September 29, 2022
People from the Danish Defence Academy, other military experts – e.g. those of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation – most major Danish media and – of course – the Ukrainian President’s advisor uniformly point – to Russia as the saboteur of the Nordstream gas pipelines near Bornholm, the Danish island south of Sweden.
The Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen and Defence Minister Bødskov, however, are a little lower than usual on Russia, pointing out how important – and difficult – it is to get clarity on this kind of thing so far down on the ocean bed.
Read Denmark Radio’s always politically correct public service “take”: “Ukraine on the gas leak in Baltic Sea: Russian terrorist attack. Russia wants to create panic before winter, says advisor to Ukraine’s president” and here on the prime time news, TV-Avisen, Defence Minister Bødskov explains that we may never get clarity on who carried out the blast, that it is all very difficult and will take time and that Denmark has full backing from NATO…
Here’s UPI’s take on the EU: “Sept. 28 (UPI) – The European Union on Wednesday said breaches in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines happened because of a “deliberate act” but stopped short of blaming Russia for the leaks.”
How interesting they stopped short. For once.
This is, of course, a political water-cycle ride into the blue deep sea.
Surely, Russia has a tap – the kind you know you have on your kitchen sink – with which to stop the gas? Why take the big risk with such a difficult and profound espionage attack? And if it was a signal to Denmark, why do it in international waters?
As usual, the Danish media seem unfamiliar with web search engines. And if they do, it must be that they are not reporting everything they have seen and are thus engaging in a rather narrow public education – leaving out what they believe that the citizens, for political reasons, do not need to know.
You can search for yourself – don’t use Google because that’s part of US foreign policy – but e.g. DuckDuckGo – with the words “Biden on no Nordstream 2” and there are tons of references to Biden and his famous promise at a press conference with German chancellor Schilz that “we’ll bring an end to it” – Nordstream 2 – if Russia invades Ukraine.
That was February 7 of this year – 3 weeks before Putin’s international law-breaking invasion in response to the provocation Russia perceives NATO’s 30-year systematic build-up of Ukraine as a future NATO country to be.
Here’s a Reuters video of the already then sensational plan, which Biden clearly doesn’t want to explain and Chancellor Scholz looks a bit befuddled about:
It’s also clear that Madam “Fuck-the-EU” Victoria Nuland – Biden’s Under-Secretary of State – has said the same thing just as unequivocally – see this video on Twitter. And on YouTube:
I wish Frederiksen and Bødskov, the Danish underwater military experts and divers as well as the Danish media all the best with the difficult, lengthy investigation into the suspected Russian terrorist attack.
The truth has long since become implausible…
3 Responses
A few things to add to this article are: Nordstream 2 was never operational and Nordstream 1 has been turned off for some time now. Europe is on the fast track to ending its dependency on Russia for both oil and gas and will probably even without these two pipelines never again take gas from them, which makes them useless to Russia in the future. The depth of these pipelines is not, as said in the article “…so far down on the ocean bed.”, not so far down, only 50 meters. And they are certainly on international waters but inside both Swedish and Danish economic zones. These lines being of no use to Russia now and in the future are on the other hand excellent opportunities to create fear and havoc in Europe if sabotaged. Russia does have a strong motive to do so. Politicians in the US talk, but for the US to sabotage infrastructure in Europe is an absolute NO, that will not happen, it would lead to catastrophic consequences if found out. Russia under Putin on the other hand has shown to have no morals at all when it comes to destroying property and life. Thank you.
Dear Nils Eldor – many thanks for your relevant points. I belong to those who, generally, think that mutual dependence can be peace-promoting, but we see now that both sides also perceive it as an opportunity to conflict and split. The whole thing is very very sad. I am no expert on how far down the tubes are for which I am not saying anything about it. I cursorily refer to what minister Bødskov and others have said about the difficulties and that it is far down. I have seen others state 70-90 meters down. I suppose it varies a bit in accordance with the sea-bed terrain’s ups and downs. What I do point out is that two US top-leaders have said that the pipes would be destroyed – and I have drawn the conclusion that they did not mean that they would urge or force Russia to do so but, rather, order some US institutional force to do it. I fail to see how yu can say with such determination that the US would never do such a NO thing. If found out – perhaps it won’t? The US has done a few bad things around the world since 1950 or so. Usually just denying them – or saying “we neither confirm nor deny.” I respect that you seem to think that Russia has a strong motive to do that when, as I say, you can simply turn the tap. But time will – perhaps – show who has the better judgement. I thank you for contributing to the debate here. Best – Jan PS Let me know if you’d like to receive our about-weekly newsletter with the articles we post.
Thank you very much Jan. Probably we will never know who did the blowing up of the pipelines. Seismological studies do suggest clearly that it was explosions doing it. When I say the US will never do that in Europe, I see a difference between how the US has behaved in other parts of the world, behavior I strongly condemn, and what the US will or will not do in Europe. I agree with you on the state of things right now, it is very very sad. And I fear it will get worse. When it comes to mutual dependency, that works fine as long as the counterpart is sane. I do not consider Putin sane. Best wishes to you ~ Nils.