottom of it. “All available information indicates leaks are the result of a deliberate act. Deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,” Tweeted the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell. Perhaps investigators could pay a visit to Radoslaw Sikorski, European Parliament member and former Polish foreign minister, who tweeted a photo of the disaster aftermath along with the note, “Thank you, USA.”
But if it indeed turns out that Washington committed what some consider to be an act of war against Europe’s economy, will Brussels have the heart to really confront it? Or will Brussels continue to find justifications to remain complicit in its own demise?
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
The Norske did it Those wild descendants of Vikings are building their own pipeline to Europe. Uhf da
The U.S. is probably not behind this,America is just the fall guy.
The regime in Washington is led by a perverted cretin in the White House who can’t even find the fly on his pants in times of need! He is just the puppet of the Europeans,probably Britain.
America is just the big enforcer with huge muscles used by the Europeans when big political/military muscles are needed.
Biden in the White House just say’s & does what his bosses on the other side of the Atlantic tell him to say & do.
Washington initiates nothing.
Perhaps the NWO in western Europe,taking a beating from the Russians,hopes to pull the USA into the mess to save them!
In line with Luongo’s warning, Russia has now suspended gas tranfers to Italy, making the coming crisis even more profound.
The Curious Whodunit of Nordstreams 1 and 2The Curious Whodunit of Nordstreams 1 and 2
An interesting perspective from a dissenting voice. Luongo believes the US did the deed on Nord 1/2 but that the puppet master controlling the Davos installed Sock-Puppet-in-Chief Biden was none other than Davos, albeit, the Sock-Puppet-In-Chief was installed by the efforts of nearly everyone except the American people, but Luongo shares the reasoning for his views for all to evaluate. He suggests that this terrorist attack will turn Europe against both the US and Russia while leaving Europe without an alternative, which is exactly in line with what Davos needed to achieve. In doing so, the Davos crowd have flipped the playing board, rendering all infrastructures around the world as being fair game and pipelines in particular are at elevated risk, ending all pipeline constructions around the world – exactly in line with the agenda of Davos. In the cataclysm that follows, Davos will be there with their ready solutions, prepped to make the world happy with less.
He states the one hope the world has comes from America, and it is not a very good chance at that.
Watch the video first and then read his commentary. I believe it is well worth the time.
Michael,
We are all just guessing and that is ok to ponder the events unfolding before us. The election in November is less then 40 days away. It will take more than forty days from now to start WW3. I could be wrong, I hope not! How long did it take the USA to respond to 911? Less than 40 days, but Afghanistan is not Russia. Russia as a nation will follow a similar process as the USA government did. will Putin’s approval ratings soar as GWB’s did? Will those young cowards who fled Russia return home when their country is under attack by the Western world if Article 5 kicks in because Russia retaliates?
“Following the attacks, President George W. Bush’s approval rating soared to 90%.[226] On September 20, 2001, he addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress regarding the events of September 11 and the subsequent nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and described his intended response to the attacks.”(wiki)
On October 7, 2001, the War in Afghanistan began when U.S. and British forces initiated aerial bombing campaigns targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda camps, then later invaded Afghanistan with ground troops of the Special Forces. This eventually led to the overthrow of the Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan with the Fall of Kandahar on December 7, 2001, by U.S.-led coalition forces. Osama bin Laden, who went into hiding in the White Mountains, was targeted by U.S. coalition forces in the Battle of Tora Bora, but he escaped across the Pakistani border and would remain out of sight for almost ten years. (wiki)
The world has lost its mind and I fear that since men can now become PREGNANT, we just might be headed for the unimaginable.
Is all this part of the WEF plan of action to conquer the world?
Hi, Peloni.
Yes; but starting WWIII would provide a tremendous distraction. If COVID 19 was enough of a distraction to steal the 2020 election, the threat of nuclear annihilation should be good for something. Remember, the Democrats have only one sacred purpose in life: to grasp and keep power; and creating a massive smoke screen next month is the ONLY game they have left.
@Michael
I am not sure how this would help the Dems at the polls in Nov, to be honest. I do believe they would do anything to change the coming wave against their control in the Congress, but blowing up the pipeline isn’t going to upstage the coming election results, not in my opinion in any event.
I do believe that this was as great, probably greater, of a terrorist strike against Germany than it was agaist Russia. The capture of Europe energy market by the US has been a goal of the US for many years now, and it is finally been accomplished, albeit with a bigger bang than anyone would have suspected previously. The only question now is whether the US is going to go back to drilling for oil to fuel the European needs or are the Europeans going to find the means of drilling in their own lands.
I disagree, Ted. “The US” did this, because “The US” is about to get smashed at the polls a month from now, unless it does something drastic. It’s ALL about the elections.
The G7 have been a US protectorate since 1945.
I expressed this opinion immediately on learning of the explosions. The US is a war criminal.
The US just made a vassel out of the European countries.
I reject one of her argument namely that the US did this in order to be able to sell its gas to the Europeans instead. I think the US did this to prevent the Europeans from caving to Russian pressure and making peace.