Talk:Bombing of Nord Stream pipelines

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As initial reaction, I considered not too implausible that Russians would do it, as a kind of burning the bridges before a major battle/ having their back against a river like in Kulikov battle, a first major win against the Golden Horde. But I now consider it as _very_ unlikely. For all the time past collapse of the Soviet Union, the elites (and most of intelligentisa) were strongly pro-Western, and the elite was keen to enrich themselves by trading natural resources to the West. They have not crossed any rivers, and that is why 8 years of attempts at Minsk, and 'we have not even started' said recently and acted now. Yes, there was long-running build-up of strong resentment, but hope to roll all it back did not die. Yes, they shut the nordstream 1 "for repairs", but this is the usual tactics to put some pressure, while remaining in control. Now, the control is gone, and so the ability to put that pressure, with a big hole now in the middle of the pipeline. (Yet still, for better or worse, the proverbial river is still uncrossed, with Putin at the 4-regions signing ceremony still mentioning feeding and warming the Westerns).

Americans denied at the UN being behind. Amazingly, this even may be correct. They did not shell Russian cities and kill Russian soldiers and civilians with American weapons, the Ukrainians did.

Russians were in no danger to lose the ability to do slow repairs, for as long as they wish. If they decided to burn bridges (they did not), there is no reason to hide it. Clearly, only US/NATO or Russia has the capability, and whoever did it, they both would know who did. It can be only hidden from lesser allies or general population. Yes, you can make some mileage at home blaming the West, but this theme is by now fully saturated.

On the other side of the pond, either mad rush for more warfare, hot or economic, whatever; punish this, reward that, with chances to be out of it totally missed; or perhaps fear to have less control as result of elections and/or European politics

--Resup (talk) 12:30, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

PS. 7 bars = 70 meters depth of water.

US Navy P-8 Poseidons in the Baltic Sea

A US Navy P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft was circling over the explosion site on the night of the explosions. It may have been used to remotely detonate the bombs placed earlier in the BaltOps 2022 exercises by the USS Kearsarge group. The plane came from some faraway NATO base without a visible hex call-sign. It was first refueled over Poland before starting its its mission over the Baltic.

P-8 Poseidons do not fly in the Baltic too often. I search for previous sightings on the Internet. Here are some I found.

None of the previous flight profiles match the low-altitude nighttime flight of the September 26th Poseidon.

In other news:

-- Petri Krohn (talk) 13:16, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

MonkeyWerx has more on the topic:

According to the theory, the P-8 Poseidon launched torpedos at the pipeline. I do not know how torpedos would find and hit the buried pipeline, but maybe the USS Kearsarge mission located the pipeline and attached sonar reflectors or some other markers at the target sites. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:29, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

RIA published Pentagon response, which claims that the plane was over North Sea at the time of the incident, and flew over Baltic Sea (after that) as a planned flight unrelated to the incidentt. FWIW. Gazprom account was that pressure drops were hours apart, and timing of the flight vs those incidents in unclear to me According to Eng audio of Kurpyanov presentation at UN, 2 am CET, leak in NS 2 detected by Gaskade/Caskade system; 6 am, detected by onshore system; 7.12 pm, drop in NS1 detected by controllers. Seismic events are reporteadly 2.03 am and 7.03 /7.04 pm (1, 2 . MonkeyWerx appears to show that Poseidon approached the overall area at about 2.30-3 am (cannot read off times from screen but that is what presenter says; after refueling, it is over NS at maybe 4 am, and it leaves the area at about 7 am. Unsure whether times are local; CET and Swedish or Danish times are the same. --Resup (talk) 00:10, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

More planes

  • Manu Gómez @GDarkconrad on Twitter, September 26, 2022, 10:19 UTC
    • USAF RC-135W Rivet Joint JAKE11
    • Royal Norwegian Air Force Falcon 20ECM RAVEN77 Electronic-warfare aircraft
    • Swedish Air Force GIV Korpen SVF623
    • USAF E8C Joint STARS REDEYE6
    • USAF KC135R 59-1520

Military exercises in the area

Ukrainian cover-up operation

  • 𝕹𝖊𝖜 🄾🅁🄲 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖘 @NewOrcTimes333 on Twitter, April 6, 2024
    ❗️The names of the Ukrainian divers behind Nord Stream pipeline sabotage have been revealed.
    ▪️According to the State Duma deputies' appeal to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the "cover-up operation" involved a group under the control of the head of GUR, Budanov.
    Organisational and technical assistance was provided by US specialists under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Kiev, K.W. Smith, with the involvement of the former head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Vasily Burba.
    ▪️According to the MPs' version, the group was trained in a deep-water quarry in the Zhytomyr region and then transported to Romania. The training was carried out as close as possible to real conditions in the area of the offshore sections of the Southern Streams.
    The group then moved to Poland, where the yacht "Andromeda" was rented.
    ▪️Team leader: Roman Czerwinski, previously named by WaPo as the coordinator of the pipeline attack. Since 2016, he served in the counterintelligence department, and in 2022 he became the commander of one of the units of the Special Forces of Ukraine.
    ▪️The composition of the group: as sources of the authors of the statement said, the group included 5 other people. Sergey Anatolievich Kuznetsov, an officer in the environmental protection and civil defence department of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
    ▪️Burgomistrenko A. Ivanovich, Captain 1st rank, Head of the Intelligence Department - Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Military Intel, who was trained in mine clearance.
    ▪️Three people dived directly into the "Northern Streams":
    Varava O Grigorievich, Senior Insp of the Engineering and Technical Platoon of the Rapid Response Police in Kiev, a female technodiver with the call sign "Marisha", and Rudenko R Anatolievich with the call sign "Chaplain"