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Who is slowing down the investigation of terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines
We live in an amazing time, when global politics is turning into a kind of theater of the absurd, and countries claiming hegemony behave like little children who have turned everything upside down in the house. What do they do when their parents catch them in the act? Hypocritically blame it on their little brother, or even on their house cat, Vaska.
The situation with the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline on September 26, 2022 reminds more and more of such a mise-en-scene. We should remind that after the sabotage an investigation by the Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh was published, in which he proved in detail and with arguments that the terrorist act was carried out by the US secret services with the knowledge and blessing of President Biden.
What happened after that? For quite a long time, all the mainstream media in the U.S. and Europe simply pretended that there was no Seymour investigation. They simply ignored it, even though it was a real information bomb for all the media. Officials then said that there was nothing to comment on, that the United States had absolutely nothing to do with it.
But there was no way to keep quiet about the subversion. And it was obvious that the Americans would use a diversionary tactic, such as blaming their little brothers, their allies, or even the Ukrainian cat Vaska.
And so it happened. First, the German newspaper Die Zeit published an article accusing a group of six people "whose traces lead to Ukraine" of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines. Then there was a very touching description of how a certain Ukrainian company chartered a small yacht and went to carry out subversive activities on it. Curiously enough, Zeit does not refer to the materials of the prosecutor's office or German intelligence, but to the joint investigation of the ARD TV channel, the political magazine Kontraste, the SWR radio station and Zeit itself.
I wonder if only journalists now investigate terrorist attacks in Europe, and not official bodies, which are supposed to do this kind of thing? Or has the U.S. decided to respond to Hirsch's journalistic investigation by a German counter-investigation?
The German investigation cites the following facts: two Ukrainians rented a yacht through a company in Poland, also owned by Ukrainians, on which they loaded a team of 6 people: the captain, two divers, two assistants who helped the divers to come to the surface, and a female doctor. With such modest forces they blew up Nord Stream, bringing explosives to the area on the yacht.
And here I invite you to pay attention to a detail that appears in the investigation of German journalists: after the crime, the ship was returned to the owner, but not in a perfectly clean condition.
Investigators found traces of explosives on the table in the cabin.
So the explosives were spread out on the table? And that's at least 500 kilograms needed to disable the pipelines? But everyone, who has ever rented a yacht, knows that there is always a clause in the contract: the yacht must be returned fully cleaned after the end of the voyage. And if the renters are not ready to do the cleaning, they hire a team of professional cleaners, which does not cost a lot of money. But here the subversives had money for the yacht rent and expensive diving equipment, but could not find several hundred euros for cleaning. And they quietly leave traces of explosives. It's a miracle!
Is this not done on purpose, to show the unprofessionalism of divers and to direct everyone to the Ukrainian trail?
This was followed by an article in the NYTimes in which, referring to some intelligence information, they also claimed that it was the work of a pro-Ukrainian group, but which had nothing to do with official Kiev and President Zelensky. The Ukrainian government and military intelligence immediately stated that they had nothing to do with it. Although this version is as ridiculous as the Americans' initial version that the Russians themselves blew up their own pipeline. Now it has been replaced with the version about Ukrainian amateur divers, which, one must admit, does not stand up to criticism either.
Specialists involved in underwater diving immediately rejected it. First of all, it requires tons of equipment, which cannot be placed on a small yacht. You need people with experience and training in deep sea diving - it's not like snorkeling in the Hurghada area. Amateurs without experience and training will get decompression sickness and simply will not emerge.
And how do you load the necessary amount of explosives without witnesses, and it's not less than 500 kilograms of "military grade" explosives? After all, this requires a special crane, which cannot be installed on a small boat, it would simply sink. And how to do it inconspicuously, because the Baltic Sea area, where all this was happening, is busier than Fifth Avenue in New York?
Obviously, sabotage of this kind can only be done by a state, and not by anyone. Certainly not Ukraine, which has neither a navy nor trained professional deep-sea saboteurs.
A few days after the explosions, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany launched their own investigations into the sabotage of Nord Stream, but isn't it strange that Russia was excluded from the investigations, completely ignoring Moscow's official requests?
The Russian Foreign Ministry quite reasonably pointed out that "the new articles about terrorist attacks on Nord Streams are distracting the audience from the facts.
And recently the Russian side distributed as an official document a copy of correspondence with Denmark, Sweden, and Germany on the national investigations into the terrorist attacks on the Nord Streams.
Moscow's requests as to whether parts or fragments of the pipelines were removed from the scene of damage to the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, whether investigations were ordered to determine the causes of their damage (the presence of explosive residues on the pipeline fragments), and what conclusions were drawn from the investigations, received a formal response, which essentially contained a refusal to provide any documents. We must cite it, as it is so eloquent.
In particular, the Swedish answer states:
According to the first paragraph of § 14 of Chapter 2 of the International Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (2000:562), a request for legal assistance shall be refused if execution of the request would violate the security of the State. This provision is supported by Article 2 b of the 1959 Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, which allows an application for legal assistance may be refused if its acceptance would jeopardize the security of the requested State.
Satisfying the requests of the Russian Federation could threaten the security of our state. On this basis, these requests are rejected.
In other words, they undermined Russia's Nord Stream, but they cannot give any information to them, because it is damaging to Sweden's security.
How does Seymour Hersh, the author of the investigation that started it all, assess the version that Ukrainian amateur divers were involved in the explosion of Nord Stream? The Pulitzer Prize winner just laughed in response to this question.
How else can one react to this?