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The Bornholm Blow-Up Repeats the Bornholm Bash — Poland Attacks Germany and Blames Russia
Posted on September 28, 2022 by Lambert Strether
Lambert here:
Helmer sheds some light on this extraordinary tweet by global thinker, Bullingdon Club member, AEI fellow, former Minister of Defense of Poland, and Blob spouse Radek Sikorski:
Thanks for what? Helmer explains.
By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears
The military operation on Monday night which fired munitions to blow holes in the Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor, near Bornholm Island, was executed by the Polish Navy and special forces.
It was aided by the Danish and Swedish military; planned and coordinated with US intelligence and technical support; and approved by the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
The operation is a repeat of the Bornholm Bash operation of April 2021, which attempted to sabotage Russian vessels laying the gas pipes, but ended in ignominious retreat by the Polish forces. That was a direct attack on Russia. This time the attack is targeting the Germans, especially the business and union lobby and the East German voters, with a scheme to blame Moscow for the troubles they already have — and their troubles to come with winter.
Morawiecki is bluffing. “It is a very strange coincidence,” he has announced, “that on the same day that the Baltic Gas Pipeline opens, someone is most likely committing an act of sabotage. This shows what means the Russians can resort to in order to destabilize Europe. They are to blame for the very high gas prices”. The truth bubbling up from the seabed at Bornholm is the opposite of what Morawiecki says.
But the political value to Morawiecki, already running for the Polish election in eleven months’ time, is his government’s claim to have solved all of Poland’s needs for gas and electricity through the winter — when he knows that won’t come true.
Inaugurating the 21-year old Baltic Pipe project from the Norwegian and Danish gas networks, Morawiecki announced: “This gas pipeline is the end of the era of dependence on Russian gas. It is also a gas pipeline of security, sovereignty and freedom not only for Polish, but in the future, also for others…[Opposition Civic Platform leader Donald] Tusk’s government preferred Russian gas. They wanted to conclude a deal with the Russians even by 2045…thanks to the Baltic Pipe, extraction from Polish deposits, LNG supply from the USA and Qatar, as well as interconnection with its neighbours, Poland is now secured in terms of gas supplies.”
Civic Platform’s former defence and foreign minister Radek Sikorski also celebrated the Bornholm Blow-up. “As we say in Polish, a small thing, but so much joy”. “Thank you USA,” Sikorski added, diverting the credit for the operation, away from domestic rival Morawiecki to President Joseph Biden; he had publicly threatened to sabotage the line in February. Biden’s ambassador in Warsaw is also backing Sikorski’s Civic Platform party to replace Morawiecki next year.
The attack not only escalates the Polish election campaign. It also continues the Morawiecki government’s plan to attack Germany, first by reviving the reparations claim for the invasion and occupation of 1939-45; and second, by targeting alleged German complicity, corruption, and appeasement in the Russian scheme to rule Europe at Poland’s expense. .
“The appeasement policy towards Putin”, announced PISM, the official government think tank in Warsaw in June, “is part of an American attempt to free itself from its obligations of maintaining peace in Europe. The bargain is that Americans will allow Putin to finish building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in exchange for Putin’s commitment not use it to blackmail Eastern Europe. Sounds convincing? Sounds like something you heard before? It’s not without reason that Winston Churchill commented on the American decision-making process: ‘Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.’ However, by pursuing such a policy now, the Biden administration takes even more responsibility for the security of Europe, including Ukraine, which is the stake for subsequent American mistakes.”
“Where does this place Poland? Almost 18 years ago the Federal Republic of Germany, our European ally, decided to prioritize its own business interests with Putin’s Russia over solidarity and cooperation with allies in Central Europe. It was a wrong decision to make and all Polish governments – regardless of political differences – communicated this clearly and forcefully to Berlin. But since Putin succeeded in corrupting the German elite and already decided to pay the price of infamy, ignoring the Polish objections was the only strategy Germany was left with.”
The explosions at Bornholm are the new Polish strike for war in Europe against Chancellor Olaf Scholz. So far the Chancellery in Berlin is silent, tellingly.
Follow on the map where the Bornholm Blow-up – three simultaneous bomb or torpedo explosions – was arranged.
The Nord Stream operating company posted first notice of the attack on its website on the evening of September 26. “Tonight [Swiss time] the dispatchers of the Nord Stream 1 control centre registered a pressure drop on both lines of the gas pipeline. The reasons are being investigated.”
The following morning the company added: “The significant pressure drop caused by the gas leak on both lines of the gas pipeline registered yesterday leads to a strong assumption of the pipeline physical damage. Nord Stream AG immediately informed the relevant coast guards about the incident. The positions of two assumed damages have been identified and are located north-east from Bornholm in Swedish and Danish EEZ, respectively. Currently the Swedish and Danish maritime authorities established a 5nm safety zone around the identified locations (Nautical information | Danish Maritime Authority (dma.dk)). Nord Stream AG has started mobilization of all necessary resources for a survey campaign to assess the damages in cooperation exchange with relevant local authorities. Currently, it is not possible to estimate a timeframe for restoring the gas transport infrastructure. The causes of the incident will be clarified as a result of the investigation.” The European sanctions regime blocked company officials from investigating at the site.
Russian satellite, aviation, and electronic monitoring of the area is comprehensive; Ukrainian double-agents corroborate. The Russian account of what happened is provided in this summary of open sources by Gazeta.ru. The military preparations in the days and hours before the blasts have not been disclosed, yet.
“The operator company Nord Stream said that at the same time destruction was recorded on three lines of the offshore gas pipelines Nord Stream and Nord Stream–2. ‘The destruction that occurred in one day simultaneously on three lines of offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system is unprecedented. It is impossible to estimate the time frame for restoring the operability of the gas transportation infrastructure,’ the operator of Nord Stream noted.”
“The Kremlin is concerned about the situation. ‘This is very disturbing news. We are talking about some kind of destruction in the pipe of an unclear nature in the Danish economic zone,’ said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin spokesman stressed that the pressure in the gas pipelines had dropped significantly: ‘This is a completely unprecedented situation that requires urgent investigation.’ Peskov noted that the nature of the destruction is unknown. Sabotage is not excluded. ‘No option can be ruled out now. Obviously, there is some kind of destruction of the pipe. And what was the reason – before the results of the research appear, it is impossible to exclude any option,’ Putin’s press secretary added.”
“The opinion that the destruction occurred because of someone’s ‘ill will’ was expressed earlier by the deputy head of the National Energy Security Fund Alexei Grivach. ‘If a leak on one line could still be an accident, the consequence of a defect or an involuntary impact, then on three [lines] it is clearly someone’s ill will. Well, who is fighting with Russian gas in Europe is not really hiding,’ RIA Novosti quotes him as saying. Grivach believes that it will take months to repair the gas pipeline lines. ‘The representative of the operator company Ulrich Lissek drew attention to the fact that it is difficult to determine the causes of the pressure drop due to ‘the sanctions regime and the lack of personnel on the ground.’ On the night of September 26, a leak occurred on one of the lines of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline. According to the representative of Nord Stream 2 AG, Ulrich Lissek, ‘in some place’ along the pipeline, ‘most likely a hole has appeared.’ He said that in normal mode, the pressure inside the gas pipeline lines ‘is 105 bar“, but on the German segment it has decreased to 7 bar. The Danish Maritime Administration has discovered damage to a gas pipeline near the island of Bornholm. Presumably, the alleged point of emergency is located in the exclusive economic zone – just beyond the border of the territorial waters of Denmark. The leak was located at the position of 54 °52.60′ north latitude— 015 ° 24.60′ east longitude, writes RBK.”
For RBK’s coverage, including surface filming by the Danes of gas bubbling above the pipeline holes, click.
This is what the government in Warsaw arranged at Bornholm a year and five months ago. At that time Morawiecki was prime minister; the German chancellor was Angela Merkel. The official Warsaw innuendo in Merkel’s direction was more restrained than it is now against Scholz.
Left: Angela Merkel; right, Mateusz Morawiecki. Source: http://johnhelmer.net/
Then the Polish spokesman for the security and intelligence services, Stanislaw Żaryn, launched a stream of accusations on his Twitter account. According to Zaryn, Russian public disclosure of the Baltic engagements was “information warfare” intended as a “pretext for launching activities aimed at enhancing its military presence in the Baltic region”. He went on: “#NordStream2 may be used by #Russia as a pretext for the deployment of its naval forces along pipeline’s route. This may lead to a partial closure of the Baltic Sea.”
Now Zaryn’s innuendo is plainer. What Zaryn means to say is that Germany “jeopardizes the security of Poland”.
Western propaganda media have tried to create the appearance of German government approval for the Polish attack.
“Denmark, Germany and Poland warn of ‘sabotage’ after Nord Stream leaks”, the Financial Times, the Japanese platform in London, headlined: “Berlin says Russia’s involvement cannot be excluded after damage to gas pipelines at centre of Europe’s energy crisis.” Scholz and his ministers were not quoted. Instead, low-ranking, anonymous “German officials said there was concern in Berlin that the sudden loss of pressure in both pipelines could be the result of a ‘targeted attack’. They added that Russia’s involvement could ‘not be excluded’, but said Germany was not involved in the investigation being run by Denmark and Sweden.”
In Washington, the local newspaper claimed “European leaders blame Russian ‘sabotage’ after Nord Stream explosions”, quoting Danes, Swedes, Poles, Ukrainians, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and “five European officials with direct knowledge of security discussions [who] said there was a widespread assumption that Russia was behind the incident. Only Russia had the motivation, the submersible equipment and the capability, several of them said.” Not a single German government official could be found to speak by the newspaper’s Berlin bureau.
The temptation for Morawiecki to break out of the political stalemate he and his Law and Justice (PiS) party have been in since June has also been driven by fear that, following the fresh Russian reinforcements, the Ukrainian battlefield will move west and south; Ukrainian electric light and heat will be cut off; and millions of fresh refugees will attempt to cross into Poland again.
Tracking polls for Polish voter intentions illustrate the flat lines for the two leading parties, and the potential growth of the left and right minority parties. On September 1, the PiS party leader launched the Polish reparations attack on Germany, declaring “we have also taken the decision as to the further steps…We will turn to Germany to open negotiations on the reparations.” The move didn’t shift the party’s poll rating. The Bornholm Blow-up was already in planning for three weeks later.
Source: https://www.politico.eu/
Independent Warsaw political analyst Stanislas Balcerac comments: “Poland is not a place where brainstorms happen. Only the brainless Sikkie [Sikorski] is having his day.”
This entry was posted in Energy markets, Europe, Russia on September 28, 2022 by Lambert Strether.
COMMENTS
Greg
September 28, 2022 at 6:20 am
If true, I would be marking the shiny new Polish pipeline as likely next target for the new battlezone noone sane wanted.
And I’m assuming the USA has provided Poland with assurances, should Russia decide payback is due on firm ground.
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fairleft
September 28, 2022 at 7:04 am
It’s a paid-for-by-Germany pipeline, and the sabotage is directed at Germany. Russia is only upset by a loss of leverage that might’ve helped end the war early (and on better terms for Ukraine and the West). But Russia is also fine with winning the war unambiguously. Gas-wise, it had decided many months ago to stake its energy future on China/Asia. Germany/EU has established itself as untrustworthy and unreliable.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 7:24 am
Speaking of Ukraine, i ran into a claim that the Polish government is slowly but steadily introducing legislation that is effectively dissolving the Polish-Ukrainian border. Supposedly this had lead to some anti-Ukrainian protests in Poland, but i suspect this will be a downright pain to find any evidence of in English. Also, i wonder how EU is taking it all, as that border is also an outer border of the Schengen area.
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chris a
September 28, 2022 at 9:53 am
It seems from all indications, the only negotiated settlement with Ukraine is unconditional surrender, and that has been the case for some time. The sabotage of the pipelines ensures Germany cannot do what is best for its people.
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Mike
September 28, 2022 at 8:28 am
Yeah joke will be on Poland regardless because that shiny new pipeline will someday be shut off or run out of gas anyway. Norwegian oil fields have been in structural decline for 2 decades, gas production could peak in the next 10 years or sooner. Someday Norway will get their head on straight to hoard the resource instead of giving it to U.K. and Poland.
In the end Russia’s reserves are far larger than Norway’s.
At this point still cant rule out Russia technically. The simplest operation, would be pipeline inspection drone’s packed with explosives. Way easier than a stealth diving operation I could imagine.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 11:38 am
On that note, there is a ongoing debate about extending oil and gas activity northwards. But the ROI on doing so is abysmal. And it also risk polluting some of the nation’s richest fish stocks.
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fairleft
September 28, 2022 at 6:22 am
The sabotage was directly carried out by either the US or Poland, both of which have the capacity and it’s a NATO sea so no alarm bells would sound like they would if Russian vessels had entered the Bornholm island area. The great Moon of Alabama provides all the available evidence.
Big picture, the US is responsible for the attack. Poland would’ve run it by the US, knowing the Neocons would approve. US policy is ‘keep Germany down’, and de-industrialization is ‘down’. Catastrophically down but apparently the only alternative to a Russia-gas-enabled ‘up’.
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1 Kings
September 28, 2022 at 7:35 am
Yeah, what could ever go wrong if Germany turns economically depressed?..
F..ing madness.
Guess we’re going to learn the Lebenstraum shuffle again..
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Louis Fyne
September 28, 2022 at 8:32 am
bye bye German surpluses = bye bye Italian banks = bye bye Credit Suisse/Deutsche Bank = bye bye EU grants to Poland = bye bye bye German demand for Polish widgets.
Reality has turned into a Tom Clancy novel. Waiting for the revelation that Nuland personally drove the submersible.
worst timeline ever (for the EU/UK)
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ambrit
September 28, 2022 at 8:47 am
The right person to ask about any submersible that could have been used in the sabotage would be Robert Ballard. Such submersibles were the item of expertise for the man when he was active duty in US Naval Intelligence.
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Altandmain
September 28, 2022 at 6:33 am
Who else has a motive to do this apart from the US?
Basically the evidence suggests that the US is ultimately responsible for the whole operation. It seems the US used Poland as an intermediary to do the actual work, although ultimately I have no doubt Washington called the real shots here.
The big question is what will happen now? Will The Germans blindly follow the tune of blaming Russia?
Or will this be a bigger geopolitical shift? Germany should not take a close look at who is their ally and who has their best interests at heart. That’s putting this very mildly.
Alex Christoforou has done a pretty interesting segment about this.
https://youtu.be/B1QaEPZAz6c
It does close the option of Germany declaring a settlement with Russia and become a major importer of Russian gas after the current conflict is over. It could be a while before the pipelines are repaired.
Let’s just say it’s going to be a cold winter for Germany this year.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 7:28 am
Frankly it seems like those “green” parties that has been sprouting all over Europe are US puppets, thinking they can somehow balance a globalist consumerist lifestyle with going “green” while seeding chaos among the electorate.
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russell1200
September 28, 2022 at 10:16 am
Actually a lot of people would be motivated to do it. There is a whole variety of competing Southern European pipelines to start with.
So no, I am not saying Turkey blew up the pipeline. Just saying that fossil fuel politics are awfully squirrelly and nothing is ever that straightforward.
FWIW, I find the Poles to be compelling candidates, although I am not sure why the author of this post rules out the Ukrainians. But then you have the Germans saying it might have been the Russians. Which doesn’t make sense given this post. Why would they say that if the Poles are fighting a [low grade] war against the Germans.
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Fazal Majid
September 28, 2022 at 6:37 am
7 bar is the water column pressure at 70m depth where the pipeline lies. To this layman, this suggests that section of pipeline has been completely destroyed, not just holed, and will require extensive repairs taking years.
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juno mas
September 28, 2022 at 11:16 am
For those in the US, 1bar (pressure) equals 14.5 psi (pressure per square inch).
I don’t see how ~90 psi water column pressure would collapse a steel pipeline (even after an explosion).
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NN Cassandra
September 28, 2022 at 6:48 am
That Sikorski tweet was very, very stupid indeed. I think when unemployed and freezing Germans take it into streets, whoever will want to lead the mob could find some use for it. Especially if Poles start throwing around outlandish demands for allowing gas thorough Yamal.
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Polar Socialist
September 28, 2022 at 6:56 am
Or maybe Poles will allow gas trough Poland if Germany concedes to pay the demanded reparations? They will need a lot of dough to bring those soon-to-be-Polish parts of Ukraine up to any modern standard of European nation…
/mostly in jest, but one doesn’t really know anymore
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The Rev Kev
September 28, 2022 at 7:57 am
Don’t laugh. I have read that that is precisely the situation. No reparations, no freedom molecules. And as Poland – and the Baltic States – are the most fanatical anti-Russian countries, they will have an assured energy source which western Europe won’t which will give them more say in EU policy.
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Exiled_in_Boston
September 28, 2022 at 10:33 am
Any idea why the Poles and Baltic nations are the most fanatical anti-Russian countries? Is there any recent history to their relationship with Russia that might cause this!
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The Rev Kev
September 28, 2022 at 10:48 am
I’ve met Scots who were still personally riled about the Battle of Culloden – and that was in 1746. There is such a thing as taking a grudge too far. And if it was the Poles that blew up those pipelines to freeze the Germans this winter, then that is another reason why holding grudges really ends up destroying yourself.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 10:55 am
Heck, people are still using the siege of Vienna in 1529 as a rallying cry. Never mind that the Ottoman empire has been gone for 100 years.
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Werther
September 28, 2022 at 7:16 am
They are already on the streets; the Thüringer Allgemeine (newspaper) reports 24000 people in towns and cities through that Bundesrepublik on the streets, demanding change of politics.
Nuancing in this is that the reports also make clear that demonstrating over there is very common starting from the COVID complaints… From history it seems clear to me that eastern germans are much more motivated to protest than their west-german compatriots…
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 7:33 am
Likely it is also the former DDR that is most connected to Russia through the old soviet pipes, and thus affected by all this.
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Werther
September 28, 2022 at 7:44 am
Yes, it seems possible that part of Germany will suffer first and harder… Strange when a personal impression in a holiday-week on the coast, just three weeks ago, was that of lots and lots of our German neighbours enjoying the watersports over here, many expensive campers etcetera… mainly from the west, Nordrhein-Westfalen of course.
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Louis Fyne
September 28, 2022 at 8:34 am
hubris is a heckuva drug
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Louis Fyne
September 28, 2022 at 8:44 am
should be noted Sikorski’s wife is WaPo journalist Anne Applebaum.
Or that on one of their frequent trips to Ukraine, John McCain brought along Amy Koblucbar…Jake Sullivan’s first DC job was as an aide to Kobluchar
time to play 7 degrees of Victoria Nuland.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 9:15 am
Ugh, this mental inbreeding along the coasts is getting as bad as the biological inbreeding they like to laugh at the flyover states for.
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Ignacio
September 28, 2022 at 7:00 am
Now it seems legit to attack crucial infrastructures. Legit by some twisted logic or at least some want to whitewash illegal actions. The final objective? EU to shit and total breakdown? Possibly not an objective by itself but an outcome of repeated mistakes, misjudgements and mismanagement.
It is amazing to see how fast this is unfolding. EU turns opposite of original intentions becoming a malignant tumour with no easy escape. Eastwards expansion could possibly have marked the beginning of the end of the adventure.
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Werther
September 28, 2022 at 7:31 am
That’s what I fear too, Ignacio. It is just nervebreaking how fast this is all coming down. I just hope the wonderful personal relations I had within the western and southern european countries remain embedded in good unilateral relations built up in 70 years between our nations…
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timbers
September 28, 2022 at 8:55 am
“Now it seems legit to attack crucial infrastructures.” Yes, even nuclear power plants. Whatever has become of our “civilization”.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 9:28 am
What was EU initial intentions? It is an overgrown free trade agreement between France and West Germany. And the rapid eastward expansion was in part pushed for by UK, where as the initial plan was for the eastern nations to adopt something akin to the EEA agreement that Iceland and Norway are subject to.
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Ignacio
September 28, 2022 at 9:48 am
It all started above the ruins of WW2 by late 50s and the idea (one of the ideas) was to create interdependence and avoid wars in this way. This has been forgotten and now it is about creating rules above member states and imposing sanctions when these are not followed. And supporting wars actively lately.
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Tom Stone
September 28, 2022 at 7:36 am
So..what happens to “Polish” Galicia now?
The actors, especially the USA have once again done something no sane or responsible person would have considered and raised the odds of a Nuclear exchange substantially, they have also pretty much guaranteed serious unrest in Germany. And the end of Scholz regime.
Tit for tat would be the destruction of the old river control structure on the Mississipi…
More likely would be hypersonic missile attacks on Command and Control centers in Kiev and Poland.
I wish my daughter lived closer to Ground Zero,…
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Werther
September 28, 2022 at 10:21 am
I hate to say, but instead of that control structure another part of the States is up for a big punch… Hurricane Ian is about to deal one to Florida. Seems to me TPTB over there need to concentrate on that coming disaster, not on worsening conflict over here in Europe.
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Stephen
September 28, 2022 at 7:40 am
The Telegraph in the UK is running an article speculating on how Putin could have done it. Classic propaganda stuff: no evidence or rational motive that Russia did it but jumping to the “how” so as to get people to internalize the message and not question it.
Russia gains zero from this so impossible to believe that they have anything to do with it. They lose leverage over controlling gas flows directly. They could choose either to turn off the NS1 taps openly or use turbine travel schedules as a good “no blame” reason to slow down the flow. Lots of negotiation options available as winter hit. They were also using the leverage they had to suggest that NS2 be opened. That hardly suggests they had any intention of sabotaging their own pipelines either.
The people who gain from this are the pro war anti Russia groups in the west.
Given that direct Germany-Russia pipelines are now shut, I guess that Poland and Ukraine gain more power to determine how much energy Germany gets and accordingly how much revenue Russia earns from the pipelines over their territory. There are other routes but all of them seem tricky.
I actually understand Poland’s behaviour in all this: a strong Russia and a strong Germany / Prussia has historically meant no independent Poland. So, weakening both states, stopping them from aligning and keeping the American “umbrella” is at least a coherent policy for Poland. We might not like it or agree that it is moral but it is what it is. Similarly, the American policy elite want to keep the European empire and the British elite like to think they still have an empire so pursue their traditional divide and rule (sorry “balance of power”) policy in Europe.
For the life of me, I do not understand Germany. This whole conflict is aimed at them as much as it is at Russia. They became dependent on Russian gas but the direct pipelines being destroyed makes them again dependent too on a whole host of additional countries who do not wish them well, as we are seeing with Poland’s demands for wartime reparations. If you accept Russian gas as a necessity, then NS direct pipelines helped reduce German dependence on other states.
There was some speculation by The Duran last night that having the NS pipelines out of action helps Scholz versus his population: they cannot now demand that NS2 be opened! That may be true but it sums up the paradox: why are the German political elites behaving like kamikazes for their entire economic and societal model? When will they wake up that they are as much seen as the enemy here as Russia? Have they really been indoctrinated so much by American soft power? Likely that they will now go with the flow of the western narrative which will be to blame Russia. Just like the false flag events in Syria.
If anyone has an answer for why Germany is behaving this way then it would be good!
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WJ
September 28, 2022 at 9:57 am
Recall that the NSA has been spying on European political elites for more than a decade.
There is a lot of blackmail opportunity out there.
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nippersdad
September 28, 2022 at 10:21 am
It strikes me that if it is determined that Poland was the culprit in all of this, the very first sanction Russia would place on them would be the closure of the Yamal pipeline. Why would they allow Poland to profit from their actions? It is not like Poland has been particularly friendly lately, and Russia has other, less fraught, sources of income.
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Mike
September 28, 2022 at 11:31 am
Ok now… Do I believe Russia did it? No.
But you can’t rule them out either. False flags can work both ways. Ukraine war certainly has been much more difficult for Russia then I think they originally imagined and Putin is painted into a corner. IF there is any truth to Putin’s latest conscription effort backfiring, a false flag can reinforce his position. Yes I know Russia is making more money then ever but not everyone could be on his side. They have lost a lot of soldiers and equipment. What’s the price tag on that versus the premium they are making on their marked up exports right now? Just trying to imagine all sides right now.
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DJG, Reality Czar
September 28, 2022 at 7:48 am
So now an EU member state is allowed to damage the infrastructure of another EU member state?
What sanctions are available against the Polish government for engaging in an act of war against an EU state?
Where is Ursula Von Der Bloviation when the EU should now be coming down like a ton of bricks on such stupidity by the Polish government?
What does occupied Germany do? How about for starters ejecting the U.S., Polish, and Ukrainian ambassadors? And this is all complicated by the U.S. bases on Germany–which, it sure looks like it, will have to go. Maybe they can be moved to Poloukrainia.
Is it time for a serious slowdown at the German-Danish border? A little pinchy-point?
Would I be correct in thinking that whatever is left of NATO’s mask just fell off? [This tactic is at the same level of the U.S. and its relations with Bolivia, such as they are.]
Time to end all sanctions on Russia by EU nations. Next up, ending sanctions on Iran.
[The West is stupid enough to believe that the Iranians are now going to elect as president Tiffany Hosseini, who will accede to all Western desires. Not with sanctions in place.]
[Sanctions are like torture–meant only to hurt. The sanctions have blown back on the geniuses, and the governments are torturing their own people. Enough is enough.]
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Ignacio
September 28, 2022 at 8:27 am
Concur 99-100%, 108% including inflation.
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Job
September 28, 2022 at 7:54 am
There is no evidence I can find in this article of it being perpetrated by Poland, US, Sweden and Denmark. A lot of guessing about motivation though. Or have I missed something?
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hunkerdown
September 28, 2022 at 9:30 am
You’re missing that war isn’t The Wire and that you aren’t entitled to courtroom roleplay. This is intelligence, not Puritan valuation. If the PMC can’t handle uncertainty, they should be abolished, simple as that.
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WJ
September 28, 2022 at 9:59 am
b on the M of A blog has a detailed write up this morning that lays out the known facts and history leading up to the sabotage. His analysis combined with Helmer’s combined with basic common sense points clearly in one direction in my view.
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Irrational
September 28, 2022 at 8:00 am
DJG, I share your sentiments. However, I fear it is hard to prove who did it and it will be more convenient to blame Russia. Russia, which has apparently offered to do a joint investigation – like that is going to happen. I am profoundly depressed about the future of the continent and considering uprooting myself. Where to I don’t know.
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pjay
September 28, 2022 at 9:07 am
Yeah, there will be an “investigation.” Just like the “investigation” of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 or the Skripals’ poisoning (about which Helmer is very familiar). The Rooskies won’t be invited to participate, since of course they did it. Case closed.
The difference here is that the victim is Germany. Will the Germans do anything about it, or will they be obedient lapdogs to the end?
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 9:57 am
The rich seems to be building compounds in New Zealand.
But i wonder how well that will work once the rest of the world has become a radioactive hellscape, and they can’t import their favorite brand of luxury ice cream.
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HH
September 28, 2022 at 8:12 am
Information on pipeline repair methods is readily available online. The Nordstream pipeline depth is only around 90 meters, so repairs are quite feasible. The press coverage suggests that the pipelines are gone forever, but that is not the case. The U.S. should reconsider its clandestine destruction of undersea infrastructure. It has more to lose in this domain than Russia.
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Stephen
September 28, 2022 at 8:14 am
Jacob Dreizin has an interesting take.
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/09/27/checkers-usa-plays-chess/
Is implying that there might have been European talks of some form in flight with Russia that included energy.
Likely without the US, Ukraine, UK or Poland. Pure speculation, I guess. But plausible.
This stops that stone dead. No one can negotiate energy now without Poland and Ukraine being in the mix.
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Yves Smith
September 28, 2022 at 8:23 am
The MoA article was removed because we do not have republication rights with MoA. It was a mistake by one of our new writers.
We can’t steal other sites’ copyrighted material, which is what having that post up amounted to.
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Tom Pfotzer
September 28, 2022 at 8:40 am
It was good to get it posted and thank you to NC for putting it up, even for a short while.
MoA’s work is careful, fast, and generally pretty accurate. They deserve the recognition.
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ambrit
September 28, 2022 at 8:28 am
I remember that picture too. The protester was holding such a sign.
I wonder if the Germans would be interested in an upgraded Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
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Mark Gisleson
September 28, 2022 at 8:41 am
My thoughts exactly. In fact, I’m halfway rooting for such a development.
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ambrit
September 28, 2022 at 8:44 am
Don’t forget all the ‘Lebensraum’ in the Ukraine.
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Peter Nightingale
September 28, 2022 at 8:32 am
For pipelines that weren’t pumping gas (or were they?) there seem to be a lot of methane bubbles. Something doesn’t add up for me. Is that just me?
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Polar Socialist
September 28, 2022 at 8:43 am
Not an expert, but I assume the sensors for leakages etc. require some minimum pressure to be kept in underground and undersea pipelines for them to work. Probably stated in requirements for safety and such documents.
I believe that the operating pressure of NS1 is 200 bars (3,200 psi), and the pressure before these leaks was around 100 bars (1,600 psi).
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The Rev Kev
September 28, 2022 at 8:50 am
Maybe they had to have gas in those pipelines to keep them pressured and so more stable – structurally speaking – underwater. So that is a lot of gas that will be released into the atmosphere now.
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dandyandy
September 28, 2022 at 10:03 am
At 100m depth pressure is about 1MPa and even if internal pressure dropped to zero, a 1.15m diameter pipe with a ~45mm wall thickness would not be overstressed. However the explosion would have caused a rupture and water will then flow into the pipe displacing whatever gas was inside, up to some point beyond the explosion site, meaning internal and external pressures will equalize. But what you have now is that what was meant to be a lovely and polished internal pipe surface is now exposed to seawater which is rather corrosive. Very soon this will become a technical problem, with the rust and that.
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Tom Pfotzer
September 28, 2022 at 8:52 am
My reading indicates that the pipelines are filled with gas, at pressure, as a pipeline preservation strategy.
The pressurized gas keeps water vapor and oxygen out (prevents corrosion) and equalizes the pressure on the pipeline from the ocean surrounding the pipeline, resulting in less flex-stress on the pipeline.
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Paradan
September 28, 2022 at 9:10 am
Sounds like the Poles finally solved that screen door problem on their submarines.
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Tom Pfotzer
September 28, 2022 at 9:14 am
There is another possible reason for a pipeline attack at this moment.
I listened to Altanmain’s recommended video by Alex Christoforou (link is in Altanmain’s post above).
In his video Alex Cristoforou asserts that some negotiations are occurring in the background between the U.S. and Russia – moderated by Saudi Arabia – regarding the end-game status of Ukraine, Germany, and EU.
He makes a good case that the main antagonists – U.S. and Russia, may have good reason to negotiate at this moment.
In a negotiation, it’s useful to gain some leverage, or to remove some of the leverage your negotiating counterpart has.
“Your pipeline only works if we allow it. You see that now, right?”.
“We want a skim on all Russia-West commerce. A meter, if you will. Can we agree on a percentage?”
“I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? Who gets the skim.”
Remember, a lot of the players at the table are experienced gangsters. This type of dialogue is not alien to them.
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 10:00 am
So in the end the world really needs a global godfather that gets to decide who get to collect protection money from what nation.
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hunkerdown
September 28, 2022 at 10:46 am
A “world” defined as a community of sovereign states in commercial intercourse might need it, but humans can form many other kinds of “worlds” that don’t, if they are allowed to.
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Tom Pfotzer
September 28, 2022 at 11:33 am
This is “political economy” writ large.
“political” means “who gets what”.
This story is has been ongoing since day 1. We little people aren’t at the table where the conversation is taking place, but it is taking place.
War is diplomacy by other means.
Diplomacy is politics.
If you can’t get what you want with “diplomacy”, well, you take out the crowbar (military).
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digi_owl
September 28, 2022 at 11:41 am
Ultima ratio regum…
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Jack
September 28, 2022 at 9:36 am
The US submarine force is more than capable of operating at a depth of 80-110m, which is the depth of the Nordstream pipelines. That’s only 360 ft. Modern US nuclear subs normally do not submerge in less than 600 ft. for safety reasons, but of course can easily do so if necessary. Modern US submarines have test depths in excess of 1000 ft. The US Navy tapped Russian undersea communication cables with no problem (USS Halibut).
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Ignacio
September 28, 2022 at 9:43 am
Alex Christoforou at The Duran does a cogent speculation which I find very well focused. He says it is not Russia to blame, not the US, not even Poland (officially). He believes that this could have been done by lunatic fringes (whether these are Polish or not, coordinated or not with other lunatics elsewhere, you can speculate).
Such fringes do not give a damn about destroying infrastructure not fearing themselves about infrastructures they do not possess. They just have ‘ideas’ and ways forward their objectives now matter how. This is indeed my biggest fear. What if one day people like this put their hands in nuclear stuff.
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Bsn
September 28, 2022 at 10:24 am
About the most lunatic group in this subject are the Ukrainians, though I don’t think they have the ability to pull off something like this by themselves. The definition of lunacy is bombing your own nuclear power station, now that’s lunacy.
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Basil Pesto
September 28, 2022 at 10:36 am
Surely if no state-actor was responsible, then at least one of the western state-actors would be tripping over themselves to at least raise this possibility? (I realise a lot of people are credulous/only tuned in to this crisis at the most superficial level, but “it was Russia” really must be a hard sell in this case)
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hunkerdown
September 28, 2022 at 10:53 am
Abusive fathers tend to portray themselves and their potestas as forces of nature. In this case they have their assets playing it up as ambiguous evidence of American potestas and American moral rectitude at once.
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Anon
September 28, 2022 at 11:33 am
No state actor wants to admit they are not the ones in control either… corporate power has long allowed for the artifice of government… part of what Bill Gates being so involved in the COVID response was about (I surmise), was to accustom populations to our corporate overlords; and the pending overt neutralization of government power. Defund, decry, displace, the neoliberal method.
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Stephen
September 28, 2022 at 11:15 am
It’s an interesting video.
The perpetrators on this logic may not be totally fringe: they might well be central state operators but the approval loops that usually apply were possibly not followed in every country.
To be fair, I struggle to see this in totality though. You need to use naval assets to do something like this and officers typically do things by the book. Maybe an intelligence service would have this capability but I would be surprised if they could do it with zero use of regular naval infrastructure. If a country did this then there would be need to be full approval somewhere to be be able to deploy.
Potentially, it could be Poland (although I have no idea what type of navy they have) with a green light from certain segments of the US administration but not necessarily total sign off. Depending on how dysfunctional the Biden administration really is, I could see that.
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hk
September 28, 2022 at 11:43 am
I don’t know enough about naval balance in the Baltic to assert this confidently, but I don’t think Poland would have been able to pull this off by itself. It had to have been a multinational operation, with at least some resources coming from elsewhere.
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Exiled_in_Boston
September 28, 2022 at 10:21 am
Appropriate day for this article. On this date in 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a treaty calling for the partitioning of Poland.
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youme
September 28, 2022 at 10:37 am
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Mike Gramig
September 28, 2022 at 11:05 am
I follow current events almost obsessively and I’m finding this post and its comments very difficult to unwind. It is nearly impossible to unwind the commenters and their viewpoints with any firm understanding of the posters’ political frame of reference. Most of us will need a program to unwind fact from fiction. This the fog of political cmmentary war. I will welcome continuing commentary to clear the smoke.
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David
September 28, 2022 at 11:40 am
I think the point to start from is that there’s no hard evidence of any kind linking anyone to anything. That evidence might be forthcoming, or it might not, and if it is, some will believe it and some won’t.
Human beings are pattern-making and tale-telling individuals, and it’s very hard to resist the temptation to make a “story” out of an event like this, whose plot will depend very much on the political preconceptions you start from. In turn, these preconceptions mean that, from all of the huge variety of potentially connected events going on at the moment, we select those that we feel support our narrative structure, and we define those as “evidence.” In fact there is no “evidence” at the moment, and no theories that can be tested empirically. We have a series of hypotheses, which we find more or less convincing depending on our prejudices.
One useful rule of thumb in a case like this is to see what you can rule out, by purely objective criteria: for example, country X may not have the capability, country Y is too far away and so forth. But this only gets you so far. In a case like this, the cui bono argument is not very useful, because it’s always possible to find a rationalisation for any behaviour you want to attribute to another actor, no matter how bizarre: after all it could be a false flag, a false flag that went wrong, something that was intended to look like a false flag but wasn’t … that way lies insanity.
Better to wait for a bit, I think.
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Mike
September 28, 2022 at 11:43 am
Yes….all speculation at this point. Can’t rule out Russia either. Plenty of reasons for them, Putin could use a false flag to bolster his expanded conscription efforts. So many potential players at this point. Problem is with these kinds of events is some times the longer they go on the origins of the conflicts can be muddied by wrong history. I think Syria is a good example of this.
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Skip Intro
September 28, 2022 at 11:23 am
It has been my opinion that a primary goal of the Ukraine gambit was to close Nordstream2 and other economic interconnections between Russia and Europe, and thus that the reopening of NS2 would signal the failure of that gambit. Now that the option is off the table, Ukraine becomes extraneous. Was this act a recognition that the military game changed after the referenda, a response to growing domestic pressure in Germany to open NS2? If I were Zelensky, I wouldn’t celebrate becoming a worthless bargaining chip as Poland ascends to political dominance.
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Exiled_in_Boston
September 28, 2022 at 11:30 am
With all of the conspiracy theories being bandied about, it is getting difficult to figure out which is the least/most hallucinatory.
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ddt
September 28, 2022 at 11:41 am
Well, whoever it is, the Germans don’t forget. The dissolution of Yugoslavia was eagerly facilitated because the partisans decimated the retreating German army in WW2. It may take a generation or two or three but they’ll get theirs.
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