Who Blew Up Nord Stream? Investigators Focus on Mysterious Passengers on a Yacht

https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-blew-up-nord-stream-investigators-focus-on-six-mysterious-passengers-on-a-yacht-25b47e9b

by ghshephard • 3 years ago

32 84 3 years ago

wsj.com

sschueller5• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/SOdWR

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 3 years ago

Initial suspicions in many European capitals focused on Russia, which denied any involvement. Analysts speculated that only a state with a sophisticated military would have been able to carry out such a complicated, underwater attack. Investigators now, however, are focused on the Andromeda and the six people it carried. German officials who have been briefed on the probe said they were told some of the people who rented the yacht were Ukrainian. Others had Bulgarian passports since determined to be forgeries, they said.

It was obvious from the start to any casual unbiased observer that it was unlikely to be Russia. There was no motive for Russia to blow up the pipeline. It would be akin to shooting the hostage. Russia wanted to hold Western Europe and especially Germany hostage to natural gas and being able to turn it back on was a big part of their negotiating position. Since they already controlled the input to the pipe, blowing up the pipe did nothing to help the Russians.

rossdavidh4• 3 years ago

Easy to imagine a motive for Russia, if you don't imagine it as a unitary block. Some inside the wealthy elite want to go back to the pre-war status quo, where they get to make $$$ selling fossil fuels to Europe. By blowing up NordStream, you do something like Viking raiders burning bridges behind them; it tells everyone on your side there's no going back, it's victory or death. If some of Russia's elite think they could be getting $$$ a month after a peace deal, they might be pushing for a quick end by withdrawing back to 2014 (or even 1991) line of control, which might work for them but not for Putin.

Now none of this means it actually was Russia, I don't claim to know any better than anyone else. But there was certainly a motive (for some in) Russia to want NordStream out of the way.

maxcan• 3 years ago

Exactly. If you imagine Russia as a unitary rational actor, it makes no sense to blow up the pipeline since they would have had the optionality to shut it down anytime they wanted without destroying it.

However, as part of an internal power structure, it does start to make sense. For example, you could see someone like Prigozhin (sp?) as potentially having a lot to gain from the attack. It would weaken his rivals with ties to the gas industry, and by "shooting the hostage" make Germany more likely to support Ukraine, leading to a longer, more drawn out war which benefits Wagner in all sorts of ways.

m0llusk• 3 years ago

Anders Puck Nielsen has an under 15 minute video with a compelling explanation for why Russia is most likely to have done it despite the obvious downsides. Just to pick some particular details: At this particular time the primary Russian strategy was to push Europe into a cold and dark winter. Pipelines can be rebuilt and that is not especially difficult when you are making big money from extracting and distributing fossil fuels. Even if you disagree with Anders' conclusions I think the points he raises are generally quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido

sschueller5• 3 years ago

But then why not also destroy the land based ones?

  - There are two that go via Belarus -> Poland -> Germany and Belarus -> Ukraine -> Slovakia -> Czechia -> Germany
  - Another two through Ukraine -> Slovakia -> Czechia -> Germany and Ukraine -> Romania -> Bulgaria -> Turkey
  - Then are two in the Black Sea, South Steam and Blue Stream which go to Turkey

CharlieDigital• 3 years ago

There's another angle on this which is that it's a signal from Putin that there's no going back. In other words, by removing the pipeline from operation, overthrowing him would not yield any benefit to any new regime. Any factions within Russia who were thinking of doing so and getting back to business as usual were suddenly silenced.

heywherelogingo• 3 years ago

Hardly needed to blow it up to stop supplying them.

Ultcyber• 3 years ago

I disagree - they've kept the pipeline closed since mid last year under (probably false) argument that they cannot repair a turbine due to sanctions, which has been denied by the companies that handle the repairs. So blowing up the pipeline would give them a real reason to not reopen it.

I'm not saying they did it, but just wanted to counter your argument that "there was no motive for Russia to blow up the pipeline"

bionade242• 3 years ago

This is wrong. Yes, they didn't install the turbine even after it was delivered, but for the most time, there was still heavily throttled throughput. Only a week or so before the explosions Putin shut the pipeline entirely.

qeternity• 3 years ago

I think this presumes that Russia cares what people think.

They don't, they only care about what people will do.

They could keep the pipeline shut for as long as the wanted on the most ludicrous of claims.

ChuckNorris892• 3 years ago

There was no motive for Russia to blow up the pipeline. It would be akin to shooting the hostage.

Not true, and not the same thing. When you shoot the hostage you now who did it to put the blame in court, this is still unclear who did what.

Russia's motive of destroying the pipeline was to legally shut down gas for Europe during the war without incurring any legal aftermath for it.

Simply just cutting off the gas would have made Russia legally liable for damages in court later when it will want to resume business in the future after the war.

Having the pipeline mysteriously blow up gives Russia plausible deniability for not being able to supply gas to Europe during the war:

"You see your honor, we wanted to fulfill our contractual obligation of supplying gas to Europe, but we couldn't because the pipeline was destroyed. Not our fault."

throw_pm23• 3 years ago

Do you really think this type of legalistic issue must be considered by global actors at this scale? Who is the "your honor" that Russia would need to address?

tgv2• 3 years ago

In principle I agree that it doesn't seem rational, but it could have been signal to Western Europe of the lengths they would go to if the West kept supporting Ukraine. The message would be delivered under cover of diplomacy and supported by blowing up a pipe line for which there was (still) one backup.

HPsquared4• 3 years ago

It's not a very clear signal though, since there is so much debate and uncertainty over who did it.

modo_mario• 3 years ago

It would be akin to shooting the hostage.

It was already announced the hostage was going to be shot at that point tho? Germany said they'd call it quits and then did. The company construct behind it was going to go bankrupt.

MrBuddyCasino3• 3 years ago

The same people who tried to sell us the idea that Covid didn't come from one of the very few labs worldwide that were performing research on this virus, but instead came from a wet market a few hundreds of meters away are now trying to tell us it wasn't the US that (directly or indirectly) blew up the pipeline. The same people that tried to establish the insane conspiracy theory that Trump got elected due to Russian interference.

And the thing is, it works. Propaganda works. HN is not some enlightened community that is immune, you'll get downvoted for fairly obvious conclusions that run counter to the official narrative.

MSFT_Edging• 3 years ago

Seymour Hersh came out and put together a fairly convincing argument.

The guy who was right about checks notes:

The My Lai Massacre

Watergate

Torture at Abu Ghraib

Domestic Spying

The secret bombing of Cambodia.

But then people come out and go "nonono don't look at that, it was definitely these two guys on a yatch".

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...

somewhereoutth• 3 years ago

https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-origins-mis...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

Propaganda does indeed work, however it is working in the opposite direction to that which you are implying.

alwayseasy3• 3 years ago

"It would be akin to shooting the hostage." You mean like Beslan or the Moscow theater hostage crisis?

Once you stop treating Russia like a monolith prone to only rational geopolitical moves, suddenly motives are everywhere.

sschueller5• 3 years ago

This article goes a little into it but what I don't generally see in most media is explaining just how hard it is do dive at these depths. It isn't just some random guy that has had some scuba time.

The pressure alone for many is too much, then you need special mixture of air, for prolonged work you need re-breathers and a decompression chamber on board the vessel in case of an emergency.

I am also wondering how this work was performed without Norway or the US noticing it.

Edit: Sorry, I meant Sweden not Norway

duxup2• 3 years ago

There was an NPR article that had some quotes about the difficulty in pulling off such an operation successfully. The assumption by investigators was these had to be people with specialized expertise. That would seem to limit the number of people who could pull this off.

wvh• 3 years ago

But every country probably has some of those people and the equipment needed. So it doesn't really bring us closer to figuring out whodunit.

fabian2k• 3 years ago

I can't verify this, but when the story broke in Germany there were some diving experts that claimed that you can dive there in those depths without decompression chambers and that people regularly do that.

The entire discussion on what exactly you need to perform this operation has resulted in a whole bunch of contradictory opinions.

hotpotamus• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Divers is probably worth a read if you have an interest. Basically it's about a group of hobbyist divers who explored a wreck at around that depth. They were definitely pushing the limits of amateur tech at the time, but I believe they also started using different gas mixes around then.

What I don't understand is why divers would even be needed at all. Torpedoes and depth charges are hardly new tech. If you asked me to do it, I'd just find a commodity underwater ROV for the job and strap a big bomb to it. Problem solved. It's one of the asymmetries of warfare that it's a lot easier to destroy stuff than to build it.

EntrePrescott• 3 years ago

the need for decompression (and the required decompression time) is very much dependent on the duration of the dive (i.e. how much gas is dissolved into your blood depends on how much time your blood was fed gases at higher pressure). If your dive is just a quick down,drop some stuff, and back up right away (especially with a gas mixture optimized for depth)… then yeah, you might be able to do it without decompression…

…whereas if you stay an hour or two down there, giving a long enough time for the gases to reach their high pressure solubility levels, you better not get back up without decompression.

lamontcg2• 3 years ago

Open Circuit dive to 80m with 15 mins of working bottom time (CCR would cut total runtime down to 85 mins and slash the helium bill). I ran it with Nominal conservatism since I figure we're talking about people crazy enough to play around with explosives. You can likely cut off of half the O2 stop and as long as you pass your saving throwing against type I DCS and don't have a PFO you'll likely be fine for 4 dives. I would assume these people would wind up pushing the tables exceedingly hard.

  V-Planner 3.105 by R. Hemingway,
  VPM code by Erik C. Baker.

  Decompression model:  VPM - B

  DIVE PLAN
  Surface interval = 5 day 0 hr 0 min.
  Elevation = 0m
  Conservatism = Nominal

  Dec to 80m  (4) Trimix 15/55 18m/min descent.
  Level 80m  15:33 (20) Trimix 15/55 1.34  ppO2,  24m ead,  30m end
  Asc to 54m  (23) Trimix 15/55 -8m/min ascent.
  Stop at 54m   0:45 (24) Trimix 15/55 0.95  ppO2,  14m ead,  19m end
  Stop at 51m   1:00 (25) Trimix 15/55 0.91  ppO2,  13m ead,  17m end
  Stop at 48m   1:00 (26) Trimix 15/55 0.86  ppO2,  12m ead,  16m end
  Stop at 45m   1:00 (27) Trimix 15/55 0.82  ppO2,  11m ead,  15m end
  Stop at 42m   1:00 (28) Trimix 15/55 0.78  ppO2,  10m ead,  13m end
  Stop at 39m   1:00 (29) Trimix 15/55 0.73  ppO2,  9m ead,  12m end
  Stop at 36m   2:00 (31) Trimix 15/55 0.69  ppO2,  7m ead,  11m end
  Stop at 33m   2:00 (33) Trimix 15/55 0.64  ppO2,  6m ead,  9m end
  Stop at 30m   3:00 (36) Trimix 15/55 0.60  ppO2,  5m ead,  8m end
  Stop at 27m   3:00 (39) Trimix 15/55 0.55  ppO2,  4m ead,  7m end
  Stop at 24m   4:00 (43) Trimix 15/55 0.51  ppO2,  3m ead,  5m end
  Stop at 21m   3:00 (46) Nitrox 50 1.54  ppO2,  10m ead
  Stop at 18m   3:00 (49) Nitrox 50 1.39  ppO2,  8m ead
  Stop at 15m   4:00 (53) Nitrox 50 1.24  ppO2,  6m ead
  Stop at 12m   5:00 (58) Nitrox 50 1.10  ppO2,  4m ead
  Stop at 9m   8:00 (66) Nitrox 50 0.95  ppO2,  2m ead
  Stop at 6m  10:00 (76) Oxygen 1.60  ppO2,  0m ead
  Stop at 3m  16:00 (92) Oxygen 1.30  ppO2,  0m ead
  Surface   (92) Oxygen -6m/min ascent.

  Off gassing starts at  62.2m

  OTU's this dive: 110
  CNS Total: 53.2%
  Gas density: 5.7g/l

  183.8 cu ft  Trimix 15/55
  32.0 cu ft  Nitrox 50
  21.9 cu ft  Oxygen
  237.8 cu ft  TOTAL


  DIVE PLAN COMPLETE

  *********   WARNING & DISCLAIMER  *********
  This V-Planner generated dive schedule could indirectly kill you.
  The author does not warrant that it accurately reflects the Varying
  Permeability Model algorithms, that it won't get you bent or dead, or that it
  will produce safe, reliable results.  This dive schedule is experimental
  and you use it at your own risk.  Diving in general is fraught with
  risk, and decompression diving adds significantly more risk.
  Deep diving utilizing multiple gasses, including Helium, is about
  as risky as it gets.

  This schedule is not intended for uneducated users. V-Planner and the
  decompression schedules it produces are tools for experienced mixed-gas
  decompression divers ONLY.  If you have not been properly trained in
  mixed-gas decompression diving by an internationally recognized technical
  certification agency and/or don't have a firm handle on decompression
  planning and mixed-gas diving, then DO NOT USE THIS DIVE SCHEDULE.

gerikson• 3 years ago

Why would Norway in particular notice? The explosions occurred closest to Denmark and Sweden.

HPsquared4• 3 years ago

They could have used an ROV.

tastyfreeze• 3 years ago

Eighty meters is within range of commercial ROVs and even consumer ROVs.

https://www.deeptrekker.com

https://geneinno.us/

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

I don't dive but 80 meters doesn't sound like much especially for what is purported to be clandestine and independent agents that are clearly motivated and accept the risk. Shit- people are willing to strap explosives to their bodies for the right cause. The pipelines were not all cleanly severed either. Did they even need to dive in order to drop charges near these pipes?

flakeoil• 3 years ago

Why should Norway of all countries notice it if it was happening within Swedish and Danish waters?

And how to expect a Navy/Army/Air-force to notice and study in detail what every little boat is doing. And even more difficult to notice what a diver or two are doing.

Cthulhu_2• 3 years ago

The sea is big and has many innocuous boats, anything happening under water is effectively invisible.

And you're assuming they actually went all the way down; someone else mentioned an ROV, but if you know where the pipeline is you can probably sink explosives on a weight too. It doesn't have to be accurate, not when the pipe will collapse and be contaminated with little encouragement.

eightysixfour• 3 years ago

The world’s best free diver did a 214m dive with a weighted sled and buoyancy device. Scuba may make it more complicated in this case if all they were doing was attaching an item.

pwinnski5• 3 years ago

How deep do they need to go? How close do they need to be? Let's not make this more complicated than it needs to be.

Since we're well into speculation mode here, try this: footage of the aftermath[0] reveals an enormous 50-meter hole in the pipe, which was made of pretty thick metal. I suppose it would have to be, to carry gas under pressure from within as well as withstand being kept empty, as it was at the time of the explosion, under pressure from without.

How big does an explosive have to be to cause that much damage? Pretty big, I think. Big and heavy.

How close does an explosive that big have to be? Not very close, I think.

Of course, there's a trade-off! The close it is, the less big it has to be and the farther it is, the smaller it can be. But a 50-meter is much bigger than it needed to be to disable the pipeline. It is almost as if the people dropping the bomb couldn't be sure how close they would get with it, so built a big enough bomb to ensure rupturing it whether it landed directly on top of it or a number of meters away. Maybe they got lucky, and expected a smaller hole. Maybe they got unlucky and expected a bigger one.

I mean, the BBC footage involved zero people getting in the water. They just went to the area and dropped in a camera on a long cable and navigated to the hole.

It's possible that nobody even got in the water for the bombing. They could have used a "fish finder" to make sure they were pretty close to the pipe, and even drop a test object to see how the underwater currents might shift it, but it was a pretty big bomb, I think it probably mostly went straight down. Close enough for a big bomb to make a hole in a big pipe, anyway.

0. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63297085

HPsquared4• 3 years ago

I guess there might be a crater visible on the seabed if that was the case. Or maybe it was all scoured clean by the subsequent gas leak?

sschueller5• 3 years ago

The pipe has a thick layer of concrete around it. I think you would need some sort directional charge.

A large creator can also occur when the pipe burst from the pressure inside even if punctured by just a small hole.

Fatnino• 3 years ago

No need for a test object. Just drop the bomb in the water with a tether. Don't like where it landed? Pull it up and try again

user070223• 3 years ago

You assume the bomb was placed, and not dropped with weight or with underwater "drone"[0](Hilarious). 80 meters is probably not too deep for Sonar/Lidar for spotting the pipe, Xprize Ocean discovery comes to mind. In addition top free diver athletes do dive for 80+ meters[1].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwIWG5_rgC0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2kBfhqkGk

piva00• 3 years ago

80-110m is not such a deep dive, I personally know at least 3 SCUBA divers that have taken classes and dived to 100m, it's something that amateur divers can do with enough resources.

mzs• 3 years ago

The article literally does describe how divers would do so with quotes from a subject matter expert:

Achim Schlöffel, a German extreme diver who runs a diving school and helps companies protect vessels and underwater installations from sabotage, said explosives could have been planted by a group of well-trained technical divers accustomed to working at such depths—around 80 meters—assuming they had several days to do so.
Six divers, he said, could have lowered the explosives in several dives using commercially available equipment such as underwater scooters or propulsion vehicles, airlifting bags and buoys, and a portable sonar. “I know dozens of professional divers who would be up to the task,” Mr. Schlöffel said.

lamontcg2• 3 years ago

I've been to 80m depth. I have a rebreather and a couple scooters. I probably have nearly enough gear for that entire dive team. Even got some 500# lift bags.

Only thing I'm lacking are the forged passports and the explosives.

A sufficiently rich Ukrainian in the construction industry or something like that could probably have the right contacts for both of those[*].

It also probably takes less explosives than you think since the water is going to amplify the blast (pretty sure the US Navy dive manual has a good section on explosives in water and top tips like making sure that you at least get your torso out of the water if you can).

You wouldn't need a decompression chamber for those dives at that depth.

(The _Shadow Divers_ book also documents a colossal screw up on bad gas for the depth, and the hazards of going inside of wrecks at depth, which don't apply here)

I am also wondering how this work was performed without Norway or the US noticing it.

Most things that most boats do aren't noticed by anyone. If it wasn't that way, then drug smuggling would be a whole lot harder.

[*] I'm betting Ukrainian because the pipeline wasn't benefiting them and was supplying piles of cash to their enemy, it seems kinda obvious to me.

tony_cannistra• 3 years ago

I won't lie, I'm a little envious of whomever secured the undoubtedly very exciting job to plan this whole thing. Every new emergence reads like a scene in a movie. I can imagine the scene where the sailboat pulls up in tiny, unsuspecting Wiek and gets loaded with explosives in the middle of the night.

rossdavidh4• 3 years ago

In fact, it reads so much like a scene out of fiction that I am wondering if that's what it really is?

selivanovp3• 3 years ago

The recent “revelations” definitely looks like an effort to fool people of how it was really done. Too much Hollywood in it.

rossdavidh4• 3 years ago

I don't know who did it, but I do know one thing: the political angle on this is far too strong for me to trust any intelligence agency's conclusion, whether Germany, Denmark, US, or anyone else. Or, for that matter, and private sector news organization's article. Ten years from now, it might be possible to have an objective, just-the-facts investigation into it, but in the middle of a war and a worldwide economic shockwave from the war, there is far too much politics for me to trust any conclusion.

ifyoubuildit• 3 years ago

This is how I've come to feel about almost everything in the news.

Cthulhu_2• 3 years ago

For sure, there's many different motivations from many different parties to forcefully shut it down like this.

I don't believe Russia did it though; sure they wanted to shut down gas flow to Europe, but they did that by just... turning it off.

Ukraine is a candidate, because forcefully shutting off a source of income to Russia would help them. I don't believe that (+ the sanctions) have been able to stop Russia though, they've got other sources of income, enough savings to last a while, and a strong grip on the population so it cannot revolt or anything.

And the US is a candidate, on the one side as an ally of Ukraine trying to force Europe to stop sending money to Russia, and on the other as a seller of LNG at increased prices.

But it could be any, and I doubt any conclusive investigation will be published as-is or unsealed during our lifetime.

oneshtein2• 3 years ago

Why Ukraine need to blow up empty pipes instead of working one?

Gazprom, turned off gas pipeline breaking their contract to supply gas to EU, so they need something like that to avoid huge fine, while Ukraine don't, because Ukraine paid higher price for natural gas as consequence.

importantbrian• 3 years ago

I don't have strong opinions about who did it, but I wouldn't dismiss Russia that quickly. Russia has a long history of utilizing false-flag operations. They were pumping them out almost hourly leading up to the invasion. If they had been able to successfully pin it on the US the wedge that would drive in NATO has obvious benefits for Moscow. Their reasons for doing it seem as plausible as for any other state actor. It's also less risky for them. They've already gotten near maximum blowback from the west. Whereas it's a really risky thing for the US to do given the massive blowback that would result if they got caught.

motohagiography2• 3 years ago

What was doubtful about the Hersh article?

pwinnski5• 3 years ago

Most things, but mostly by omission. For some examples: https://newpol.org/the-nord-stream-pipeline-explosions-chall...

motohagiography2• 3 years ago

That article is persistent criticism, but it only dilutes aruguments instead of showing counter evidence. The arguments reduce to, "it's complicated, we're on your team, he's just wrong, trust us."

whatever13• 3 years ago

The obvious answer is that the one who did it was expecting to benefit from it.

The thing is that at that point almost everyone would benefit from it (maybe everyone except Europeans). Russia because they could put pressure on Europe by cutting gas supply during winter, US because they wanted to convert Europe to LNG and put pressure on the gas revenues of Russia.

So my conclusion is that an international task force did it lol

charlysisto2• 3 years ago

Russia because they could put pressure on Europe. That doesn't really hold because they could just turn off the tap

whatever13• 3 years ago

Not without contractual ramifications.

freitzkriesler2• 3 years ago

I really don't know why this is a question at this point because it's obvious that it was a NATO country at America's behest.

alienicecream• 3 years ago

How does a small group of terrorists that's not anyone's radar even get this much explosive and how are they able to transport it through Europe without anyone noticing?

vogre• 3 years ago

This version is very convenient.

If Russia loses the war then it was false flag attack by Russia. Russia will pay.

If Ukraine loses the war, then it is terrorist nazi state, who fooled Western governments and blew up German Infrastructure. Ukraine will pay.

Either way it's not US elites blowing up they allies' infrastructure to capture EU gas market and to increase dependence of EU from US.

Who Blew Up Nord Stream? Investigators Focus on Mysterious Passengers on a Yacht

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