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Nord Stream Sabotage
The five big questions about the explosions
New research into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines points to a group of six. Is that plausible? Five questions about one of the greatest acts of sabotage of our time.
The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines raises many mysteries. New findings point to a group of six. They are said to have chartered a yacht from Rostock and attached explosives to the tubes in the Baltic Sea.
Research by ARD, SWR and "Zeit" gives details about the group:
- a captain,
- two divers,
- two dive assistants and
- a doctor is said to have carried out one of the greatest acts of sabotage in recent history.
Accordingly, a company in Poland, which is said to belong to two Ukrainians, rented the yacht. The six-man commando in turn probably had forged passports - their true nationality is not known.
According to research by Frontal, it may be a Bavaria C50 yacht . The " Spiegel " had also reported on a more than 15 meter long sailing boat with a diesel engine, with space for up to eleven people. That matches.
Can a group of six have done this alone?
There are huge doubts about that. "You can't organize that with a small group," says Göran Swistek, an expert on maritime security from the Science and Politics Foundation, on ZDF. Such a sabotage action requires "years, months of preparation", expertise and resources. In addition to the yacht rental and the professionally forged passports , it is also about the bombs detonated under water and the amount of explosives.
Investigators estimated in September that the level of destruction of the pipelines required 500 kilograms of TNT or explosives of comparable effectiveness each.
I can't just buy the explosives at the hardware store. But either through the black market or through the support of a larger organization, a state, that makes it available.
[Frigate Commander] Göran Swistek, SWP [Science and Politics Foundation]
CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter also said on ZDF: "One yacht is not enough, there must have been several ships ."
These assessments do not have to speak against findings on the group of six. It could also have been part of a larger action - but so far that is only speculation.
Could the sabotage action have happened unnoticed?
The ship is said to have started in Rostock on September 6 - on September 26 the tubes exploded. According to Göran Swistek, just to attach the explosives and the detonators several complicated dives are necessary: "I have to go down, take the material down with me, do the work below and then ascend again." It takes several hours to ascend to avoid diving sickness.
The whole thing unnoticed? I don't think that's plausible.
Goran Swistek, SWP
From Rostock to Christiansø: Is the route of the ship plausible?
The Bavaria C50 yacht has a draft of at least 1.85 meters. According to ARD and "Zeit", the ship set off from Rostock on September 6, 2022, a day later in Wieck am Darß and later on the Danish island of Christiansø, north-east of Bornholm.
What is surprising is the small port of Wieck am Darß. With a water depth of 1.40 meters, it is not very plausible that a 15-meter sailing ship could have entered there. The harbor master in Wieck am Darß said on Wednesday to the "Ostsee Zeitung": "Wiek auf Rügen would make more sense if they wanted to go to Bornholm." He also expressed doubts to ZDF Frontal as to whether his port was the right one.
In Wiek auf Rügen, the port operator confirmed to ZDF Frontal that he had been in contact with investigators: "We communicated our findings to the investigating authority several weeks ago." In January there was telephone contact with the BKA and the investigators were also on site in January. An eyewitness in Wiek auf Rügen also reports to ZDF Frontal that he claims to have observed a group of six at the port in September - five men and one woman - who did not speak German.
This suggests that the ship from Rostock made a stopover in Wiek (Rügen) - and not in Wieck am Darß. The ARD now also writes that it is Wiek on Rügen.
What does "pro-Ukrainian" mean?
The "New York Times", which reported shortly before the German media, writes of a "pro-Ukrainian group". US officials with access to intelligence information said it was "very likely that the saboteurs are Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or a combination of both."
Die Zeit becomes more specific and writes about a company in Poland that is owned by two Ukrainians. "From there, connections lead to other Ukrainians." However, the fact that someone has a Ukrainian passport says little about his or her motives.
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) pointed out on Wednesday:
We have to distinguish whether it was a Ukrainian group - that is, it could have been on behalf of the Ukraine - or a pro-Ukrainian one without the knowledge of the government. But I caution against jumping to conclusions.
Boris Pistorius, German Defense Minister
The Attorney General is investigating the explosive case of sabotage. On Wednesday he only said: "The identity of the perpetrators and their motives are the subject of ongoing investigations."
Could Ukraine be behind the attack?
There is no evidence of that. Kiev denies having anything to do with the sabotage files. "We are not behind this act," Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Wednesday. Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Kyiv had "nothing to do with the incident in the Baltic Sea" and "no information about pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups". 
Interestingly, Russia continues to blame the "Anglo-Saxons" - that is, the US and Great Britain - for the explosions.
Conclusion: Much remains unclear in the explosive sabotage case. It seems unlikely that a group of six would have carried out such a complicated mission without further help.

2) Last year around this time, the Russian budget was firmly in positive territory. The January 2023 deficit was clearly not representative, but an additional deficit of 800 billion RUB in February shows it's not a one-off phenomenon. pic.twitter.com/8acss4vZwf

— Janis Kluge (@jakluge) March 6, 2023

Spoiler:

‘The heart of the war’: Inside the secret talks with Putin’s generals that ended the siege of Mariupol
By Sebastian Shukla, Alex Marquardt and Kosta Hak, CNN
Updated 11:13 AM EST, Thu March 9, 2023

Kyiv, Ukraine
CNN
—

Russian President Vladimir Putin sat across from his defense minister in the Kremlin last April, slouched in his seat and gripping the table. They were discussing Russia’s siege of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in the strategic city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine.

To Ukrainians, Azovstal had become a bleak but potent symbol of resistance, sheltering about 2,600 soldiers and civilians while the fortress-like facility was pummeled by Russian bombardment for weeks. To Moscow, the vast site was a frustration, the last stubborn holdout in a city that its forces had otherwise taken control over weeks earlier.

“Block off the industrial site, so that not even a fly can escape,” Putin spat, his command broadcast on state-run television.

But as the Russian president ordered a tightening of the noose around the hulking factory complex, a small group was about to begin secret negotiations to end the siege. They involved two of Putin’s most senior generals and a Ukrainian lawmaker who once served as a Soviet paratrooper. CNN can now exclusively reveal the inner details of how the deal was struck, and who was involved in the sensitive talks.

Oleksandr Kovalov, a member of Ukrainian parliament from the Donetsk region and a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war, told CNN he brokered the early stages of the negotiations. Two high-ranking generals from Russia’s military intelligence agency, widely known as the GRU, represented the other side: Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexseyev, second in command of the GRU, and Maj. Gen. Alexander Zorin, both born in Ukraine.

Alexseyev has been linked to a string of brazen international incidents in recent years. He was among four GRU officers sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2016 for wide-ranging malicious cyber activity directed at undermining America’s democratic processes, including election interference. The United Kingdom and European Union sanctioned him in 2019 for the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in England with a deadly nerve agent.

Zorin, meanwhile, served as Putin’s envoy to Syria, playing an active role in talks between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the country’s opposition and rebel factions.

Their involvement shines a spotlight on the importance that Putin placed on resolving the Azovstal impasse and seizing Mariupol, securing his long-sought land bridge between Crimea and Russia – one of the biggest prizes of the Russian invasion.

It also illustrates a much-reported but hard-to-prove narrative right at the top of Moscow’s command of the Ukraine war – that the Russian president took control over the brutal conflict from the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and placed it in the hands of the military spies, the GRU.

“Since last summer military intelligence generals assumed a more prominent role as it dawned on Putin it was not a ‘special operation’ anymore but a conventional war,” Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and intelligence expert now in exile in London, told CNN. “Unfortunately, it means Putin’s readying the country for a long conventional war.”

...

On April 25, Kovalov made his first trip into Russian-occupied southern Ukraine since the war began, armed with secret passwords and encrypted communication devices from Budanov, he said, to ease passage through checkpoints into Russian-held Ukrainian territory and liaise with the Azov commanders.

...

Kovalov said he wasn’t surprised to see Russian generals Alexseyev and Zorin at the negotiating table. “This process was counted as a special operation,” outside of the war, Kovalov said. These talks needed a special touch.

Christo Grozev, from the online investigative group Bellingcat, who has tracked the activities of Russian security services and their operations abroad for years, said Alexseyev’s presence makes sense. “Alexseyev is the Ukraine war man for the GRU. He’s fully entrusted with everything regarding the war,” he told CNN.

CNN shared two photos of the meetings with Grozev, and he confirmed that the images appear to be Alexseyev and Zorin.

According to Kovalov, Alexseyev would take regular breaks from the May 9 negotiations to call Moscow. He had a “direct satellite connection” with the Russian defense ministry, Kovalov understood.

“Alexseyev is very high on the food chain,” Grozev said. “I think he can report directly to (Nikolai) Patrushev,” the head of Russia’s Security Council. Patrushev, in turn, reports directly to Putin.

...

Kovalov said he wasn’t surprised to see Russian generals Alexseyev and Zorin at the negotiating table. “This process was counted as a special operation,” outside of the war, Kovalov said. These talks needed a special touch.

Christo Grozev, from the online investigative group Bellingcat, who has tracked the activities of Russian security services and their operations abroad for years, said Alexseyev’s presence makes sense. “Alexseyev is the Ukraine war man for the GRU. He’s fully entrusted with everything regarding the war,” he told CNN.

CNN shared two photos of the meetings with Grozev, and he confirmed that the images appear to be Alexseyev and Zorin.

According to Kovalov, Alexseyev would take regular breaks from the May 9 negotiations to call Moscow. He had a “direct satellite connection” with the Russian defense ministry, Kovalov understood.

“Alexseyev is very high on the food chain,” Grozev said. “I think he can report directly to (Nikolai) Patrushev,” the head of Russia’s Security Council. Patrushev, in turn, reports directly to Putin.

...


https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/09/europe/azovastal-mariupol-siege-talks-intl-cmd/index.html

Filipenko wrote:Litvanski sef obavestajne sluzbe kaze da Rusija ima resurse za jos dve godine rata ovakvim intenzitetom bez problema. Izgleda da se malo menja ploca po kojoj je Rusija bez oruzja i municije ostala jos letos.

Erős Pista wrote:Po TRANSitivnosti

Notxor wrote:Kako je C posledica B?  Moram da priznam da to prvi put čujem.

Cousin Billy wrote:jel ti sve čuješ ovako potpuno pogrešno?

dobrobaba kaže da stanje A i stanje B proizvode istu posledicu C, a ti si to protumačio kao da je B proizvelo posledicu A. 
kako jbt?

A historic vote: in all of Moldova's legislation, the Soviet-era imperialist residue 'Moldovan' language will be replaced with 'Romanian' language. We are more than 30 years late in getting rid of this Russian lie. pic.twitter.com/27smoTLZSf

— Paula Erizanu (@paulaerizanu) March 2, 2023