Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
There's very little of substance in this article, since it doesn't disclose the intelligence or the officials making the judgement. So it comes across as "x refused to comment, y refused to comment, but we wanted to break the story first so trust me bro"
> Das Kommando soll den Ermittlungen zufolge am 6. September 2022 von Rostock aus in See gestochen sein. Die Ausrüstung für die Geheimoperation sei vorher mit einem Lieferwagen in den Hafen transportiert worden, heißt es. Im weiteren Verlauf ist es den Ermittlern den Recherchen zufolge gelungen, das Boot am folgenden Tag erneut in Wieck (Darß) und später an der dänischen Insel Christiansø, nordöstlich von Bornholm, zu lokalisieren. Die Jacht sei dem Eigentümer im Anschluss in ungereinigtem Zustand zurückgegeben worden. Auf dem Tisch in der Kabine haben die Ermittler den Recherchen zufolge Spuren von Sprengstoff nachweisen können. Nach Informationen von ARD-Hauptstadtstudio, Kontraste, des SWR und der ZEIT soll ein westlicher Geheimdienst bereits im Herbst, also kurz nach der Zerstörung, einen Hinweis an europäische Partnerdienste übermittelt haben, wonach ein ukrainisches Kommando für die Zerstörung verantwortlich sei. Danach soll es weitere geheimdienstliche Hinweise gegeben haben, die darauf hindeuteten, dass eine proukrainische Gruppe verantwortlich sein könnte.
At this point there is only one country that will apply for an independent investigation at the UN (Russia). Guess why.
(Disclaimer: I'm certainly not pro-Russia, but IMO that doesn't mean that we have to try to twist every fact until it suits our world view)
- Why only 3/4 pipes targeted?
- Why NS2 targeted 80km away from NS1?
- No evidence of post blast investigation inspecting NS2 and removing unexploded charges."
Even plans with a lot more money, planning and time aren't executed perfectly.
Edit because of one comment suggesting it was a russian group pretending to be Ukrainian: Maybe it was a Ukrainian group pretending to be russian that's why they only blew up 3 pipes.
* There is an area between the two blast sites where fishing and anchoring is restricted, due to large amounts of chemical weapons being dumped there after WW2. So it makes some sense, if you assume the saboteurs wanted to avoid creating a toxic disaster. Though, why not just blow up all of them in the same location? that's a good question... But it's confusing no matter who you think was behind it. Probably down to poor decision-making, whoever did it. BUT, you can assume they were very powerful and confident in their abilities, because surely blowing up a pipeline in two different spots is much harder than just one. (So not six guys in a yacht.)
* The third point isn't even really a point.
>U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.
>U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations. The review of newly collected intelligence suggests they were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation.
>Officials who have reviewed the intelligence said they believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two.
If these people are government independent in origin, it still wouldn't surprise me if it later comes out that multiple governments had infiltrators to the group that were the only ones pushing hard enough to make it happen.. I think the FBI realized that some "militant" student groups were almost entirely passive aside from FBI and police sponsored infiltrators.
This actually validates my thesis that Russia was behind the attack to blame Ukraine. It is also very concerning that this type of "intel" only came into light after Republicans took control of the house. There is no word how much Trump and Republicans have influenced this "intel".
In fact, even now, they're refusing to accept the theory that Ukraine was involved.
I think you should question your thesis.
"Reporting was contributed by Rebecca R. Ruiz, Erika Solomon, Melissa Eddy, Michael Schwirtz and Andrew E. Kramer."
"What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source."
Early in the war a Russian ex-Gazprom oligarch defected to the Ukrainian side where he funds the "Freedom of Russia Legion", a group of Russian nationals fighting on the Ukrainian side.
Even if you buy the German newspaper's six men in a yacht theory, why weren't they caught? There was apparently a military exercise in the area at the time they would have placed the bombs.
I don't think being a Gazprom exec gives you the skills to pull off an operation of this scale without anyone even noticing.
So I doubt that Russia could pull such sort of attack.
2) If thinking Russia did it, it's irrational to blow up one's own money-making infrastructure.
3) If thinking it's a separatist group, it's not a reasonable idea. The technology, tactics, and scale of committing that with a Russian separatist budget without anyone finding out is hard to imagine. It'd be far easier, I imagine, to try to just shoot/grenade Putin than do that.
> It must be some Russian separatist groups in Ukraine pretending to be pro-Ukraine had sabotaged the pipelines. We are in the midst of another disinformation campaign by Russia.
Then there's the question of capability. We're supposed to believe they do extremely stupid things, but also do it with such superhuman competence that we don't have a clue afterwards.
A threat directed at Baltic Pipe. Which makes sense if you think their basis is that leverage with gas supplies through Nordstream had failed and it had lost its value for that purpose (and it wasn't making money, for the same reason), and that they were desirous enough for any (even low probability of success) leverage on European action to take an action which would remove that theoretical long-term asset whose utility had diminished for an (also low probability) additional swing at intimidation.
Just as a pro-Ukrainian attack makes sense if you think that their basis was that Russian leverage with gas supplies, though at the time not producing, was only transitionally failing and was likely to recover soon enough to be strategically relevant, or at least probable enough to make an action which, if traced back, could boomerang badly on image of their cause to eliminate the possibility.
I think a lot of people narrow possibilities of who could have done a thing because they ascribe their own assessment of the strategic situation to all participants, when, in fact, parties to the conflict often have very different views of the strategic situation than each other, much less random outside observers.