Noordstream Sabotage

[Batman]

That was ANFO. Which is MASSIVELY less efficient than TNT. The point was that getting your hands and the components for explosives is not hard, and getting your hands on the components of or ready made amounts of explposives equal toour outstriping TNT (which by 21st century explosive standards isn't all that impressive) is not all that unfeasible.

[Solauren]

The operative word there is 'truck'

Good luck getting a truck bomb's worth of explosives down there in the right place with scuba gear.

Just saying, it's possible to get explosive material and not be a nation-state level actor.

Assuming it wasn't Russia (I agree, unlikely), it would have been someone setting things up for a while, that just happened to blow it up now.


Now, all that said, I seriously doubt it was a 'rando'
The pipe line blowing up drove natural gas and energy prices up a bit.
Also, when Russia is able to sell gas again, I can see them charging Germany et al. for repairs to the line.

[madd0c0t0r2]

the point is that those more intense explosives are (one would assume) even more heavily restricted. The size of this is therefore more pointing at nation-state level operator (though there's several private indiviuduals/corps operating at similar levels, most aren't)

Bullshit!

Truck bomb, 1993 World Trade Center.
1995 Oklahoma City bombing

The stuff used is still restricted in the United States, as they all have legitimate industrial uses.

All you need is time, money, patience, and a little training/knowledge to obtain the materials needed to build an explosive.
(Not saying it wasn't a country, just saying that they are not the only ones capable of it).

fair enough, conceded. It would be very possible to fill up a shipping container and lower it off a decent boat's anchor chain.

[PainRack]

I think a very funny angle is this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe

The Baltic pipe opened one day after the explosion.


So. Russia COULD have been aiming for the Baltic Pipe in an attempt to damage it, thus increasing pressure to end sanctions against Russian gas.

Only to have missed and instead hit their own pipes.

[madd0c0t0r2]

I think a very funny angle is this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe

The Baltic pipe opened one day after the explosion.


So. Russia COULD have been aiming for the Baltic Pipe in an attempt to damage it, thus increasing pressure to end sanctions against Russian gas.

Only to have missed and instead hit their own pipes.

I think the argument against that was both Noordstream Pipes were hit. They'd probably have known the Baltic wasn't two pipes
So I just tried overlaying the two different wikipedia maps. The maps don't really line up on coastline, or use different simplified maps, or projections or something, so this could be off by hundred miles:

https://imgur.com/a/dhez4hJ

[Broomstick]

Saying the explosion was equivalent to 500kg TNT does not mean that 500kg was actually used, TNT is just used as a standard measure of explosive force. I'm not an expert but I assume there are other explosives which are much more powerful kg for kg than TNT so the actual weight needed to be transported could be much less.

Just going to throw out by way of comparison -

The Oklahoma City bomb in 1995 was the equivalent of around 1400 kg of TNT. The required bits were purchased by just a couple of guys and put together in a shed.

That was ANFO. Which is MASSIVELY less efficient than TNT.

Even so, McVeigh and friends assembled enough to generate an explosion equivalent to 1400 kg of TNT.

Now, what the Nordstream was assaulted with is almost certainly not the same thing, but the point is that getting the equivalent of 500 kg of explosive and getting it to a particular location is not that hard. Sure, takes some money and planning but it's well within the means of a bunch of kooks, much less private entities, governments, NGO's, terrorist groups, etc.

The operative word there is 'truck'

Good luck getting a truck bomb's worth of explosives down there in the right place with scuba gear.

How about a boat with some sort of winch and a GPS?

[Ralin]

How about a boat with some sort of winch and a GPS?

I admit, I'm not an engineer or a demolitions expert. Seems like it would be very difficult though.

[Solauren]

How about a boat with some sort of winch and a GPS?

I admit, I'm not an engineer or a demolitions expert. Seems like it would be very difficult though.

Depends on time scale involved.

If you had to plant all the explosives at once, yeah, that's a little tricky. Not impossible, just tricky.

However, if you had say, a Fishing boat, and therefore a legitimate reason to be out on the water each day, you could planet the explosives piecemeal over whatever timescale you needed. In the morning, you leave with what appears to be an empty fishing boat, your people plant the explosives while you fish nearby. Each day, you're just another fishing boat living that little island not far from the pipelines.

[LadyTevar]

Well... the plot is going about like people expect. Bolded are my own emphasis.

Russian Navy Ships Seen Near NordStrom Pipes

CNN
—
European security officials on Monday and Tuesday observed Russian Navy support ships in the vicinity of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines likely caused by underwater explosions, according two Western intelligence officials and one other source familiar with the matter.

It’s unclear whether the ships had anything to do with those explosions, these sources and others said – but it’s one of the many factors that investigators will be looking into.

Russian submarines were also observed not far from those areas last week, one of the intelligence officials said.
Three US officials said that the US has no thorough explanation yet for what happened, days after the explosions appeared to cause three separate and simultaneous leaks in the two pipelines on Monday.

Russian ships routinely operate in the area, according to one Danish military official, who emphasized that the presence of the ships doesn’t necessarily indicate that Russia caused the damage.

A large disturbance in the sea can be observed off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022 following a series of unusual leaks on two natural gas pipelines running from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany have triggered concerns about possible sabotage. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says she "cannot rule out" sabotage after three leaks were detected on Nord Stream 1 and 2.

“We see them every week,” this person said. “Russian activities in the Baltic Sea have increased in recent years. They’re quite often testing our awareness – both at sea and in the air.”

But the sightings still cast further suspicion on Russia, which has drawn the most attention from both European and US officials as the only actor in the region believed to have both the capability and motivation to deliberately damage the pipelines.

US officials declined to comment on the intelligence about the ships on Wednesday.

(Article continues with more background)

So, there were Russian Military ships, as well as Russian Subs in the area, but this is something 'seen every week' as Russia tests the Danish military. So while the 'fishing boat theory' is valid, there's more than enough Russia military about to not need such subterfuge. They just have to not get caught.

[Solauren]

Shell game it to not get caught.

Russian military ships in the area distract everyone and make them cautious.

The crew of the Fishing Boat, overlooked as not-important, then does the demolition work.
(Possibly with stuff the russian military ships leave in the water under guard until the fishermen pick it up)

That does make it a state level operation, but it would work. And even allow plausible deniability.

"Yes, our people were in the water with a crate of explosives. It's a standard training exercise. They have to stay in the water for 4 hours, pushing the crate around to build up muscle and endurance. They can't accidentally set the explosives off without setting up the detonator. Yes, we include the detonator in the crate, not set up of course. Why? To make it as close to real operation conditions as possible."

So long as they don't get caught during the transfer of the explosives to the fishing-boat operators, they haven't actually done anything. And even if they are caught, all they have to do is claim 'they did not have authorization, and sold the explosives to the fishermen on the black market'.

Yeah, they hang their operators and some of their navy people 'out to dry', but that is espionage for you.

[madd0c0t0r2]

Thinking on Painrack's suggestuon.

There were actually three bomb attacks, three pipes as targets, but one pipe got hit twice. Surely someone didnt fuck that up?

[PainRack]

I think a very funny angle is this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe

The Baltic pipe opened one day after the explosion.


So. Russia COULD have been aiming for the Baltic Pipe in an attempt to damage it, thus increasing pressure to end sanctions against Russian gas.

Only to have missed and instead hit their own pipes.

I think the argument against that was both Noordstream Pipes were hit. They'd probably have known the Baltic wasn't two pipes
So I just tried overlaying the two different wikipedia maps. The maps don't really line up on coastline, or use different simplified maps, or projections or something, so this could be off by hundred miles:

https://imgur.com/a/dhez4hJ

Yeah. Normally you won't consider this level of incompetence at a state actor level, getting lost that badly to hit your own pipe.


The new data coming out kinda make this highly implausible though.

However, given India bombing an empty field because they might had forgot to convert their targeting system , well.....

[Solauren]

"Hit the two pipes we want damaged, and look like you were after the third we don't want damaged. That should make use look less likely to have done it."

[bilateralrope]

‘Dark Ships’ Emerge From the Shadows of the Nord Stream Mystery

MATT BURGESS
SECURITY
NOV 11, 2022 7:00 AM

Satellite monitors discovered two vessels with their trackers turned off in the area of the pipeline prior to the suspected sabotage in September.

THE FIRST GAS leaks on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea were detected in the early hours of September 26, pouring up to 400,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere. Officials immediately suspected sabotage of the international pipeline. New analysis seen by WIRED shows that two large ships, with their trackers off, appeared around the leak sites in the days immediately before they were detected.

According to the analysis by satellite data monitoring firm SpaceKnow, the two “dark ships,” each measuring around 95 to 130 meters long, passed within several miles of the Nord Stream 2 leak sites. “We have detected some dark ships, meaning vessels that were of a significant size, that were passing through that area of interest,” says Jerry Javornicky, the CEO and cofounder of SpaceKnow. “They had their beacons off, meaning there was no information about their movement, and they were trying to keep their location information and general information hidden from the world,” Javornicky adds.

The discovery, which was made by analyzing images from multiple satellites, is likely to further increase speculation about the cause of the blasts. Multiple countries investigating the incident believe the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were rocked by a series of explosions, with many suspicions directed at Russia as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues. (Russia has denied its involvement.) Once SpaceKnow identified the ships, it reported its findings to officials at NATO, who are investigating the Nord Stream incidents. Javornicky says NATO officials asked the company to provide more information.

NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu says it does not comment on the “details of our support or the sources used” but confirmed that NATO believes the incident was a “deliberate and irresponsible act of sabotage” and it has increased its presence in the Baltic and North Seas. However, a NATO official, who did not have permission to speak publicly, confirmed to WIRED that NATO had received SpaceKnow’s data and said satellite imagery can prove useful for its investigations.

To detect the ships, Javornicky says, the company scoured 90 days of archived satellite images for the area. The company analyzes images from multiple satellite systems—including paid and free services—and uses machine learning to detect objects within them. This includes the ability to monitor roads, buildings, and changes in landscapes. "We have 38 specific algorithms that can detect military equipment," Javornicky says, adding that SpaceKnow’s system can detect specific models of aircraft on landing strips.

Once it gathered archive images of the area, SpaceKnow created a series of polygons around the gas leak sites. The smallest of these, around 400 square meters, covered the immediate blast area, and larger areas of interest covered several kilometers. In the weeks leading up to the explosions, SpaceKnow detected 25 ships passing through the region, from “cargo ships to multipurpose larger ships,” Javornicky says. In total, 23 of these vessels had their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders turned on. Two did not have AIS data turned on, and these ships passed the area during the days immediately ahead of the leaks being detected.

By international law, large ships are required to install and use AIS. This vessel tracking system was created to help ships navigate and avoid potential collisions with other vessels. When turned on, AIS will broadcast a ship’s name, location, the direction of travel, speed, and other information.

It is relatively rare for ships to turn off their AIS transponders. Ships that “go dark” are often suspected of being involved in illegal fishing or modern slavery, with officials in Europe previously investigating ships that are believed to have turned off their AIS transponders. “It would not be common practice [to have AIS turned off], unless the vessels have a classified military mission or they would have some clandestine objectives, because the Baltic Sea is one of the busiest seas in the world in terms of commercial traffic,” says Otto Tabuns, the director of the Baltic Security Foundation, an NGO that focuses on the region.

Tabuns says the Baltic Sea has multiple main “arteries” where ships travel and it is “responsible” for ships in the area to have their AIS trackers turned on. Collisions at sea can be deadly and environmentally ruinous. “There are many places in the [Baltic] sea that are not navigable for bigger ships,” Tabuns says. “There are also some areas that are not recommended or where it is prohibited to ship because of the heritage of World War Two.” Decades-old wartime submarines and munitions litter the Baltic Sea’s floor.

SpaceKnow detected the ships that had AIS turned off using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from satellites. Most satellites observing Earth take photos of what’s beneath them; others, however, also use SAR to bounce radio waves off the ground and create images from them. Andrey Kurekin, a coastal ocean color scientist at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory who has analyzed satellite images for detecting objects at sea, says SAR technology can be useful for detecting ships, as it shows reflections from metal objects. “They are shown as bright objects in SAR images,” Kurekin says.

Kurekin says SAR images can be used to identify the longitude and latitude coordinates of a ship, the direction it is heading, and potentially to estimate its speed. “The main advantage of SAR over optical sensors is that the microwaves penetrate through clouds,” Kurekin says. The images are less impacted by the weather and can also provide visibility at night. “It's quite difficult to hide a ship from a SAR sensor,” Kurekin adds.

SAR images of the dark ships shared with WIRED show the vessels as glowing objects, not far from the explosion site around Nord Stream 2. “We assume it was one of those two dark ships that we have detected, but we're not making any decision,” Javornicky says. He says the company is not in the business of determining what may have happened or who is responsible but instead provided the data to authorities.

Kurekin cautions that AIS tracking systems onboard ships can, at times, fail. The signal from AIS could stop communicating with satellites or receivers on land, Kurekin says, adding that the signal can be impacted by the weather too. “If there is a vessel that you can see in SAR image but it's not reported by the AIS system, it does not necessarily mean that there's something wrong with this vessel,” Kurekin says. Signals from AIS transponders can also be manipulated—warships have had their AIS data spoofed, and ships around Russia and the Black Sea have vanished from trackers in recent years.

While there are multiple ongoing investigations into the explosions, determining the full picture of what happened may take some time. Police in Copenhagen said its initial investigations have determined that “powerful explosions” caused “extensive damage” to the pipes. Images taken from around the exploded sections of the pipe appear to show that at least 50 meters of the pipeline were destroyed in the explosions.

In an email, the Swedish security service, Säkerhetspolisen, said that due to “secrecy” around its operations, it could not discuss its investigation or whether it was looking at satellite data. However, agency spokesperson Gabriel Wernstedt says the organization is conducting a “criminal investigation of gross sabotage” around both the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipes. “Certain seizures were made during the onsite investigations that are being analyzed,” Wernstedt says. In public statements, Säkerhetspolisen has confirmed denotations happened at the pipes and that the Swedish armed forces are involved in the investigations.

However, while the investigations are ongoing, there appear to be difficulties between the countries that are looking into the incident, which could slow the process. While Sweden says it is working with investigators in Germany and Denmark, the official leading its investigation has rejected plans to form a joint investigation.

Tabuns says he hopes that the incident will act as motivation for countries to work on better ways to share intelligence, particularly as Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO. Each country will have its own levels of classification for information and systems where it collects intelligence—these may often not be compatible, Tabuns says. However, he adds that the events should see countries look at increasing the “integration of existing national systems so that there would be real-time information sharing for any response.”

Update 9:30 am, 11-11-22: Added statement from NATO.

I wonder if the satellite data is complete enough to track those ships, backwards or forwards, until a point at which they can be identified. Either when their AIS was on or when they were at a port.

[LadyTevar]

‘Dark Ships’ Emerge From the Shadows of the Nord Stream Mystery

I wonder if the satellite data is complete enough to track those ships, backwards or forwards, until a point at which they can be identified. Either when their AIS was on or when they were at a port.

I am very positive they are attempting that tracking right now, but they do have a massive amount of data to work through. Releasing this much is going to put the owners/controllers of those ships on edge. If those ships weren't already scuttled or hidden by quick name/registry changes, they will be shortly.

[Elfdart]

Seymour Hersh has the details:

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

President Biden and his foreign policy team—National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Policy—had been vocal and consistent in their hostility to the two pipelines, which ran side by side for 750 miles under the Baltic Sea from two different ports in northeastern Russia near the Estonian border, passing close to the Danish island of Bornholm before ending in northern Germany.

The direct route, which bypassed any need to transit Ukraine, had been a boon for the German economy, which enjoyed an abundance of cheap Russian natural gas—enough to run its factories and heat its homes while enabling German distributors to sell excess gas, at a profit, throughout Western Europe. Action that could be traced to the administration would violate US promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia. Secrecy was essential.

From its earliest days, Nord Stream 1 was seen by Washington and its anti-Russian NATO partners as a threat to western dominance. The holding company behind it, Nord Stream AG, was incorporated in Switzerland in 2005 in partnership with Gazprom, a publicly traded Russian company producing enormous profits for shareholders which is dominated by oligarchs known to be in the thrall of Putin. Gazprom controlled 51 percent of the company, with four European energy firms—one in France, one in the Netherlands and two in Germany—sharing the remaining 49 percent of stock, and having the right to control downstream sales of the inexpensive natural gas to local distributors in Germany and Western Europe. Gazprom’s profits were shared with the Russian government, and state gas and oil revenues were estimated in some years to amount to as much as 45 percent of Russia’s annual budget.

America’s political fears were real: Putin would now have an additional and much-needed major source of income, and Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia—while diminishing European reliance on America. In fact, that’s exactly what happened. Many Germans saw Nord Stream 1 as part of the deliverance of former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s famed Ostpolitik theory, which would enable postwar Germany to rehabilitate itself and other European nations destroyed in World War II by, among other initiatives, utilizing cheap Russian gas to fuel a prosperous Western European market and trading economy.

Nord Stream 1 was dangerous enough, in the view of NATO and Washington, but Nord Stream 2, whose construction was completed in September of 2021, would, if approved by German regulators, double the amount of cheap gas that would be available to Germany and Western Europe. The second pipeline also would provide enough gas for more than 50 percent of Germany’s annual consumption. Tensions were constantly escalating between Russia and NATO, backed by the aggressive foreign policy of the Biden Administration.

Opposition to Nord Stream 2 flared on the eve of the Biden inauguration in January 2021, when Senate Republicans, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, repeatedly raised the political threat of cheap Russian natural gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken as Secretary of State. By then a unified Senate had successfully passed a law that, as Cruz told Blinken, “halted [the pipeline] in its tracks.” There would be enormous political and economic pressure from the German government, then headed by Angela Merkel, to get the second pipeline online.

Would Biden stand up to the Germans? Blinken said yes, but added that he had not discussed the specifics of the incoming President’s views. “I know his strong conviction that this is a bad idea, the Nord Stream 2,” he said. “I know that he would have us use every persuasive tool that we have to convince our friends and partners, including Germany, not to move forward with it.”

A few months later, as the construction of the second pipeline neared completion, Biden blinked. That May, in a stunning turnaround, the administration waived sanctions against Nord Stream AG, with a State Department official conceding that trying to stop the pipeline through sanctions and diplomacy had “always been a long shot.” Behind the scenes, administration officials reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, by then facing a threat of Russian invasion, not to criticize the move.

There were immediate consequences. Senate Republicans, led by Cruz, announced an immediate blockade of all of Biden’s foreign policy nominees and delayed passage of the annual defense bill for months, deep into the fall. Politico later depicted Biden’s turnabout on the second Russian pipeline as “the one decision, arguably more than the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan, that has imperiled Biden’s agenda.”

The administration was floundering, despite getting a reprieve on the crisis in mid-November, when Germany’s energy regulators suspended approval of the second Nord Stream pipeline. Natural gas prices surged 8% within days, amid growing fears in Germany and Europe that the pipeline suspension and the growing possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine would lead to a very much unwanted cold winter. It was not clear to Washington just where Olaf Scholz, Germany’s newly appointed chancellor, stood. Months earlier, after the fall of Afghanistan, Scholtz had publicly endorsed French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a more autonomous European foreign policy in a speech in Prague—clearly suggesting less reliance on Washington and its mercurial actions.

Throughout all of this, Russian troops had been steadily and ominously building up on the borders of Ukraine, and by the end of December more than 100,000 soldiers were in position to strike from Belarus and Crimea. Alarm was growing in Washington, including an assessment from Blinken that those troop numbers could be “doubled in short order.”

The administration’s attention once again was focused on Nord Stream. As long as Europe remained dependent on the pipelines for cheap natural gas, Washington was afraid that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia.

It was at this unsettled moment that Biden authorized Jake Sullivan to bring together an interagency group to come up with a plan.

All options were to be on the table. But only one would emerge.

Well, that solves the "mystery" of who blew up Nordstream. The why has always been obvious: to keep Europe under the heel of the Empire. If Germans and other Europeans don't want to freeze, they'll have to pay extortionist prices for liquefied gas from Texas.

Since the cat is officially out of the bag, and Russia has no effective way of retaliating against NATO, my guess is they'll take it out on Ukraine this summer by incinerating every field of crops they can put the torch to. If the Empire can force the world to buy their natural gas, there's no reason a thug like Putin won't try to force everyone to buy Russian wheat -at a much higher price, of course. Maybe he should have rode a black horse in his famous photo shoot.

[Rogue 9]

That reads like an awful lot of conjecture. I like how the Biden administration had an "aggressive foreign policy" before there was a Biden administration to have such policy.

[LadyTevar]

Seymour Hersh has the details:
(SNIP SOME REALLY OUT THERE CONSPIRACY BULLSHIT)

Well, that solves the "mystery" of who blew up Nordstream. The why has always been obvious: to keep Europe under the heel of the Empire. If Germans and other Europeans don't want to freeze, they'll have to pay extortionist prices for liquefied gas from Texas.

Since the cat is officially out of the bag, and Russia has no effective way of retaliating against NATO, my guess is they'll take it out on Ukraine this summer by incinerating every field of crops they can put the torch to. If the Empire can force the world to buy their natural gas, there's no reason a thug like Putin won't try to force everyone to buy Russian wheat -at a much higher price, of course. Maybe he should have rode a black horse in his famous photo shoot.

When I first read that, I had to check to see if it was The Onion.
Where the FUCK did you dig that up, and what kinda drugs are they taking?

[Ralin]

Where the FUCK did you dig that up, and what kinda drugs are they taking?

Googling it, a famous journalist who broke the story of the My Lai massacre and a couple other US government atrocities, and also a bunch of other stuff he seems to have been making up.

[His Divine Shadow]

Seymor Hersch has been peddling conspiracy theories without any evidence for a long time now. Riding on a very old reputation where he did some actual journalistic work.

[His Divine Shadow]

Like... though... I'm not saying I think the idea that the US blew up nordstream is a conspiracy theory or even an unlikely scenario. Who knows, they might well have been the ones whodunnit.

Might also have been the russians, they bugfuck nuts after all.

Regardless Nordstream 2 was a crime against the planet and my thanks to whomever blew it up and saved us from german idiocy and laid bare the flaws of trying to rely on a combo of renewables and gas instead of a combo of renewables and nuclear.

[Lord Revan]

The question there is what's the endgame there, people don't blow up gaslines for shits and giggles (or at least governments don't) and Europe's dependency on Gas is pretty much self-inflicted and thus not really a long term control method.

[Elfdart]

When I first read that, I had to check to see if it was The Onion.
Where the FUCK did you dig that up, and what kinda drugs are they taking?

General Ismay said famously that NATO exists for three reasons: to keep America in, Russia out and Germany down. Blowing up Nordstream fits this notion perfectly, and is a geopolitical hat trick too.

As for Seymour Hersh himself, his track record is pretty ironclad. Shit-libs attack him when he runs a story that's unflattering to Democrats (Kennedy, Obama and now Biden) but thought he was great when he wrote articles that embarrassed Republicans. This says more about them than him.

And when it comes to the hysterical responses to Hersh, I'm reminded of Claud Cockburn's sage advice:

"Never believe anything until it is officially denied."

[Elfdart]

The question there is what's the endgame there, people don't blow up gaslines for shits and giggles (or at least governments don't) and Europe's dependency on Gas is pretty much self-inflicted and thus not really a long term control method.

As Agricola explained to Tacitus about 2000 years ago, Empires by their very nature can't tolerate anyone not being under their control. The very idea that Germany and other countries might buy gas from Russia -even as a temporary measure until cleaner energy sources are available- fills imperialists and their bootlickers with murderous rage. That's why the Empire lays waste to countries like Vietnam, Lebanon, Yemen, El Salvador and numerous others that don't really have much worth stealing. After all, if Germany could keep buying cheaper gas from Russia, what else could they buy from countries outside the Empire? Maybe other countries will get the idea that they can do without Uncle Sam, too -or maybe just hedge their bets and wait for the best offer.

[Broomstick]

When I first read that, I had to check to see if it was The Onion.
Where the FUCK did you dig that up, and what kinda drugs are they taking?

It's making the rounds - this is the third forum I've seen it on. Which is unfortunate because, as has been noted, it's long on conjecture and very short on verifiable facts. It's a "just-so" story that favors the Russian side of the war.