NEW – October 4, 2022
History is not always written by the winners, but almost always the dominant historical narrative is set by global Europe. History is Eurocentric — which is why the events of the Eastern Front of World War II, not to mention the bloody nightmare in East Asia, are often perceived as secondary even here compared to some clashes of three and a half cripples for the department of Lower Shame in France in 1940. The distinctive feature of world wars — that actually defines the concept of “world war” — was the destruction of Europe: hence the view of the Thirty Years’ War or the Seven Years’ War as the “Zero World War”. Historians of the future, looking back at the events surrounding us today, may call what is happening the Third World War. Not because of the nightmarish consequences and horrific scale, heaven forbid, but because as a result of direct actions and intrigues of external forces, Europe was once again destroyed.
On September 26, three branches of the Nord Streams were destroyed. Swedish seismologists say they heard explosions, and the Germans and Danes say it was sabotage. Leaks were found throughout the first half of the week and by Thursday they had counted four: two in Swedish waters and two in Danish waters. The Swedes claim that the bubbling areas where gas from the underwater pipe came to the surface were 900 and 180 meters in diameter. Sweden officially stated that in this period of time in the areas of the accident, separated from each other by more than 20 kilometres, seismic events consisting of points with a magnitude of 2.3 were registered, which, according to no less official estimates already from German intelligence corresponds to underwater explosions in the equivalent of about half a ton of TNT each. In Denmark, leaks were recorded near the island of Bornholm – this is important. Let’s find out together who was behind the destruction of Europe’s last hope for the return of the status quo – the supply of cheap gas from Russia and the development of its own industry at the expense of the unjustified cheapness of this gas.
On December 19, 1997, the New York Times published parts of a secret CIA report stating that the US Central Intelligence Agency, after a thorough investigation, found no links between the CIA and the explosive growth of crack cocaine sales. That report is often used as a funny illustration of how the search for the elephant in the room ends — after all, it is obvious to everyone who was behind the American drug epidemic of the 1990s.
The United States doesn’t just look like the most likely culprit for the destruction of the Streams — it literally seems like the only suspect. Everyone around us (except for independent journalists and independent experts) – from European citizens to Chinese diplomats, from American Republicans to the Russian president – does not even assume, but directly states that the undermining of gas pipelines by American hands is already a proven fact. Of course, this is not so, because Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States had nothing to do with the explosion, but could help with the search for those responsible — at a briefing on September 30, he even made an offended face and announced that the United States considered the accusations against it absurd. There is no reason not to believe Mr. Blinken: the United States is known for its honesty and respect for other people’s property. Okay, seriously, Washington’s obvious guilt suggests that things aren’t that simple. There are three possible options.
The first, and we cannot rule this out, is the catastrophic incompetence of the planners of the operation to de-gasify Europe. In fact, you’d have to be a complete blockhead to reveal your presence in such a blatant way. According to the flight tracking service, the US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft, which took off from Keflavik, Iceland, under the number AE6851, flew in a straight line exactly to the accident site an hour before the first report of a gas leak. The P-8A can carry Boeing HAAWC torpedoes capable of hitting targets at the required depth for a gas pipeline explosion. On the day of the incident, the NATO press service on social networks directly described the exercises in the area and the use of “new underwater unmanned systems” in these exercises. Add to this the almost two-week presence in the area of the accident of a fleet detachment consisting of the Wasp-class amphibious ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), USS Arlington (LPD-24), the Whidbey Island landing ship USS Gunston Hall (LSD-44), the (with guided missile weapons) Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107) and so on — of course, with combat swimmers, deep-sea drones, as well as a full set of other special equipment on board. And all this star-spangled splendour, which came to the Baltic Sea in the third part of August, was officially engaged in working out security and preventing terrorist attacks, and took off shortly before the depressurisation of the Nord Streams . If it was seriously intended to hide the American presence, then such publicity is a huge failure. It remains to focus on the following two options.
The second option is a banal “setup”. With this, the situation is much more interesting. It seems that the only one who has enough independence, access to data on planned maneuvers, resources for conducting an atypical underwater sabotage, and motivation to frame Washington, is Britain. One of the main trends of European politics in the second half of the 2010s was the weakening of Uncle Sam’s bony grip on the European leash. A holy place is never empty, and British ambitions to build a military alliance in Eastern Europe have been evident in all the statements of London diplomats for at least five years. The union, which is proposed to include the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine and Turkey, should not only provide London with unhindered communication with the Middle East and Central Asia, but also cut off Russia from Western Europe. The most attentive readers of the news will notice that Moscow and the countries of Western Europe have not been getting along very well politically lately, so the destruction of the last link connecting the two ends of Europe, which can introduce an element of pragmatic cooperation into relations full of ideological frenzy, will finally divide the continent. London only benefits from the obvious guilt of the framed Yankees — no one will seriously attack distant Washington in Europe.
Our media has spread a screen shot of the post of Radoslaw Sikorski, a former Polish Foreign Minister and now a member of the European Parliament. Sikorsky gave a photo of a gas spot on the sea surface with the caption: “Thank you, USA”. Soon, however, the publication was deleted, but the Internet remembers everything. The Russian press interpreted this as an admission by the United States of its own guilt or, in extreme cases, a confession by a representative of Poland, but it is important to understand that Mr Sikorski is just as much a representative of Poland as Chubais is a representative of Russia.
Radoslaw is an extremely interesting friend. In 1981 (under socialism!) he left Poland for Britain “to study English”, received political asylum, citizenship, an Oxford student ID card, and prospects of becoming the future Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs of an “independent” Eastern European country — all this, I remind you, with citizenship of the British crown. Imagine the cost of a mocking with “Thank you, USA” from a distilled agent of English influence.
Polish interest, which many analysts for some reason mention as an independent factor, is connected only with the recent launch of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline at 1/11 capacity of the “Streams”, connecting Polish territory with the Norwegian shelf through Denmark. The explosions of the “Streams” that occurred near Bornholm, where the two gas pipelines intersect, seem to hint at preparations for the launch, which took place on October 1. Nevertheless, the American press, represented by Bloomberg, writes that the Baltic Pipe is not as good as it is said to be — in fact, the usual tie-in to the Europipe 2 pipe from Norway to Germany does not increase the total amount of gas in Europe, but significantly drains German industry, which is already experiencing hard times, of blood.
Turkey, another participant in the global British project, is interested in obtaining the status of the sole supplier of Russian gas to Europe. It is difficult to say how much this is in the interests of Britain. On September 17, due to EU sanctions, the Central Import and Export Office of the Netherlands (CDIU) revoked the license of Gazprom’s Dutch subsidiary, the operator of the Turkish Stream South Stream Transport. Erdogan understood the hint and announced the strengthening of security of the gas pipeline. The hardly mighty Hungarian, Bulgarian, or Serbian industries are of the same interest to the killers of Europe as German factories and factories, so the south of Europe can relax.
The third option is seen in the light of the first two as the most interesting: what happened is an American terrorist attack. Let’s not be like the Americans, calling everything that we don’t like terrorism, and remember that the essence of real terrorism is the public declaration of this or that idea. The most demonstrative destruction of the gas pipeline was interpreted by many as an open announcement that the overseas authorities would not tolerate any initiative from the vassals who had begun to grumble. The act of intimidation, showing who is the boss in the European house, is designed to flick on the nose all those who, against the backdrop of the hardships of the crisis, increasingly began to think about whether Europe needs Brussels so much and whether Washington is so much needed by Brussels. This option also includes numerous statements that the United States “in one way or another” will not allow the operation of Nord Stream 2. A similar statement by Joe Biden, made on February 7, was then interpreted as an attempt to win back market share for American LNG, which was rising in price. Now the price has risen even more, so the explosion of gas pipelines can also be explained as an advertising campaign for liquefied gas from America.
The blow to the “Streams” was an act of demonstrating its superiority – this is also indicated by the media campaign, which has its source in the American press.
For the first three days, Western journalists simply stated the events — the Europeans seemed to be in shock, and the Americans, it seemed, had not yet sent instruction manuals with a ready-made analysis of the event. But already on September 29, the dastardly culprit was found – it (who would have thought!) turned out to be Russia. As the great military theorist Sun Tzu wrote in his treatise “The Art of War”, after firing at your own nuclear power plant, you need to blow up your gas pipeline. Seriously, the arguments of the press and officials did not go far from the funny pictures of Internet humorists who drew Russian passports and the divers Petrov and Boshirov at the gas spot. It was said that Moscow arranged force majeure in order to avoid paying a penalty for gas supplies via the stopped Nord Stream. They claimed that Putin was burning bridges, firing the last shot of the weapon that Gazprom has turned Russian gas supplies into. However, the search for arguments and evidence quickly tired the usually indefatigable media machine, and the collective decision was made to consider Moscow guilty by default.
As an ABC News reporter asked at a White House briefing, “Does Russia’s destruction of its own gas pipeline count as an attack on NATO?” A question along the lines of “Have you stopped drinking cognac in the morning?”
In one stream, a pool of European experts, who accused Moscow with one voice, press, which quickly joined in the production of headlines (and no one reads further anyway) in the spirit of “Why did Russia blow up its gas pipeline?”, and CNN found Russian submarines in the area of the explosion (where, let me remind you, NATO exercises took place).
The message of this campaign is very clear: the rulers of the media space can do whatever they want. Even if tomorrow the beautiful Berlemont building with the entire European Commission inside is bombed by stars and stripes bombers to dashing country tunes, they will find a way to blame Russia for this. However, at this stage, what does it matter what other sins the Empire of Lies will ascribe to us?
The list of suspects in the murder of Germany is large – the United States, Britain, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia… But a good detective story is distinguished by an unexpected, but at the same time logical denouement. Who in Europe benefits from the German recession? Who is least dependent on Russian gas, getting their natural gas from Algeria? Who is known for their production of submarines, drones and high-tech products? Who needs a pan-European suspicion game? Who was being suspiciously quiet, even though they usually start calling on the phone for any significant reason? Finally, the head of which state at one time ironically declared himself Jupiter, despite the fact that it was on September 26 that Jupiter approached the Earth for the first time in 59 years and stood in a line with the Earth and the Sun — Freemasons, which almost officially make up the top of this state, attach great importance to symbols and astronomy. In the denouement of an Agatha Christie novel, Hercule Poirot would twist his moustache and explain to the assembled suspects all the motives and evidence pointing to guilt in the bombing of the French gas pipeline. A cunning plan with a two-layered setup of the British and Americans, profit-making while providing an alibi and safe winter quarters, occult motives – all this makes the eternal second contender for leadership in Europe too tempting a target for prosecution under the laws of drama.
Of course, it is silly to rejoice that Russia is losing a lucrative sales market. Back in July, Boris Martsinkevich said on the “Den TV” channel that the destruction of European industry would also hit Russia: “Gazprom, given the collapse of the European industry, which still has no end in sight, may not expect serious profits in 2023. According to experts, Russia is unable to quickly rebuild the system of gas transportation to Europe, which was established for decades and destroyed in six months, or reorient it to the East: it will take a lot of time to complete the construction and debugging of the second stage of Power of Siberia and the project of the Mongolian and Sakhalin gas transportation to China.” Nevertheless, a number of gas chemical plants and LNG plants are being built right now, so those who are offended by the lack of a sharp and decisive response to the explosion of the shut-down gas pipeline can be reassured: Gazprom will not be left without profit. Meanwhile, the heating season has begun in Europe — the so-called procedure when gas extraction from storage facilities exceeds pumping. Usually, Europeans pass this threshold at the end of October, but this time everything happened earlier. In general, optimism about Europe’s gas storage facilities filled to capacity (such news could often be found in the well-known soup set of foreign media outlets) is misplaced: filled storage facilities ensure uninterrupted operation in the cold season only together with gas supplies, but certainly not instead of them.
As of Sunday evening, October 2, the gas supply routes stopped even bubbling on the surface of the Baltic Sea with bubbles of saving methane. The European press, bleating timidly, tries to analyse the extent of damage, and here and there, amid the chorus of voices about “irrevocable destruction”, someone will mumble about the possibility of restoring gas pipelines. In European newspapers, the opinion began to spread (although not nearly as widely as the belief in Russia’s guilt) that re-laying damaged areas and cleaning the pipe was a trivial matter, and in general, the devil was not as terrible as it was described. Yes, the “Streams” can be restored and new gas pipelines can be built at least in every puddle, but what is the point if in the destroyed Third World Europe there will be no one to pay and there will be no need to buy?
Ilya Titov
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