VIENTIANE, May 23. /TASS/. The United States should pay Russia for undermining the Nord Stream pipeline explosion as well as for the cities it is responsible for destroying in new regions, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said.
Medvedev responded positively to a question about whether the US should compensate Russia for the damage caused by the Nord Stream pipeline’s sabotage in an interview with the RT TV channel broadcast on Tuesday. “And not only this damage. Let them repay or at least give them the means to restore Artyomovsk, Mariupol and a host of other places that were ruined with their help and support. Using their money,” the official noted.
He reiterated that the US should reimburse Russia for undermining the [Nord Stream] pipeline. “Let them compensate here also, though there is still room to talk with respect to the evidence,” Medvedev said. “This process is not over yet and this page has not been turned,” he noted. “In any case, they deny it [their involvement – TASS] but their arguments do not appear to be very sound,” the official added.
Washington hasn’t responded to Moscow’s demand for an explanation of what happened to the Nord Stream pipelines after veteran journalist Seymour Hersh published a bombshell report blaming the US for destroying the key gas route, high-ranking Russian diplomat Konstantin Gavrilov has said.
“We haven’t received any clarification yet and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get any,” he told Izvestia newspaper on Monday. “There’ll be nothing new [from the US],” added the official, who heads Russia’s delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control.
Gavrilov said he was surprised by the behavior of the EU nations that were most affected by the sabotage of crucial energy infrastructure, which was built to deliver Russian gas to Europe through Germany.
Germany, Sweden and Denmark, which have been carrying out probes into the explosions on Nord Stream 1 and 2 last fall, have so far been reluctant to open up about their findings. They also rejected offers from Russia to assist with the investigations.
“The stance of Europe, which is being openly humiliated, is something that I can’t fully understand,” Gavrilov said.
In early February, Hersh authored a report claiming that US President Joe Biden had given the order to destroy Nord Stream. According to an informed source who talked to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the explosives that were detonated last September had been planted at the pipelines in the Baltic Sea back in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the cover of a NATO exercise.
Hersh later suggested that Biden had chosen that very moment to blow up the infrastructure because the conflict between Russia and Ukraine “wasn’t going great” for Kiev and its backers in Washington.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson denied the report, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.”
In late March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he “fully agreed” with Hersh’s findings that the Nord Stream sabotage had been organized by the American Special Forces.
Other Russian officials have also noted that the only party to benefit from the destruction of Nord Stream was the US, which has seen supplies of its more expensive liquefied natural gas to Europe increase massively since the blasts.
The conclusion of “No Evidence So Far” in the title referred to the strong suspicion that this horrendous quake was the result of an ENMOD engineered disaster. (Environmental Modification Techniques). Up to this day it killed more than 48,000 people, injured more than half a million, and still tens of thousands are missing.
Will there ever be justice?
Will the presumed perpetrators be brought to trial?
The “no evidence” statement is wearing thinner and thinner, especially, when listening to Serdar Hussein, the Head of the Turkish Space Agency talking on Russian TV.
He uses hyperbolic emblematic speech when talking about the hard titanium alloy material being launched to the Earth. It refers to using the titanium alloy rods to send these deadly, super-power beams of energy to earth, deep into the ground to cause the earthquake:
You know those power poles on the streets. They are similar to these pillars, about 8-10 meters high. Metal rods.
There is nothing inside the rod, no explosives, nothing, but it’s a metal rod made of a hard titanium alloy material.
They put them in a satellite. A certain amount of. And then they aim and launch them to Earth. It’s like a stick with a sharp point. For example, God forbid, it falls somewhere, we will not name the disaster scenario now, but as soon as it falls to the ground, it penetrates up to 5 km deep into the earth.
This happens very quickly and creates an earthquake of magnitude 7-8.
As a result of the impact, everything that is there will be destroyed. Look, there are no weapons here, no explosives, no bombs, nothing like that. Simple sticks [rods]. But there is such a force that comes from outer space, and you have no chance to see it, stop it, or defend yourself.”
Serdar Hussein’s statement remains to be verified.
Peter Koenig, February 22, 2023
According to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey.” (quoted by Tass, February 7, 2023)
“The earthquake has caused colossal damage. It was the biggest-ever calamity not only in our country’s history but in the history of the entire world,” Erdogan was quoted telling local television channels.
“We are living through the most painful days in our history. Two powerful earthquakes, with the epicenters in Pazarcik and Elbistan in Kahramanmaras, [close to the city of Gaziantep] have caused large-scale damage in ten provinces. Around 13.5 million [out of 85 million Turkish population] of our citizens have been affected on these territories,” he said.
Early Monday morning at around 4 AM on February 6, 2023, a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked southeast Turkey and Syria. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake’s epicenter hit an area about 30 km from Gaziantep (2.1 million population), a major city and provincial capital 100 km from the Syrian border. The quake was centered about 18 km deep.
It was followed by a strong 6.7 magnitude aftershock about 10 minutes later. Read more here. See also NY Post drone video below of some of the devastated areas.
The death toll from the earthquake so far exceeds 5,400, and some 32,000 people were injured. This is only after day two when most of the destruction and rubble has not yet been searched for survivors or bodies.
The earthquake also hit northern Syria, leaving so far at least 1,200 deaths and thousands injured. (See 2 google maps to the left).
By comparison, the 1960 Chile earthquake hitting the Santiago area was one of the most devastating tremors in recent history, killing some 1,700 people, plus the ensuing tsunami with a death toll of between 2000 and 2,500, and tens of thousands of injured.
A Gigantic Act of Terror?
If President Erdogan is right, that this is one of the world’s largest calamities ever – and it looks very much like he is right – wars notwithstanding, is this an act of terror?
What has Turkey done to elicit such a devastating reaction – by whom?
The US of A? NATO, which as far as command goes is also Washington and the Pentagon?
A few recent initiatives by Turkey – a key member and heavy-weight of NATO for her strategic geographic location between east and west – may have provoked the wrath of her NATO allies.
Not necessarily in order of priority:
1. Turkey has entered an alliance with Russia – which for a NATO-member is like “sleeping with the enemy”. (Michel Chossudovsky) See this and this. Such a partnership with a NATO enemy is indeed an absolute no-go for the West.
2. Under this alliance, Turkey has decided to buy theRussian S-400 Air Defense system, instead of the US Patriot system, as it would behoove for a NATO member, especially one as crucial as is Turkey. Patriot (standing for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target) is a surface-to-air missile and anti-ballistic system. It is NATO’s air defense system. Instead, Turkey’s decision for the more sophisticated, more precise and effective Russian S-400 is a strong backbone for her alliance with Russia.
3. President Erdogan brokered in 2017 a US$ 2.5 billion deal with President Putin for the S-400. First deliveries of the S-400 missile batteries arrived in 2019.
4. The S-400 system is said to pose a risk to the NATO alliance as well as the F-35, America’s most expensive weapons platform. Turkey was severely sanctioned at the time by President Trump, notably by a foreign-manipulated currency devaluation of the Turkish Lira – which had a devastating impact on Turkey’s economy. It is unusual, almost unheard of, for Washington to “punish” a NATO member for misbehavior.
5. US warship USS Nitze barred from entering the Black Sea through the Turkish controlled Bosporus. According to USNI News, the US warship USS Nitze, a US destroyer, was spotted in early February 2023, operating near the Black Sea. It is said to be the closest a US warship has come to Russia since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began.
6. On February 3rd, the Nitze was seen at the lower edge of the Bosphorus Strait, en route to a port call in Turkey. The last US warship to pass through the strait was the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), which left the Black Sea on December 15, 2021. See Google map below, followed by video on the USS Nitze
7. In February 2022, Turkey closed the Bosphorus passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea for all vessels which do not have a national port within the Black Sea. This means, US war ships are not allowed to cross from the Med-Sea through the Bosporus into the Black Sea, from where Russia may be vulnerable for cruise missiles form US destroyers, for example the USS Nitze. In the meantime, Nitze has scheduled a port call at Gölcük Naval Base, in the Sea of Marmara (see Google map above).
8. Turkey, a key NATO country, between East and West, with the crucial Bosphorus as the dividing line, is closing a critical strategic passage to her NATO ally – NATO commander – protecting Russia, the US enemy – may not be seen with joy by Washington.
9. Turkish – Syrian rapprochement, is certainly not what Washington wants. It is the latest development in regional surprises, as reported by Arab Center Washington DC – see this.
10. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interest in a rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the latest chapter in his delicate domestic and regional balancing act, and it has his friends and enemies alike, especially the US, scrambling for how this development might impact them. The rapprochement, if it succeeds, would further complicate the domestic and regional dynamics in northern Syria without securing any clear advantage for Erdogan beyond, perhaps, in the upcoming Turkish elections.
11. Remember the Russian Involvement in Syria – when the US was chased out of Syria? At the request of President Bashar al-Assad – Russian military, mostly air force interference from September 2015 until the end of 2017, was largely responsible for Washington’s significant withdrawal, albeit not complete, from Syria. In 2017, when “mission accomplished”, Russian combat troops were withdrawn, but Russia keeps a nominal military police presence in Northern Syria.
12. Turkey’s Bombshell – a few days ago, rejecting Sweden as NATO member, may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. For a new country to become a NATO member, ALL NATO nations must approve the new candidate.
13. Sweden says they cannot meet some of the Turkish conditions. Among them are Turkey’s accusations that Sweden is supporting members of the Kurdish Working Party – the PKK, archenemies of Erdogan’s.
14. According to a Turkish Crisis Group, some 30,000 to 40,000 people are estimated to have died in fighting between the PKK and Turkish government, since 1984.
15. Maybe there were also some Russian interests at stake in Turkey’s rejection of Sweden as a NATO member. Although peace has prevailed between Sweden and Russia, since 1809, the two countries never achieved a close relationship, unlike the situation with other neighbors. This is particularly the case with the current Swedish Government.
Turkish General Elections on 14 May 2023.
If the timing of the earthquake was part of a plan, it would fit perfectly into the coming General Elections on 14 May 2023. President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party), are currently not doing well in popularity polls.
Depending on his dealing with the consequences of the earthquake, he and his Party may gain or lose in approval ratings. Usually, „natural“ disasters do not bode well for the governments in place, regardless of whether they bear any responsibility.
In any case, new elections bring new “opportunities”. In the meantime, it is clear to most analysts, that no elections are truly “democratic” – that there is literally no election in the world in which the decisive vote – the decisive influence – is not exerted by the Anglosaxon western empire.
Replacing Erdogan with a US stooge, might bring Turkey back as the desired all obedient NATO country, no alliance with Russia, no more “sleeping with the enemy”.
Is it a coincidence that just a few days after Turkey rejected Sweden’s candidacy for NATO membership, a massive, deadly and all-destructive earthquake hits Turkey, with serious ramification for Syria, and even impacting on Cyprus and Lebanon.
Was The Earthquake the Consequence of A Terror Attack? No Evidence
Artificial earthquakes have been prompted before. For example, the 12 January 2010 earthquake off Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, is suspected having been prompted by underwater / underground explosions, in order to bring huge oil reserves lodged largely around the shores of the Caribbean Sea, closer to the surface to be easier accessible and exploitable. William Engdahl’s “Strategic denial of oil in Haiti?” points clearly in this direction.
F. William Engdahl says Geo-physics suggest there could be massive oil and mineral deposits in and off-shore Haiti. See this 9-min video from 30 January 2010.
The US Air Force’s Weather Warfare
Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report, “offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary”:
‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.”
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)
The US Air Force’s “Weather Warfare” is related to The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) which was developed in the early 1990s.
A scientific report (HAL Id: hal-01082992) regarding HAARP (2011, 2014) explains that high-power ELF radiation generated by modulated HF heating of the ionosphere could cause Earthquakes, Cyclones and localized heating. The paper by Fran De Aquino Maranhao summarized the scientific findings as follows:
“HAARP is currently [2014], [the project was closed in Gakona, Alaska and transferred in 2014] the most important facility used to generate extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic radiation in the ionosphere. In order to produce this ELF radiation, the HAARP transmitter radiates a strong beam of high frequency (HF) waves modulated at ELF.
This HF heating modulates the electrons’ temperature in the D region ionosphere and leads to modulated conductivity and a time-varying current which then radiates at the modulation frequency. Recently, the HAARP HF transmitter operated with 3.6GW of effective radiated power modulated at frequency of 2.5Hz. It is shown that high-power ELF radiation generated by HF ionospheric heaters, such as the current HAARP heater, can cause Earthquakes, Cyclones and strong localized heating.”
The patents used to develop the HAARP program are owned by Raytheon through its E-Systems subsidiary.
It should be noted that with the closing down of The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) program in Gakona, Alaska in 2014 for another location, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been actively involved in ENMOD research, most of which is classified. See this
At the time of writing, there is suspicion, but no concrete evidence that the Turkey-Syria Earthquake was an Act of Terror, triggered by Environmental Modification Techniques.
The above statements remain to be fully ascertained.
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: The earthquake destroyed buildings in the town of Jandaris, near Afrin, Syria.Credit: Rami al-Sayed/AFP/Getty
The original source of this article is Global Research
This is yet another example of how the ‘fact-checker industrial complex’ serves to censor legitimate information at the behest of governments by posing as an independent, non-bias actor when in reality it is merely a front for state control.
Facebook is censoring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s story about US involvement in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines using a ‘fact checker’ with links to the Norwegian government in what represents a clear conflict of interest.
Earlier this year, Hersh published a report asserting that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation which was organized with the aid of the Norwegian government, Norwegian Secret Service and Navy.
Journalist Michael Shellenberger first noticed the issue when he tried to post Hersh’s article to Facebook, but saw the social media giant had slapped a warning label on the link stating, “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.”
Except the ‘fact-checkers’ in question aren’t independent at all.
There is a big debate over who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Instead of allowing the debate, Facebook has decided to take a side. It is censoring Pulitzer-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. And instead of explaining, Facebook sends readers to an article in Norwegian. Watch pic.twitter.com/nN18HovBPR
As Shellenberger notes, “Hersh is infinitely more independent than Facebook’s Norwegian fact-checker. The fact-checking organization is a partnership with a Norwegian government-owned media company, NRK, which has a direct self-interest in censoring the story.”
By censoring the article with a dubious ‘fact check’, Facebook is preventing it from reaching a much wider audience, relegating it in the algorithm.
This is yet another example of how the ‘fact-checker industrial complex’ serves to censor legitimate information at the behest of governments by posing as an independent, non-bias actor when in reality it is merely a front for state control.
Facebook’s claim, made a few years ago, that it cannot act as “the arbiter of the truth” for any contentious issue, has been proven dishonest once again.
“Whether Hersh is wrong or right, his reporting should be debated publicly, not censored. Facebook’s actions are antithetical to America’s tradition of free and open debate and its rejection of secretive, authoritarian censorship,” writes Shellenberger.
“The American people have given Facebook broad liability protections under Section 230 that other media companies don’t get. And yet Facebook is acting like a media company, not a platform. As such, Facebook is putting its Section 230 protection at risk. And censoring Hersh may only attract more attention to it.”
The role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency could diminish due to Washington using its leverage over the global financial system to pursue its geopolitical goals through sanctions, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen has admitted. However, there is no obvious candidate to is replace it, she insisted.
Yellen was asked during an interview on Sunday by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria about the efficiency of the anti-Russia sanctions and about Washington’s track record of what he described as the “weaponization of the dollar.”
Zakaria cited recent statements by Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and other politicians about the risk of dependency on the US currency. He asked whether the present time would be remembered as the moment when “the dollar’s hegemony and its status as a reserve currency began to falter.”
Yellen acknowledged that use of financial sanctions “could undermine the hegemony of the dollar” in the long run, but promised that Washington was using this “important tool” judiciously and with the backing of its allies.
Regardless, she added, the role of the American greenback is explained by factors such as the volume of the US treasuries market, its wide use in international trade, and a “rule of law” in the US that other nations cannot offer.
“We haven’t seen any other country that has this basic infrastructure and institutional infrastructure that would enable its currency to serve the world like this,” she explained.
Opponents of US domination in global finances are not necessarily advocating replacing the dollar with another currency serving the same role. Russia’s leadership has prioritized a transition away from the dollar and into regional currencies.
An absence of a single global reserve currency would be a natural element of multipolarity, supporters of such a model say. The West’s use of unprecedented sanctions against Russia, including bans on trade, seizure of national reserves and denial of financial services to Russian companies, has merely sped up the transition, in their view.
“It’s not a coincidence that the talk about a switch to national currencies have been spurred now,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarked in February during a discussion on Russia-Brazil trade. “Nobody knows who the US president could find unappealing after getting up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Yellen also mentioned the issue of frozen Russian assets in her interview with CNN, arguing that “Russia should pay for the damage that it has done to Ukraine.”
The US, Canada, EU, UK, Japan, ROK, and Australia thought that they could win a shooting war on the battlefield through economic and media gangsterism. The US-led crony Liberal order thought by slapping Russia with harsh economic sanctions, removing Russia from the SWIFT messaging system, stealing Russia’s 300 billion dollars of foreign reserves, and whipping up a global Russophobia media campaign would see Russia fall on its face within 2 months. But the West, through their own stupidity, actually caused a chain reaction around the world not witnessed since the end of WW1 in 1918.
The Biden regime’s horrific foreign policy has sparked a multipolar world order never seen in modern history. The key to this multipolar world order is the nation of China, and eventually India. From the 1480s through 1945, most of the world’s wealth was concentrated in Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, and later the United States. Nations all over Africa, Central/South America, and Asia were stripped of their natural resources, wealth, and dignity by the Europeans and Americans. After WW2, the ravages of war made these once-powerful European hegemons into shells of their former selves. Most of their wealth flowed into the US after 1945.
So, it can clearly be seen that most of the wars after 1945 have not been about political ideology or “spreading Democracy”, these wars have been about MONEY. Since 1945, where has 99% of political instability, sectarian violence, regime changes, civil wars, and shooting wars been? Everywhere EXCEPT the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. An unstable country can never be successful economically. Why do you think that Western nations are reacting so harshly to the war in Ukraine, yet actually participated in the utter destruction of the Middle East and North Africa since 2001?
But, China’s stratospheric rise since 1995 has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the “Rules-Based International Order”. China, while remaining a Communist country politically, transitioned its economy to a quasi Socialist/Capitalist system. This caused a huge transfer of wealth from Europe, but mostly from America, into China with its massive population. India, which has its own massive population, will eventually witness this same rise in economic prosperity. The gluttonous oligarchs in the US government know this.
While Russia may have paid a price for the gangster Western economic sanctions, it caused nations to wake up like South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Iran, and others. These nations have now banned together with Russia, India, and China. As the rest of the world begins the transition of dumping the US Dollar as the global reserve currency, even more nations in Africa, Central/South America, and Asia will finally get their fair share of the global economic pie, and God knows that they so rightfully deserve it.
Cracks are starting to show in NATO and the EU politically, militarily and economically in their rabid infatuation to destroy Russia. They have issued so many economic sanctions, they can only sanction themselves at this point. All that President Vladimir Putin has to do now is stay the course in Ukraine, and the rest of the world will continue to evolve without Russia even lifting a finger. The Global South is sick of the West’s bullshit, and are about to let them know it. The West have isolated themselves in their quest to isolate Russia. At the end of this Ukraine proxy war, the world is going to be a much different place, and the Rules-Based International Order will have seen its last sunset.
THE WEST CHAMPIONED ITSELF AS THE PREDATOR, BUT HAS BECOME THE PREY 🏃♂️🏃♀️💨🇺🇸🇪🇺⚔️🐎🐎🐎🐎🇷🇺
The US, Canada, EU, UK, Japan, ROK, and Australia thought that they could win a shooting war on the battlefield through economic and media gangsterism. The US led crony Liberal order… pic.twitter.com/4vfVlgGdXP
Stop treating the public as if they are fools. The #NordstreamSabotage was an act of Terrorism and a horrendous #environmental crime – And the Mainstream Media and Politicians across the #EU and #US don't want the Truth to be exposed…? What is happening to the world…? https://t.co/7fiV9VQamK
Astounding statement from White House official talking head Karine Jean-Pierre: “We are deeply concerned about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies when conducting mutual settlements. This is a violation of the rights of our citizens who rely on a stable dollar exchange rate on the world market. America will not allow other countries to dictate their terms to it in mutual trade. We want to warn that the violation of the rights of ordinary Americans will not remain without consequences for these countries.
Astounding statement from White House official talking head Karine Jean-Pierre:
“We are deeply concerned about the transition of Brazil and China to national currencies when conducting mutual settlements. This is a violation of the rights of our citizens who rely on a stable… pic.twitter.com/P6e7WvWTG6
The moment in which the UN exposed itself again and refused to pass a resolution for the investigation of the Nord Stream pipeline attacks pic.twitter.com/JPNMZ5qxEo
Russia Foreign Minister LAVROV: "Watching the Western countries twist and turn during the UN Security Council meeting with the sole goal of not approving an instruction to the Secretary-General to organize an impartial, objective and transparent investigation into what clearly… pic.twitter.com/uYHJkXj2so
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who revealed the discovery of the object earlier this month, said experts believe that the object could be a signal antenna to activate an explosive in that part of the pipeline.
Russia says it is supporting efforts to recover forensic evidence from the underwater site of the Nord Stream sabotage blasts, which may provide clues as to the culprit behind it. Images of a new mystery object have emerged, with Moscow saying it is vitally important that it be carefully examined.
The Kremlin in a Friday briefing called the recovery and examination of the object “critically important” as it has been discovered lying next to one of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a daily briefing: “It is critically important to determine what kind of object it is, whether it is related to this terrorist act – apparently it is – and to continue this investigation. And this investigation must be transparent.”
The Danish Energy Agency has invited the Russia’s Gazprom (owner of Nord Stream 2 AG) to assist in salvaging the mystery object. It was actually Putin who was the first to publicly reference the object and ongoing investigative efforts to ascertain what it is, per the AFP:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who revealed the discovery of the object earlier this month, said experts believe that the object could be a signal antenna to activate an explosive in that part of the pipeline.
…The Danish energy agency released a photo late Thursday of the cylindrical object standing near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline at the bottom of the sea.
The agency said it is “possible” that the object is a maritime smoke buoy, 40 centimeters tall and 10 centimeters wide, and that it “does not pose an immediate safety risk.”
Peskov meanwhile said regarding the ongoing German, Swedish and Danish investigation that it is “certainly positive news” that Copenhagen invited Nord Stream 2 AG to take an active role in the investigation.
Since the September 26 clandestine bombings which permanently disabled the Russia to Germany natural gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea, the prevailing narrative has shifted dramatically. Initially, Western officials and media pointed the finger at Moscow, but then in February legendary journalist Seymour Hersh issued an investigative report detailing that it was a CIA and US Navy covert operation.
Denmark is salvaging an unidentified object found next to the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline that was damaged in a blast last September
After the Hersh report, allegations that Russia bombed its own pipeline have largely died down (given also it would obviously run counter to Russia’s self-interests), and instead, a new theory has been advanced by mainstream media – that a small group of rogue Ukrainian operatives did it. However, the Kremlin has blasted this as ludicrous, pointing out that only a state and military would have the resources to carry out such a difficult and complex operation. Hersh has since alleged based on his sources that the CIA itself planted the “Ukrainian partisans” narrative in friendly media outlets in order to shield the White House.
Dmitry Birichevsky says Moscow intends to insist on a comprehensive and open international probe.
March 27, 2023
Pipes at the landfall facilities of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline are pictured in Lubmin, Germany [File: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters]
Published On 27 Mar 202327 Mar 2023
Moscow may seek compensation over damage from last year’s explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, according to news agency RIA Novosti which cited a Russian diplomat.
The pipelines, which connect Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, were hit by unexplained blasts last September in what Moscow called an act of “international terrorism”.
“We do not rule out later the raising of the issue of compensation for damage as a result of the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines,” Dmitry Birichevsky, the head of Russia’s Foreign Ministry department for economic cooperation, said in an interview with the news agency.
He added that Western countries were opposing a Russia-prepared draft UN Security Council resolution urging an independent international investigation of the Nord Stream blasts.
“Despite this, we intend to continue to insist on a comprehensive and open international investigation with the mandatory participation of Russian representatives,” Birichevsky said.
The Nord Stream pipelines were intended to bring Russian gas to Germany, though since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, Berlin has taken steps to reduce its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons.
A gas leak at Nord Stream 2 as seen from the air on Bornholm, Denmark September 27, 2022 [Reuters]
Putin’s comments
In mid-March, President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “sheer nonsense” allegations that Ukrainians could be behind the explosions that crippled the Nord Stream gas pipelines, suggesting the United States may have been responsible.
The Russian leader insisted the US had a motive to carry out the attack in the Baltic Sea last year, saying it wanted to halt supplies of cheap Russian natural gas to Europe and provide the continent with more expensive liquefied natural gas.
September’s explosions that hit the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines rendered them inoperable and caused significant leaks of methane gas.
The leaks in the Baltic Sea led to what is likely the biggest single release of climate-damaging methane ever recorded, the United Nations Environment Programme said.
Western countries, including Germany, have said they believe the blasts were a deliberate act but declined to say who they think was responsible.
US President Joe Biden ordered the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines because he was unhappy with the level of support provided by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.
Hersh first accused Washington of destroying the key European energy route in an article released in February, and made more allegations in an interview with the China Daily newspaper published on Friday.
“The [US] president was afraid of Chancellor Scholz not wanting to put more guns and more arms [forward for Kiev]. That’s all. I don’t know whether that it was anger or punishment, but the net effect is that it cut off a major power source through Western Europe,” Hersh claimed.
Despite attempts by the US to deny its involvement in the Nord Stream attack, “Europe is in crisis now” and Biden will receive “a lot of criticism for what he did” in the coming months, the journalist argued.
The Pulitzer Prize winner alleged that “the people that were initially asked to do the job” of destroying the pipelines were contacted by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan towards the end of 2021.
The initial purpose of mining Nord Stream 1 and 2, built to deliver Russian gas to Europe through Germany, was “to give the [US] president an option to say to [Russian] President Putin, ‘If you go to war [in Ukraine], we’re going to destroy the pipelines,’” Hersh claimed.
Biden himself publicly confirmed that stance but “unfortunately, those people in the Western press seemed to have forgotten,” the journalist stated.
Just under three weeks before the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Biden warned during a press conference on February 7 that “if Russia invades… there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
According to Hersh, the US leader decided to order the detonation of mines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea last September because the conflict “wasn’t going great in Ukraine” from a US perspective. There was “at best a stalemate” during that period, in what Hersh described as “the American war that President Biden was so eager to support.”
The term “pirated content” has a whole new meaning in the contemporary world, the Kremlin told journalists on Saturday. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, was offering support to a suggestion by former President Dmitry Medvedev to allow Russians to download western entertainment content for free.
It is Russia that has been outright “robbed” by the US and its allies, Peskov said, adding that Moscow has to deal with “pirates” in the West anyway. “They have seized our assets, stolen our assets,” the Kremlin spokesman told journalists, saying that “before, such people were called ‘pirates’; now, they are called ‘bandits’.”
Earlier on Saturday, Medvedev suggested finding “proper pirates” and using them to obtain content from western entertainment companies that left Russia over its conflict with Ukraine. Medvedev, who is currently the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, also said that any such content should be put online for free to make the western entertainment giants suffer “maximum damage so that they go broke.”
The companies that have ceased or paused operations in Russia over the past year include film industry giants Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, and Sony, as well as streaming services such as Netflix, Spotify, Megogo, and Amazon Prime Video.
According to Medvedev, the Russian authorities recently discussed the possibility of depriving foreign content providers of some of their non-property rights in the country.
Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry earlier ruled out adding entertainment content to its parallel import list, arguing that audio and visual content cannot be properly classified as “goods” for such purposes. In February, the Russian Culture Ministry said it was preparing a bill that would ban showing pirated movies without screening licenses in cinemas.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 