Washington Post now admits it was a huge mistake to blame Moscow.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson is known for blaming the clueless and incompetent President Joe Biden for the Ukraine War, which contributes to the energy crisis and inflation. When Nord Stream pipelines were stunningly blown up in September this year, Carlson did not need scientific analysis to conclude that it was an insider job – the US was responsible for the sabotage.
But Carlson has all the logical reasons to believe Russia was not the culprit. He argued – “If you were Vladimir Putin, you would have to be a suicidal moron to blow up your own energy pipeline. That’s the one thing you would never do.” The TV host might not be Einstein. But his argument was based on common sense. However, Putin haters like Washington Post was not impressed.
Western news media no longer have the ability to run neutral news, not especially since Putin invaded Ukraine. Based on the platform of democracy against autocracy, the US and its allies were painted as the good guys while bad guy Russia must be destroyed. That alone had led Washington Post to run a headline that screamed – “Putin is Weaponizing the Nord Stream pipelines.”
Carlson’s theory was also based on Biden’s moronic statement. On Feb 7, President Biden said – “If Russia invades, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” A reporter then asked – “But how will you do that, exactly, since the project is in Germany’s control?” Biden confidently answered – “I promise you we will be able to do that.”
It’s incredible the efforts Western media like Washington Post or British tabloids are ready to spend on promoting their propaganda, including the Ukraine War. So, when you have a fellow mate from Fox News telling another side of the story, it immediately raised eyebrows and people started to question the speed at which the West was pointing fingers at Russia in the Nord Stream episode.
Yesterday (Dec 21), the same Washington Post made a spectacular U-turn. After some four months since the newspaper blamed Moscow for explosions along the undersea natural gas pipelines, it finally published an article titled – “No conclusive evidence Russia is behind Nord Stream attack”. Essentially, the newspaper which initially laughed at Carlson is now admitting it was a huge mistake to blame Moscow.
Unable to find any evidence to blame the Kremlin, the Washington Post said the assessment of 23 diplomatic and intelligence officials in nine countries interviewed in recent weeks shows that – “There is no evidence at this point that Russia was behind the sabotage.” Some European or Western officials went so far as to say they didn’t think Russia was responsible.
Throughout the four months of investigations, investigators have combed through debris and analyzed explosives residue recovered from the bed of the Baltic Sea while seismologists have pinpointed the timing of three explosions on Sept 26. While no one doubts that the damage was deliberate, however, even those with inside knowledge of the forensic details can’t conclusively link Russia to the attack.
There could only be one explanation – either Russia was extremely good at hiding their traces of terrorism, or they did not blow up Nord Stream pipelines at all. It’s hard to believe that the US had managed to intercept the communications of Russian officials and military forces, helping it to accurately announce Russia’s invasion, but has so far not heard or read statements from Russia linked to the pipeline attacks.
Based on the shallow depth of the damaged pipelines – approximately 80 yards at the site of one explosion – the attack would involve a “number of different actors”, including the use of submersible drones or with the aid of surface ships. More importantly, the sabotage occurred in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark. For Russia to pull the job without being noticed means they were sleeping on the job.
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said in an interview this month – “We know that this amount of explosives has to be a state-level actor. It’s not just a single fisherman who decides to put the bomb there. It’s very professional.” Even if the Swedish and Danish – even the entire European Union – were unaware of Russian intrusion, it’s impossible that the US too was sleeping on the job.
Suspiciously, condemnation of Moscow was swift and widespread as if they knew the script before it happens. On Sept 30, four days after the explosions, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told British media BBC that it “seems” Russia was to blame. She said – “It is highly unlikely that these incidents are coincidence.” Ukrainian President Zelensky quickly said it was a terrorist attack planned by Russia.
Amusingly, it would take four months for Western investigators to conclude that Moscow had little to gain from damaging pipelines that fed Europe with natural gas from Russia and generated billions of dollars in annual revenue. One Western European official said – “The rationale that it was Russia [that attacked the pipelines] never made sense to me.”
While German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had frozen the Nord Stream 2 project after the Ukraine invasion, largely due to pressure from the US, the Europe’s biggest economy has made it clear that it would not make any further energy sacrifices and would keep buying from Russia. The energy needed by Europe for heat generation, power supply and industry cannot be sourced elsewhere.
Crucially, Putin is not North Korean Kim Jong-un. The Russian president had taken years strategizing all the moves and countermoves before launching his so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24 this year. Every single calculated move has been analysed and well thought, including the solution to counter the West’s economic and financial sanctions.
Besides, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline between Russia and Germany is 51% owned by St Petersburg-headquartered Gazprom, while Nord Stream 2 is owned by a Swiss subsidiary of the same company. So, what’s the point of destroying Russia’s own pipeline? Even a dictator as dumb as Kim Jong-un would not do such a thing, what more a former KGB agent like Putin.
Some Western media have cooked up a half-baked excuse – European gas prices have been dropping, but after news of the suspected attack, they skyrocketed by 20% and the British gas price shot up 33%. But hadn’t Putin showed that there was a simpler way to push up the price of European gas? By turning off the oil tap, Russia could easily push up the price of oil and gas.
Gazprom, which had cut gas flows to just 40% in July, has further cut it to just 20% in an effort to punish Germany – the EU biggest economy – for imposing sanctions on Russia. Nord Stream 1 effectively stopped pumping gas to Europe “indefinitely” from August 31 after maintenance work, reducing the pipeline’s capacity to 0%. Putin said Russia will not resume gas supplies to Europe until sanctions are lifted.
Meaning Putin’s game plan was to blackmail Europe to end the sanctions, betting that the EU would eventually blink as the coming winter could trigger peoples’ uprising. And there were signs that the plan is working. High energy prices and mounting costs of living have fuelled civil unrest across Europe over the winter, including street protests and strikes.
Even if Putin wanted to attack gas pipelines, would it not be more logical to sabotage a new gas pipeline between Norway and Poland which was inaugurated on Sept 27 as an alternative to Russian supply? It doesn’t make sense to sabotage Nord Stream 1, which has already stopped pumping to Europe, instead of the new 850-kilometre Baltic Pipe which competes with Russian gas.
A former Polish Defence Minister, Radek Sikorski, actually knew who was the main actor immediately after the pipelines were blown up. Sikorski, a Putin critic who was Minister of National Defence from 2005 – 2007 and served as Deputy Minister of National Defence and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, has set tongue wagging after he blasted a tweet, saying – “Thank you, USA”.
Common sense says two countries were not involved for obvious reasons – Russia and Germany. Likewise, the US wasn’t the only actor in demolishing the Nord Stream 1 and 2. On Oct 30, it was exposed that former British Prime Minister Liz Truss had sent a text message saying – “it’s done” – to none other than the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, just one minute after the Nord Stream attack.
The UK’s Mail similarly reported that private messages between Truss and other international foreign ministers, including some about Ukraine, fell into foreign hands because many dumb government officials, including Truss, still prefer using iPhones over military-encrypted phones issued by the NSA (National Security Agency) or British intelligence GCHQ.
Kim Dotcom, a self-proclaimed “Internet Freedom Fighter”, said – “Liz Truss used her iPhone to send a message to Secretary Blinken saying ‘it’s done’ a minute after the pipeline blew up and before anybody else knew”. Because iPhones use iCloud, Russian and Chinese hackers could easily access Apple iCloud to obtain the information.
Immediately after it was exposed that Truss’ iPhone might have been hacked, leading to the embarrassing leaks, Chair of the Defense Select Committee, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood told Sky News that Russia is “getting better and better at these cyberattacks and hacking” – an admission that the British intelligence was indeed involved and could have had gotten away if not for the leaks.
From the angle of who benefits, the theory that Britain was responsible in the bombing of Nord Stream is far more credible than the claims of Russia rendering inoperable tens of billions of dollars’ worth of key infrastructure it has developed over almost three decades since 1997. Given the UK’s intimate relationship with the US, it’s hard to believe London had blown up Nord Stream without Washington’s approval.
It’s worth mentioning that right after Nord Stream was attacked, Blinken happily said – “It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs”. – Finance Twitter