Nord Stream Pipeline

[junior moat]

I used geojson.io in the past to copy&paste an array of JSON lat/long coordinates onto the map. If you adhere to GeoJSON format you can give each pin on the map a 'label' which could be the time I guess

[true barn]

thanks Peter, I'm too lazy to figure things out and outsourced it to J_K

[lethal rivet]

For visuals, yellow dots are where ships met, red dots for explosions

I think we should get better results when putting it on the map with coordinates but looking interesting already

[junior moat]

nice !

[stark palm]

Let me ask around

[junior moat]

the problem is though, globalfishing is detecting quite a lot of vessels (I guess makes sense since a lot of vessels don't have to use AIS) .. but maybe with the actual SAR images it would be possible to verify that e.g. some unidentified vessel with similar size to Andromeda stayed near M.Julie for some time or something like this

also this specific vessel is probably not it since 0500 on Sept 7th is too early, we know it cannot have reached Bornholm by that time

it should be possible to find more 'matches' though, I just went with the very first that I found

[harsh rock]

Thanks.... there are quite a few smaller vessels around the Minerva on SEN-1 (SAR & VV - Linear/Decibel Gamma0) around that date/s....can't see anything that suggests vessels meeting up yet though.
As an aside has anyone searched for images from the Rostock - Hanko ferry around those dates .... that route is in the vicinity.

[lethal rivet]

Let me know if you find sth more, I’m happy to position it on the map

[junior moat]

hmm.. yeah I'm wondering if this is an approach that can lead to anything substantial .. but good to know fishingwatch probably uses the same images I can access via EO browser

[stark palm]

The one unknown seems to actually be the Minerve Julie

[junior moat]

ok but if you look at this paper #1072947857654554624 message

someone already did the work locating M.Julie via SAR and correlating with AIS

maybe we can get them to use their tools and try and locate Andromeda 😉

[hoary maple]

god I love satellite imagery

just a completely black screen at night

and some light dots

[stark palm]

Looked through all available SAR for the dates, can't find any "dots" in the immediate area that can't be linked to an AIS signature

[sand delta]

Does fibreglass reflect SAR well?

I know sailing boats usually have radar reflectors on their mast because their radar return is pretty poor.

[junior moat]

okay good to know... maybe then fishingwatch does a lot of misdetections, I don't know

[junior moat]

really? why do they want to appear on radar so desparately ?

[sand delta]

Because stuff sailing boats are made of generally has a poor radar return.

Let me check my notes, I should be able to get a specific number on this.

[harsh rock]

There are a few ferry routes that ply those waters if anyone wants to go searching for potential photos from those dates.... there are some pretty geeky ferry forums out there (who knew?)..... anyhoo...I've got to stop procrastinating and do some work.
Nice work all 👍

[sand delta]

Yea, actually.

Fibreglass has no radar return.

One second, turning my notes into an image so I can share.

Hard to detect ice with radar too for example.

Apologies for not raising this point earlier,

[velvet rain]

Small ships don't really like being invisible to big ships near them

[sand delta]

Which is why they carry radar reflectors (but I dunno if that would give them a signature for SAR).

[stark palm]

Was looking at AIS from after the Minerva left and to when the Andromeda was reportedly in Christiansø

There are ships passing right through the sabotage site every few hours.

So would be very hard to do the dives then if you wanted to stay undetected

[sand delta]

From the 13th to the 26th?

[stark palm]

13th to the 16th

[velvet rain]

As long as no other ship is nearby while the divers leave/enter the ship, they shouldn't look too suspicious, should they?

[plain escarp]

silly question: how deep is the water where the sabotage took place?

[sand delta]

80m.

[harsh rock]

Has anyone noticed a radar reflector on the Andromeda?.... they are quite often on the backstay or mast-top on sailing vessels but I can't seem to see one in the photos.
I mean there's this but it looks like it is on a halyard rather than a stay, and is possible a pennant or flag.
You'd think charter yachts plying sea lanes would be required to carry them?

[sand delta]

Is it me or is there even a liferaft onboard?

But yea, hmm, I'll look through the pictures we have.

[velvet rain]

Are there any SAR images available for a point in time when we know the location of the Andromeda exactly?

[true barn]

Was wondering whether the sites of explosions make sense in relation to maritime traffic. You don’t want to be seen if you choose to utilize a 50 foot pleasure vessel after all. Found this: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/10/Nordstream_pipeline_map_with_shipping_traffic

[distant olive]

It’s quite common for vessels to be managed by external management - sort of how HNWI’s use family offices. Alexandra Maritime are registered in a bunch of jurisdictions, including Monrovia, Malta and, as you said, with a c/o address in Athens

Edit: the Malta brach was struck off as defunct as of 03/06/2020

[sand delta]

And as he said, for companies to divide up each ship into their own company, my understanding is it limits liability.

http://www.gtf-no1.hr/boats/bavaria-50c/

fwiw, another Bavaria Cruiser 50, built around the same time has a radar reflector.

But, could be an aftermarket thing, since the manual doesn't mention it.

[velvet rain]

Do you see a better candidate on that map?

[true barn]

hard to tell, there are other factors as well involved of course.

[junior moat]

my conclusion after digging into correlating AIS with SAR to find Andromeda / "dark-ships" ... it's funky and cool, but I don't think it'll get us anywhere unfortunately 😄
( you can see SAR matches with AIS position exactly when the satellite takes the image ..... and there is two AIS-unidentified things somewhere )

[plain escarp]

was curious how long it would take to do such a dive the "good" way? 1hour +/- if i read it correctly, most time on the ascent for decompression sickness

[true barn]

Probably unrelated, but I will drop this here nevertheless:
„Since 2007, Russia has attempted to adjust the Nord Stream route to circumvent chemical munitions dumping sites east of Bornholm, but these efforts have faced many complications, including due to the lack of data on the exact locations of dumped munitions.[…]

At the same time, page 48 of the mentioned report states that "[t]hese are munitions that if they detonate may cause structural damage to the pipelines." The width of the security corridor required is defined as extending 25 meters on either side of each pipeline. At the same time, it was stated on page 49 that 250kg chemical mustard gas bomb was found in the Danish section of the pipeline, offset 17 meters from the pipeline route. After that, the authors of the document, for the reasons unknown, narrowed the security corridor to 10 meters.“

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/2814355-nord-stream-2-construction-threatens-ecology-security-of-north-europe-da-vinci-analytic-group.html

[velvet rain]

Pretty sure all of Mola's sailing boats have radar reflectors installed.

https://www.boat24.com/de/gebrauchtboote/mola-yachting-gmbh/?abo=707

They are selling quite a few boats here and all of the ones I looked at advertise them.

[foggy mirage]

Unless you’re going around blowing up pipelines, it would probably be in anyone’s best interest to have a distinct radar profile out in the open water to avoid getting crushed by a big vessel.

[junior moat]

since I have 2 days left of marinetraffic... yes can confirm.. almost all the marine traffic routes north of the explosion sites

[sand delta]

That's due to the TSS.

You're required to use it if it exists.

TSS = Traffic Separation Scheme.

[junior moat]

learning a lot today 🙃

[sand delta]

That's "TSS in Bornholmsgat"

[next dirge]

Not that it means anything but Minerva have their manning offices in Odessa and Manila

[hoary maple]

Minerva, the boat?

[junior moat]

yeah maybe someone should link to this story how Minerva is connected to Orthodox priests that did a private trip for Putin's mistress

I don't know who wrote it down best

[next dirge]

The ship management company of the shipthat is

https://www.minervamarine.com/odessa-manning-office/

[hoary maple]

ohh, ok

[junior moat]

ah yeah here you go (https://nyheder.tv2.dk/udland/2023-03-09-mystisk-skib-drev-rundt-over-nord-stream-i-en-uge-putin-er-gaest-paa-det-kloster)

weird side-note: today tv2 is not geo-blocking me anymore, like it did yesterday 🤔 strange

[sand delta]

Oh lol

I just realised I have a navigation chart of this region.

[true barn]

from the article I linked above. these are dangerous waters.

[sand delta]

On this exact point

[true barn]

what if it didn’t take that much effort to blow shit up and somebody knew exactly where to stick it.

[sand delta]

Excuse the pencil circles and lines, I had to use this poor thing about 5 years ago in class.

As well, from the chart, I notice that the seabed around is mostly characterised as Cy (clay) and CyG (clay and gravel) and some parts are S (sand) and M (mud)

[foggy mirage]

That’s interesting. I’ve always abbreviated clay as “cl”. Is this info for anchoring pruposes?

[sand delta]

Yep.

[foggy mirage]

There's nothing like having a bunch of paper maps lying around, and drawing on them is so satisfying.

[sand delta]

100 percent haha.

[thick crag]

total aside, but my interest in this channel has completely ruined the ads I see online

[true barn]

how does one detect explosive devices on the seabed and would one of the bigger vessels visiting the site be naturally equipped to perform this task?

[foggy mirage]

I don’t think one can. Even if there is a radio triggered detonator, it would only have a receiver.

so no broadcast

[sand delta]

Besides driving a drone up the length of the pipeline, you couldn’t, I think.

[velvet rain]

You wouldn't want your pipeline destruction plans to depend on random explosives that have been on the seafloor for decades.

[thick crag]

when I've been on boats, it has been normal for someone to bring a second anchor. is that a possibility here, and one that could help?

I don't know too much about the logistics of dives this deep

[thick crag]

would be helpful to see what mola's boats look like under SAR, since we know where they're all stored.

[foggy mirage]

And there are different anchors for different conditions.

[velvet rain]

We even know where the Andromeda was before and after the trip, I think. So it could be possible to check that specific boat.

[hoary maple]

yep. I guess I want to buy a yacht now. or start a new business.

[foggy mirage]

I just live vicariously through my favorite boat building YouTube channels.

[velvet rain]

I wonder if Mola are aware that they have basically been handed a money printing machine. "Spend your vacation on the boat that blew up Nord Stream" is one hell of a sales pitch.

[harsh rock]

Could get LARPy AF

[stark palm]

Mola are renting out Russian subs now?

[velvet rain]

As if the truth ever mattered for marketing

[thick crag]

they can auction off the boat that allegedly blew up Nord Stream

[foggy mirage]

Well, they would have to do reenactments to get my money

[velvet rain]

"Blow up your own replica pipeline" corporate teambuilding events when?

[sand delta]

In deep water, some ship might do multi point anchoring

Either they’d face into the window/current, drop their anchor, move to the side, drop the second one, and then drop back onto their anchor chain

Open moor, standing moor, running moor, etc.

But that’s more of a merchant ship with an anchor to drop on both sides sorta thing.

[thick crag]

gotcha, thank you

[sand delta]

Open moor is the first one, whilst the second one is a running and standing moor, there’s just two ways of doing it.

But again, it was farcical that it could anchor with what it could drop in terms of its one anchor and chain, now we suggest they brought a second after market anchor on and yet more rope and etc, it can’t be, no way.

The only way the Andromeda was staying in the one-ish position is if it intentionally got its anchor hooked onto Nordstream, unironically.

[velvet rain]

Is that something they could do somewhat reliably?

[sand delta]

I mean, they supposedly have a diver, if we're talking about the land of what is theoretically possible, sure, but it's a MacGyver solution.

This is the Andromeda's anchor and the chain, going around its windlass.

[foggy mirage]

You nailed the case!

[sand delta]

lol

Also worth noting that (as far as I know), all anchor chain has a bitter end.

On a merchant ship its so that if you get your anchor chain so irretrievably crooked that you can't get rid of it, there's a way to remove it.

The way to remove it is a pin and a sledgehammer.

It's obviously on a smaller scale on a sailing yacht, but my suggestion is that if you put your anchor chain under that much load, you'd probably snap it off your boat.

Although I have to note that the anchor is missing in the pictures from Dranske, although again that is probably just SOP for taking it out of the water.

[velvet rain]

I was going to ask how the chain is attached to the boat. Because being rigidly-ish connected to something as (formerly) solid as a pipeline, feels like it could backfire horribly.

[sand delta]

Yes, it absolutely would.

[boreal plover]

in range for what, though -- a 10m yacht, or a 40,000 ton merchant or military ship?

[sand delta]

Almost remember Pythagoras, its in a depth of 80 metres, and has 80 metres of anchor chain, it has enough to reach the sea floor if the anchor chain is directly vertical, if you drift off (due to the wind or current), that diagonal line will start to be much bigger than 80m.

[harsh rock]

Not wanting to muddy the waters here but I found this interesting

https://www.upstreamonline.com/politics/submarines-and-trawlers-nord-stream-2-director-spots-something-fishy-in-the-baltic/2-1-990876

[sand delta]

The reason underwater pipelines/electricity cables are marked on navigational charts at all is to avoid ships either anchoring on them/fishermen catching them with their nets.

[velvet rain]

I think I wrote that under the assumption that they already knew about the specific vessel.

[limber hinge]

Being new to this site I remain somewhat lost. Hoping in correct thread.

Above someone posted MMSI numbers of veasles in the area. Only a few are interesting.
Here is the list, general cargo carriers omitted.

111219517 is a Search and Rescue Helicopter
219027310 Standby Safety Vessel
261002850 fishing vessel
992196149 is a virtual AIS target indicating an isolated danger

Regarding chain on a yacht.

One can have an all Cain rode or a mixed rode of chain followed by line. In either case the "bitter end" is generally attached to the boat in the chain locker with a relatively light line. This line can be cut in an emergency.

[sand delta]

The last is just a virtual AtoN, where the lighthouse/buoy authority feels it would be too difficult to mark the location with a physical buoy, and so uses AIS to place a mark on ships ECDIS/radar to warn them of the danger.

[sand delta]

Messing with the anchor on your rented yacht though?

[limber hinge]

RE: Aid To Nav...Correct, still is means there is something there. A chart should answer tat question quickly.

[sand delta]

Where is it, I have a chart.

[velvet rain]

If they did any damage, that would surely have been mentioned in the reports, wouldn't it?

[limber hinge]

RE Radar. Many, perhaps most yachts do not have radar reflectors and fiberglass does not show up well.

[velvet rain]

I mean, they even mentioned that it was returned uncleaned.

[sand delta]

Yep.

[deft stone]

It feels like that would be way to much effort for this, but; tertiary anchor that was brought with and then cut loose. Or it belonged to Minerva?
Whats the anchor length of the andromeda, anyway?
Cant imagine that one being 80m long

[limber hinge]

Why boats do not want to be seen is an interesting question.. However it is a reality. Frequently boaters do not even light an anchor light, on average nearly half where I am right now.

[sand delta]

According to the Bavaria Cruiser 50 manual, exactly 80m.

Hold on.

[sand delta]

The reason why that Virtual AIS is being used

[deft stone]

Well. Thats a lot longer than I expected

[sand delta]

is because it's marking the site of the explosion, leak.

[velvet rain]

That was the explosion, I think.

[velvet rain]

You were faster

[sand delta]

https://twitter.com/BenDoBrown/status/1574809950118989827 https://twitter.com/BenDoBrown/status/1574811562292002822

Benjamin Strick (@BenDoBrown)

@MarineTraffic Beacon, Isolated danger AtoN 992196149 is currently located at unknown area at position 54° 52' 36.0" N, 015° 24' 36.0" E https://t.co/jbQVRpjkbK

Twitter · Sep 27, 2022, 5:15 PM

Benjamin Strick (@BenDoBrown)

This specific site at: 54° 52' 36.0" N, 015° 24' 36.0" E was captured on a @planet satellite pass on September 26

https://t.co/MkQohZewlz

Twitter · Sep 27, 2022, 5:21 PM

[velvet rain]

https://ens.dk/presse/laek-paa-nord-stream-2-roerledning-i-oestersoeen

[sand delta]

Yea, so obviously the Danish lighthouse and buoy authority didn't want to send it's buoy tender out to mark the site of billowing gas, so as soon as it was told, it decided it had to use a virtual AtoN.

[velvet rain]

5nm radius

[sand delta]

It does meet the criteria of a isolated danger, sorta kinda.

An isolated danger is a danger to navigation that is surrounded on all sides with safe navigable water.

[limber hinge]

That much blowing gas displaces so much water that if you tried to sail through it you would sink like a rock.

Boats float by displacing water, not gas.

[sand delta]

Yep.

The fishing vessel you mention is currently fishing south east of Bornholm

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:315846/zoom:10

So likely it's usual fishing grounds, maybe?

[limber hinge]

Someone mentioned above about old munitions.

The charts mark designated dump areas. Not where te stuff was dumped. I have personally picked up old munitions in a clam dredge off the USA East Coast.

BUT, IIRC there were 3 explosions, 2 smaller on NS1 and a whopper on NS2.

It is unlikely but possible that a smaller explosive devise accidentally set off a discarded bomb.

Unlikely but maybe.

[sand delta]

I recall it was a big element of Nordstream dealing with all the unexploded ordinance along the route.

[deft stone]

Smaller on NS1? Why would the damage be greater there then?

[limber hinge]

RE: Yacht chain length.

Best practice is to carry 7x the distance from bow roller to bottom. So if you want to anchor in 25 feet of water and your bow roller is 5 feet above water tat makes 30 feet. Times 7 and you need 210 feet of chain. Now this is for storm conditions.

In settled weatwr and a protected anchoragebwith good holding bottom (sand) you may use only 3x. 5x is common practice.

In very deep water you can use a lower multiplier.

No clue wat the multiplier would be for 300 feet, likely 2x as a minimum.

Chain for that boat is very likely 10mm or 3/8" and weighs a bit over 1-1/2 pounds per foot.

That is a lot of damn chain to handle, and no boat has anywhere near 300 feet of rode, chain or rope.

This yacht did NOT anchor out there.

[sand delta]

100%

[limber hinge]

I thought the major damage was on NS2. Sorry if I am mistaken.

[sand delta]

Not to post NS propaganda of course: https://www.energycharter.org/fileadmin/DocumentsMedia/Presentations/CBP-NordStream.pdf

[velvet rain]

The sites were mostly used for chemical weapons.

[sand delta]

https://helcom.fi/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dumped-chemical-munitions-in-the-Baltic-Sea.pdf

[deft stone]

NS2 was the 50ish meters missing, NS1 was 250ish. NS2 was the first one, I believe.

[limber hinge]

J_K you are reading waht the plan was, not what happened.

It's Friday, it is boring, it is a big ocean, I want to get back to my beer and my baby. Let it rip here, who cares? Who will ever know?

Reality vs intent.

[deft stone]

Thanks for clearing that up 😄

[limber hinge]

I stand corrected, thank you.

Even 50 meters is a lot, 250 meters is HUGE.

[velvet rain]

My point is that (as fair as I know) chemical weapons only contain relatively small amounts of explosive material. The minimum amount you can get away with to disperse the agent without destroying too much of it.

[deft stone]

Its one of the many strange things about this. a small thing, okay, but whatever happened needed to be enough to show up as 2.3/2.1 on the richter scala in Sweden/Denmark at the Seismology stations, and apparently very much overkill

[velvet rain]

I mean, sure, maybe someone also discarded conventional bombs. Who knows. I've haven't seen any evidence for that so far.

[limber hinge]

Exactly, and why take the effort of handling that much material?

So my thought, unlikely perhaps, is they somehow accidentally set off an old ordinance. Bomb/mine/torpedo, who knows.

I am just trying to explain what we know. How did we get here?

[sand delta]

Because German journalists are drip-feeding us.

[boreal plover]

somewhat OT, and acknowledging the danger of generalising -- re: morality and the Greek shipping industry, the details of this fraud say quite a lot about the vulnerability of mariners from developing countries like .ph to coercion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brillante_Virtuoso

[sand delta]

But are also somehow able to make whoppers of mistakes like getting the Wiek wrong.

[velvet rain]

The nearest seismic recording station is on Bornholm by the way. So really close to the sites.

[harsh rock]

For the new folks jumping in here..... you can check out the channel pins to see what has been covered before regarding anchoring at depth and other such ephemera.

[boreal plover]

thete'thetes a long BBC radio doc about the Brilliante Virtuoso case: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013r0t

[sand delta]

The one thing I can tell you about shipping companies, is that it's a super scummy business.

[limber hinge]

Chanel pin?

[sand delta]

It might not reach to the level of murder in all cases, but from things like magic pipes, to widespread sexual assault and murders of female seafarers, to industry wide undercrewing, the issues go on lol.

The Minerva Julie's ownership is certainly exceptionally suspect though.

[harsh rock]

@stark palm @junior moat Just circling back to the Minerva J potential meetup.... it could have been the Oslo Bulk 12 which looks like it was around that time and briefly stopped at Minerva Js position.
The other possibility is the Aloni which sailed past the Minerva J for some distance, hove to and then went off AIS.... Minerva J changed course and sailed towards the last position of the Aloni and then also hove to.
Not really sure if any of that is relevant though.

[foggy mirage]

It's in the upper right on desktop.

[harsh rock]

The pin icon at the top of this post

[limber hinge]

Android phone, no icon.

[harsh rock]

No problem

[stark palm]

Found something quite interesting that I can share tomorrow once i get the final research done.

[velvet rain]

Tap the person symbol on the top right

[stark palm]

It makes the Andromeda story look even less likely in my opinion

[foggy mirage]

On Android, if you tap on the title of the discussion, a tab appears and it is at the top.

[harsh rock]

It does seem to have a lot of holes in it.... I look forward to reading it.

[sand delta]

A bit like Nordstream 1 and 2

I'll let myself out

[foggy mirage]

Pipe down over there.

[sand delta]

This is going to be the house full of cow poo/pun thing all over again.

(Context: #chit-chat message)

[limber hinge]

Got it, thanks.

[sand delta]

Looking at the German journalists on twitter, there's not been anything really today.

https://twitter.com/holger_stark/status/1634564610412929024

Holger Stark (@holger_stark)

.@DmytroKuleba No, Foreign Minister, no coordination between the media, no knowledge of each other. With greatest sympathy for #Ukraine‘s fight: it‘s just independent journalism, based on different sources without political agenda @nytimes @GoetschenbergM @Georg_Heil @terrorismus

▶ Play video

Twitter · Mar 11, 2023, 2:39 PM

[velvet rain]

We just don't know the hole truth yet

[sand delta]

Don't you start too!

[velvet rain]

I think we've reached the point where they have published everything they know.

Seems like the story was almost common knowledge and everyone was preparing their articles/reports for publication. But nobody really felt like it was ready at this point, but then the NYT story forced their hands.

[sand delta]

Yep.

I’d love if we could find some high resolution pictures that we can probably say are the Andromeda around the timeline in question.

Surely the type of person in “Yachtresidenz Höhe Dune” is the type of person to be showing off “look where I am, in this fancy spa/yacht hotel.”

[velvet rain]

There are a lot of tourist spots with a view of the harbour on Christiansø with separate listings on Google Maps.

Like even that one tower has many hundreds of photos.

[sand delta]

I did check Twitter with a geotagged radius bigger than the entire island (so hopefully catching everything tagged there) and no luck on Christansø.

[thick crag]

if only the times would elaborate on their whole "calling card" thing. clearly some journalist or journalist-connected individual knows more than they've shared thus far

[sand delta]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj7NKmnMpyk/

naturparkchristiansoe

I dag bliver vejret skønt skønt skønt herude på øerne. Høj sol og næsten vindstille. En perfekt dag til en sejltur herud - også for de knap så søstærke!

Likes

108

Instagram

From the island Facebook

[velvet rain]

They could've also heard that phrase from the investigators

[sand delta]

They made a post telling about their social media team and it mentioned they had an Insta.

There’s a Blackhawk landing on the 6th

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjYcxthjUAC/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjnF7lgMeAf/

naturparkchristiansoe

Så banker efterårsferien snart på døren, og vi glæder os til at få besøg i Naturpark Christiansø, hvor vores lokale guider står klar til at vise rundt på øerne og fortælle om livet på øerne - både i dag og historisk.

Likes

156

Instagram

This on the 12th

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjyC5EQMLUe/

naturparkchristiansoe

Hvor er det perfekte sted at grille en hotdog i efterårsferien? Måske lige her på Christiansø! Christiansøfarten sejler hver dag fra Gudhjem kl 10. Og man kan sagtens nå at tænde op i grillen og nyde en frokost med havudsigt, inden båden sejler retur kl 14.

Likes

132

Instagram

This on the 16th.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj0wZ8bsmIF/

naturparkchristiansoe

Så nåede valgkampen også til Christiansø. Måske det eneste sted i landet, hvor der pt ikke hænger en eneste valgplakat.

Likes

126

Instagram

This on the 17th

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj-L5EcM169/

naturparkchristiansoe

Der er altså gang i Østersøregionen for tiden. I går fik vi besøg af besætningen fra skibet her, der patruljerer i området omkring øerne.

Likes

118

Instagram

This on the 21st…

hmmmmm

and it’s not a random person’s page, it’s the official page with a person whose job it is to post stuff, surely it’s been posted the day it’s being taken.

Oh, I’m a complete moron.

This is October, not September.

😔

Thanks guys for not mentioning that 5 minutes into my monologue

[velvet rain]

Yeah, I was just about to ask…

[sand delta]

I notice that they seem to tag their location as a couple different things.

Christiansø, Frederiksø, etc

[thick crag]

doesn't this make diving pretty much a non-starter?

[velvet rain]

Unfortunately the search functionality is absolutely broken

I have not found a way to get the intersection of two hashtags

[thick crag]

like maybe there's some way to do live-boating at 80m but i've never heard of such a thing, and it seems like it'd necessitate good weather, which the planners seem unlikely to have bet the mission on

[sand delta]

10th September

15th September

15th also.

[limber hinge]

That is why I was suggesting a mother's hip with dynamic positioning. Even at anchor you'd not stay over one place.
Basically you want to send a line down, think wire rope, that the divers can follow. They go down, do their work, and decompress as they come up, by hanging on the line. But you want the boat pretty stationary, not swinging on an anchor. And the down line can be used to guide te explosives package. You want it to land where you want it.

[sand delta]

A DP ship that’s not large enough to be required to have AIS?

[limber hinge]

Required to have AIS does not mean it is turned on. Happens all the time. China cits AIS enmasse in their territorial waters.

[thick crag]

thanks.

i have similar questions to sara. if you have a ship you can use for DP, why not just use that instead of the cruiser? perhaps they'd contract it out, but at that point it's very weird

[sand delta]

There’s no reason for your trail in the Baltic to go cold though.

[limber hinge]

PERHAPS to break the job up. The mother ship carries the explosive package and locates the pipeline and does te prep work. Then call in the divers to do the placement.
Then the divers don't know the mother's hip crew and visa versa.

[velvet rain]

I tried to scroll through all #andromeda posts on Twitter from the relevant time period earlier. Unfortunately the only thing I leaned is that there are way too many Kevin Sorbo pictures on Twitter.

[sand delta]

Deep sea, you could explain it as going outside of land coverage, but there’s nowhere in the Baltic that land AIS receivers can’t pick you up, so at that point you’ve just identified yourself as a suspicious vessel.

[deft stone]

could you use a drone/ robot to get the explosives down? One thats carried on the mothership? I mean, then theres the question of why using divers, but that should be possible, right?

[deft stone]

My condolences

[thick crag]

thanks again. this is interesting, but it does seem like there were explosives carried on the yacht

[sand delta]

Worth noting that owners of underwater things pay services to monitor their thing using AIS

I’ve been on a ship where we anchored just a bit too close to a British Telecom underwater cable, and within about 10 minutes we got an angry phone call telling us to move.

https://gatehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GateHouse-Asset-Protection-for-Offshore-Pipelines.pdf

Hell, the Minerva Julie drifting over the pipelines definitely set off an alarm in whatever company Nordstream is paying to monitor theirs.

[limber hinge]

Transfered through gear or clothing??? Guess.
But why else have a yacht?
It can not do the job alone.

[thick crag]

that's my question. i think a lot of us here have interpreted the stories as suggesting that a yacht did do it alone, but I could be very wrong and maybe i'm the only one who has interpreted them that way

[sand delta]

That’s my interpretation of the plot as well.

[deft stone]

Well. That was the start of the investigation here. Or if it could be done by the yacht alone theoretically anyway. Which is extremely unlikely now.

[sand delta]

If we wanted to throw theories at the wall

You could suggest that the ferry to Christiansø was used to being extra people and supplies to the island to be put on Andromeda.

[deft stone]

Have a go at it, brainstorming has been our most affective method of finding out stuff the last two days

[sand delta]

I’m of the thinking that this plot is just far too weird to make sense.

It’s not impossible, nothing is impossible after all.

But, if we take the people behind it for example, why is it so obviously Ukrainian, yet on the other hand, they are somehow trying to be sneaky?

[deft stone]

At this point Im halfway convinced the prosecutors found some other crime being committed by the Andromeda accidentally, but searched it anyway on the off chance

[sand delta]

What’s the point in being sneaky if on the other hand you’re essentially painting yourself yellow and blue.

[velvet rain]

Yeah, were back to problem that there shouldn't even be a company involved.

[limber hinge]

Many folks run without AIS. It is not legal but there are no cops.
Being without AIS would not draw an undo amount of attention.

[sand delta]

There’s no SAR targets in the area that can’t be ticked off with AIS.

[sand delta]

See here.

[limber hinge]

And maybe, wild stuff, the yacht had nothing to do with the explosion
It is just a psyop by Russia to pin blame on Ukraine? And they intentionally left ex p losing residue behind?
Again unlikely, but possible?

[sand delta]

Yep.

[thick crag]

and yet russia denied that this was ukrainian

[limber hinge]

Sara, SAR is what? I am late to discussion. Search And Rescue radar?

[velvet rain]

And then Russia just goes all in on a theory that doesn't even mention Ukraine?

[thick crag]

exactly. it's extremely strange

[sand delta]

Synthetic-aperture radar

We had that talk on it a couple days ago

[velvet rain]

Synthetic Aperture Radar

[sand delta]

It’s satellite mounted radars.

[thick crag]

granted, if I have learned anything from bellingcat and associates, it's that looking for sanity in russian statements is silly...but it's just hard to square in this case

[sand delta]

https://globalfishingwatch.org/map @limber hinge

[sand delta]

Could that be to make hay of the more damaging hypothesis?

Ukraine bombing the pipeline, makes sense, understandable, Ukrainians aren’t going to care, most people aren’t going to care, support still continues.

If the US is behind it, you cause an almighty shitshow in US politics, you rile up anti-American Europeans and tankies, a NATO member Bombing another member energy infrastructure.

[limber hinge]

Is it possible the charges were set at some previous time and then set off remotely later as Hersh posited?

The whole yacht story seems implausible, unlikely. Yet there it is.

All I am saying is this, make a list of what you know is, then eliminate the impossible.

[thick crag]

it's possible. but i feel like the damage has already been done, and if ukrainians really did bomb the pipeline, the damage that causes to support for ukraine could be substantial i think

but russia has been known to make weird and inexplicable decisions

[sand delta]

The couple ways for the explosions to have went off are:

• good old fashioned timer,
• remote control, whether that’s a sonobuoy or a VLF transmission or something
• a trip wire sensor (going off if it senses something)

[deft stone]

Maybe to deter MJ investigation? I mean, as far as I remember, nobody has really questioned why TF that tanker was idling right over pipeline for a week. But then again... its all really weird

[thick crag]

the hersh story, as described, seems totally impossible. remote detonation could be possible, but hersh's story in its totality has a lot of holes

[deft stone]

Well. If Russia pointed to the Ukrainians as perpetrators, it would also signal russian weakness against Ukrainians that far from Ukraine? Even with an alleged Nato support, it wouldnt look good in Russia

[thick crag]

but then you have to wonder, why start this conspiracy at all?

[limber hinge]

I must sign off. Interesting discussion.
I would like to hear more about the Synthetic Radar Coverage, how complete it is, granularity.

This is a fascinating topic for me, a real puzzler.

Thanks for letting me play.

[thick crag]

thank you for chatting! take care

this is perhaps a very silly question, as I imagine we could just ask christo, but is it fair to speculate that christo (having investigated GRU operations in germany just recently) would have picked up on a potential story of russian agents crossing into germany w/fake bulgarian passports for a false flag?

[harsh rock]

Can we please be careful posting Instagram accounts so we don't fall foul of any Discord doxxing rules?

[sand delta]

Deleted the non-official Christiansø one, since they don’t seem to provide anything anyways, sorry.

[harsh rock]

No problen 👍

[thick crag]

in other words:

it seems like if anyone would pick up on the idea of a russian plot to enter germany and execute a false flag, it'd be christo. by virtue of the fact that he does not seem to be on this story--despite the fact that it's potentially huge--can we reason that he has very good reason to believe it's unlikely to be a russian false flag?

[sand delta]

Forgive my knowledge of the Schengen border code, but when a foreigner (say a Russian or Ukrainian) enters the EU, they have to get a visa and with that submit their identity, name, photograph and etc to the country, and thus to the EU database.

If you assume that Mola has a photocopy of the forged passports, surely it’s a case of cross referencing those pictures with that database. (Unless of course, they entered the EU on forged papers)

Perhaps I’m going a bit too far into the NCISification of how this tech works, but isn’t Ukraine using some software to take pictures of dead Russians and then scan VK/etc to get their name, that must be doable right?

[thick crag]

it's definitely doable, yeah

there was a whole thing in my city about the police potentially using that technology 😛

[sand delta]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/15/ukraine-facial-recognition-warfare/

[thick crag]

should we assume that mola has a photocopy of the passports?

[sand delta]

The boats are worth far too much to not get a ID, surely?

As well as that, the only way they could know they were fraudulent would be by having the copy of the passport in front of them, and then calling whichever country it purports to be from and be like, “this dude exist?”

[thick crag]

they could've written the passport number and name or something. that's how it works when i ship stuff with fedex

they just type my driver's license number into their computer

that's a really good point, though. they probably did photocopy it

the quality of a photocopy is going to be very low resolution and maybe even black and white, which surely makes facial recognition much harder, though

[sand delta]

The ID picture certainly, but the codes and stuff to call the issuing country with should be readable.

[subtle finch]

Its illegal to make photocopies of passports in Germany if theres no specific law which forces you to do some.

[sand delta]

Well, that’s very good to know.

[thick crag]

wow, i'm really glad you said that because i never would have guessed it

[sand delta]

So how does knowing the passports are fraudulent thing come into play?

[thick crag]

it could be that the names don't belong to anyone who has ever had e.g. a bulgarian passport

[sand delta]

I suppose if they got a code as you said, call the issuing country, it’s either fake if the code gets no passport associated, or when they do send you the passport on their database, you go with that passport photo to Mola/CCTV and they answer “yea, that’s not the same person”

[subtle finch]

Photocopies are still done very often and maybe there is even a law for doing so when chartering a ship (I rented a car a few months back and they didn't copy anything).

[thick crag]

this is a completely out there theory that I myself don't believe, but as we know one of the fake passports is bulgarian, I looked up "fake bulgarian passport" and the only story I see about them involves iranian spies.

iran would stand to benefit from russia losing economic leverage and having to rely more on their military, as they export to russia. the iranian government might also want higher energy prices, as iirc they are fairly insulated from energy price shocks, and they make a fair amount from energy exports

just throwing that out there even though, again, it's pretty silly

[sand delta]

Where’s the spray painted “Death to Israel, Death to America” on the pipeline? 😛 but interesting.

[thick crag]

lol, on that note, the US and Israel both seem to know basically everything going on in iran. i don't think they'd be able to pull something like this off without us noticing.

of course, that doesn't mean that we'd say something...and it's probably in our interest if we say nothing. but i'd like to think we're a nice ally!

[sand delta]

Lol

To run down the passport line further

Does anyone know the rules on entering Denmark as a recreational boater?

Obviously having left from Germany, they are still in Schengen, but theoretically since anyone can use their boat to come to Christiansø (specifically Russians in this case), what’s the procedure for when you turn up in a Danish harbour from an “international” journey?

[subtle finch]

If there is no police nothing?

[sand delta]

Surely Denmark is going to want to know if you’re EU free movement qualified or not.

Whether it’s active or not, I dunno.

Actually it can’t be, since the police had to ask the administrator to make a post on Facebook and then turned up on the island to ask questions to those who responded.

[thick crag]

oh right good memory

[sand delta]

In which case, who controls immigration on Christiansø?

Is the administrator triple hatted as administrator, harbour master and border police maybe?

@thick crag You were the one asked Christiansø about diesel right?

[thick crag]

i did, but never got a response back

[sand delta]

Someone did.

[thick crag]

someone else asked (i think on facebook messenger?) and got told no diesel

[sand delta]

Kaare, I think.

[subtle finch]

Is this even the case in Bulgaria?
In Germany for example there is no one you could call, you could calculate and compare checknumbers (algorithm is known tho) or hope to find birth certifcates, ... but it is possible to own a passport and no existent other traces of you besides the security features of the passport itself.

[sand delta]

here.

[thick crag]

if you're a government, it should not be too hard through interpol, right?

[sand delta]

Surely the passport office has a database of passports it’s issued?

Otherwise, when you apply for a renewal, isn’t the way they check by comparing your old passport photo to your new one?

[subtle finch]

The storage is only allowed for issuing the passport and everything has to be deleted afterwards in Germany.

[sand delta]

Germany is ridiculous.

At this point I’m saying it’s Germany’s fault that it’s pipeline got blowed up if it’s this easy to do this in Germany.

[subtle finch]

So without knowing the legal situation in Bulgaria it could alsl just be a really stupid coincedence like a passport number that was never possibly issued that lead to the fake passport fact.

[sand delta]

Mad.

[hollow remnant]

https://www.rya.org.uk/knowledge/abroad/entry-exit-formalities "A boat which has Union status may move, without being subject to a customs procedure, from one point to another within the customs territory of the Union, and temporarily out of that territory by sea without alteration of its customs status provided that its Union status is proven."

[sand delta]

So you have to prove your Union status?

[subtle finch]

Prove union status by looking at the boat number or flag of the boat?

[sand delta]

The people have Union status, the boat doesn’t, I imagine?

Otherwise that’s awfully written, fill your boat up with migrants and you’re French until proven otherwise.

[hollow remnant]

This site doesn't go that deep but it seems that if the boat originated in the EU then they're not too fussed, so long as you don't do anything suspicious

And if questioned you have to prove you live in the EU and the boat is registered in the EU

Not 100% sure but that's how I'm interpreting this

[sand delta]

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32016R0399

Russia’s coastline is in the imminent vicinity.

[subtle finch]

Still doesn't mean anything and its likely the practice means no regular and just random checks.

[sand delta]

Yea, I doubt it myself.

[subtle finch]

If your real passport is from a Schengen country you could just show this one, the check is propably not recorded and I doubt the police remembers anything. 😅

Its only important for Mola because they need at least name, adress, ...
and, I don't think it was mentioned before the had to check the needed licenses for sailing such a ship.

[sand delta]

Does German law allow you to make a photocopy of that?

[subtle finch]

Propably not but those licenses have non existent security measures any way.

[sand delta]

Oh yes,

My Dutch seafarers documents are a disgrace, woefully insecure lol.

[deft crescent]

This is a bit of a weirdly specific question but I found this photo (https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipNAbsh24UIUPgRuxTmxvwPbyBv_HVN9tgaALdmX=w0) through a slightly different google maps page which doesn't show the regular stuff like uploader name, and because of that I don't have a way to look at what else they have uploaded. Does anyone know a way to back solve this and get to the regular page showing information about the uploader?

Long-time thread readers will see the Lissy II on the left in addition to the Andromeda

[sand delta]

Oh sorry

Thought you’d found it above and were looking for the information on it.

Does the page identify what location it’s tagged to?

(Obviously somewhere in Yachthafen Höhe Dune)

[deft crescent]

Sorry, more context: I used this page (https://www.google.com/travel/hotels/entity/CgsIv9bD8szWgpvPARAB/photos) which allowed me to see more photos than are visible here (https://goo.gl/maps/8R1B8y1hWrWv45ceA). Unfortunately, the page I used isn't linked to uploader information in the same way that the second page links it. It's tagged to the hotel but I've been through a few thousand images on the second page and while I was able to find all the other photos I needed to find uploader info on, I haven't been able to find this one.

[subtle finch]

Just google "SBF See" this is the lowest needed license for sailing such a boat (possible Mola set the minimum higher with "SKS See"), similar international licenses are "ICC Resolution No. 40".
Should be doable, some of the old ones are just "special" waterproof paper and some stamps.

[sand delta]

Lol

[sand delta]

Ah

That Google reverse image searching doesn’t work is super weird

[deft crescent]

Yeah, neither google nor tineye gave me anything

[raw nexus]

It's Barcelona, the skyline on her shirt

[sand delta]

I’ll try myself.

[raw nexus]

Alles ok Thomas?

[deft crescent]

I just realized I had changed my location to Germany to view a different set of images - I've changed it back now and am going through the second page again so no worries about looking!

[sand delta]

Jesus, there's 7k photos.

No, I'll help search through them.

God, this is tedious.

[raw nexus]

Yes, they should have a date search

[deft stone]

Weve got amazing "data protection" laws that basically just make everything harder for everyone for little actual gain

[sand delta]

On a related note, is the Lissy II what we think the name of the sister boat of Andromeda is?

[deft crescent]

No that's the C50 that Mola got in 2023 and was found a few days ago

[sand delta]

Ah, so this picture is exceptionally new too?

[raw nexus]

I will tell the real estate guys

[deft crescent]

Well that's part of why I wanted to figure out the upload info - the file name when the image is saved says July 2020, but presumably, a 2023 model wouldn't exist in 2020 so I wanted to find the page with the upload info to check. Of course, it may just be a reuse of the name or I'm reading it wrong

[sand delta]

Hold on, if Andromeda is currently in Dranske in winter storage.

[deft crescent]

It could also be Lissy IV, but it seems strange to have a Lissy IV before a Lissy II unless they are reusing the name

[sand delta]

Why is it in the water in Rostock?

In early 2023.

Which is even more wintery-storage time.

[deft crescent]

What I think is that it is just a reuse of the name and that the time listed in the file name is correct, but I wanted to make sure by finding the original upload info in order to sure that this isn't a super recent image as the presence of a ship named the Lissy II could imply.

[sand delta]

https://www.itu.int/mmsapp/ShipStation/list

There's no record of a Lissy IV.

No Lissy II either.

So it doesn't have a MMSI, weird.

Registered since 14/08/2020.

[raw nexus]

It's too ful for this season imho

[sand delta]

I've found a Lissy V as well.

[deft crescent]

Just realized my big mistake - the previously referenced C50 is Lissy III, not Lissy II or Lissy IV - apologies for the goose chase of a search

[sand delta]

Registered 09/06/2022.

[deft crescent]

Additionally, its a C51, not a C50. Sorry all!

[sand delta]

It's fine, dw dw.

Could be any of these.

[raw nexus]

If we will ever visit Hohe Düne we will at least dont need a map

[sand delta]

Hohe Dunexperts.

fwiw, here's all the German pleasure Lissy's.

[sand delta]

In that case, we have the MMSI of one of Mola's boats at least.

[deft crescent]

Another thing to take a brief look at, although I think the lower windows are off - a boat at Mola in Rostock that looks very similar to a 50 Cruiser: https://goo.gl/maps/DcPwqBH2DjHJHNJZ9

[deft crescent]

The first letter of its name definitely isn't an A, but I can't make out what it is

[sand delta]

The top windows are definitely close, group of three, gap, group of two.

The wind break is the same kinda colour as well.

I think you're right, that has to be Andromeda's sister boat.

[deft crescent]

To me the length looks about right as well, it's just the second to the left window looks smaller than it should be

[sand delta]

it's being obscured by the pole, surely

[deft crescent]

It may just be the moire effect from the line that intersects the view of the window that makes it look smaller

[sand delta]

Yes.

It's also quite a short name.

[deft crescent]

The first letter may be a C

[sand delta]

We see 3 letters (or so), then the pole, and it doesn't go further than the pole, and the pole is 2 (maybe 3) letters wide.

[sand delta]

I'd agree.

Assuming Galaxies, I've tried Condor, but there is 64 German pleasure yachts with that name.

[deft crescent]

Cosmos maybe? Although I'm sure that's an even more common name

[sand delta]

2, lol.

[deft crescent]

Could also be the mythological Andromeda

[deft stone]

what about Circe?

[sand delta]

27 Circe's.

https://goo.gl/maps/36MRJ5Y42PZx6mmc6

fwiw, a picture of one of Mola's C51s.

[raw nexus]

I read that as Cec

[sand delta]

There's 2 ships starting with the letters Cec.

1 Cecile, 1 Cecilie.

[deft crescent]

Looking at the e on Mary Joelle the second letter definitely looks like a lowercase e https://lh3.ggpht.com/p/AF1QipO4cN_pX5zfIDJEHOJV71hgKfVZjHyJQIXU_fMB=s0

[deft crescent]

Cecile's capacity is listed as 6 people so I don't think that could be it

[sand delta]

Good point.

https://goo.gl/maps/BwsDqHKu4WsG4xAw6

Lissy III in a picture taken in December 2021, that's also old enough to be in a magazine?

[raw nexus]

Is there a Ceres

[sand delta]

One from 2015, one from 2021, one from 2022.

The 2015 one has 10 capacity.

[deft crescent]

Others have 6 and 8 as their capacity

[foggy mirage]

It looks like the same font as on the Andromeda. I wonder if there’s an option to have Bavaria put the name on it when you order it. What font is that?

[sand delta]

Their brochure pages don't have names on them.

Non-Mola Cruiser 50s I can find don't have that font.

[sand delta]

Seems like a Mola thing so.

[sand delta]

Definite possibility so.

I'm looking through the lines of Mola's yachts photos on their various locations Google Maps thing.

[raw nexus]

They build yachts also. It must be the same font as their logo

[foggy mirage]

I looks like Brush Script MT

[sand delta]

100%.

[deft crescent]

Yeah definitely

[sand delta]

Good eye.

[foggy mirage]

Cecile would look like this.

[sand delta]

For a moment, I thought it might start with an E, but seeing the fonts C, it's definitely that.

[raw nexus]

That's different to their logo

The third letter is higher than the e

Ah forget that, could be the angle

I'm sure wit the Ce, third also could be a r

[foggy mirage]

Here's a crop that shows up a little bigger.

[raw nexus]

Ced is also possible

[sand delta]

842 records for names starting with Ce.

[raw nexus]

[deft crescent]

Here's "Cec" at the same scale, though I should note that the way dithering works on text could be different from the way it appears in the photo

[raw nexus]

good idea

Coffee or bed??

[sand delta]

No sleep till we figure out the name

[raw nexus]

Ok coffee

[sand delta]

Day 494 in the Big Brother house.

[deft crescent]

For reference on the inaccuracies of this method, here's "Cit"

[sand delta]

hmm

[deft crescent]

Yeah I'm not sure how useful that can be

[raw nexus]

The bug is concave right?

[foggy mirage]

I think "i" is the second letter.

[deft crescent]

"Only" 535 ships that start with Ci

[raw nexus]

Circe on the list?

[deft crescent]

27 ships named circe

[deft crescent]

Does anyone know if mola has naming conventions for other classes of ships?

[sand delta]

A lot of womens names.

Andromeda is a women's name too, if a little tacky.

[foggy mirage]

Are we off on an unnecessary tangent. If not, I'm glad to continue down this hole.

[deft stone]

maybe Cicero?

[sand delta]

Assuming the boats were registered at the same time, their MMSIs might be similar.

[foggy mirage]

Roger. That's all the reason I need.

[deft crescent]

There would also presumably be matching info on the listings - ie. capacity, classification, services offered

[sand delta]

Yep.

[raw nexus]

We need a script that scans these names for those matches

[sand delta]

Hmm

In so far as you’d like to know what the abbreviations mean

https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/terrestrial/mars/Documents/Explanation of the fields to be notified for ship stations.pdf

[raw nexus]

💤 I need a nap

[sand delta]

Same, try again in the morning I suppose.

[raw nexus]

It is morning 😭 gn

[foggy mirage]

So, if you want a detailed tour of a 2011 Bavaria cruiser 50, here you go. Skip to 8:10 to see the boat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prGWwPKGZW4&ab_channel=NautilusYachtManagement

Right at that point in the video we're shown that there seems to be a decent place to dive from.

There's quite a bit of space inside that sailboat.

[foggy mirage]

At 35:46 there are some interesting details and a discussion about the anchor setup.

[junior moat]

no, I don't think the military publicizes any such explanations .. but I actually found more ships, and flights to have joined on that day searching for whatever they were searching

like the German "Oste" reconnaissance vessel also made a stop and was checking something in same location a little bit later

[deft ice]

Damn this place has no chill. Feel completely lost every time I check in.

[dire canyon]

Great work folks, but remember to sleep enough. Seems like a lot of you pull all-nighters.

[junior moat]

😄 yea, basically after when Sara et al do their thing till 6 in the morning, we got a ton of new info to scroll through

(some might not be CET timezone, so have an easier time following)

[serene grove]

https://twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1634830505764945922?t=aBVcOJzueNNLIMlQYw9HMg&s=19

Mike Eckel (@Mike_Eckel)

.@tv2danmark adds new details to the Nord Stream investigation. For still unexplained reasons, Greek tanker Minerva Julie drifted over the explosions site, with its engine on/off, in early Sept. 2022, then continued on to St. Petersburg. Two weeks later, the blast was reported.

Twitter · Mar 12, 2023, 8:15 AM

Does anyone have like any context or explanation for this?

Also I assume the engine status was part of an AIS message so... Not exactly definitive

[junior moat]

it's a little bit the other way round of course ... Bellingcat Discord / Oliver Alexander / breakingcraft and others were adding these details to the investigation .. and TV2 is now picking up the story 😉

you heard it here first 🥳

but sorry, no additional explanation that we know of I fear

[serene grove]

sorry, I'm new here haha

[junior moat]

all good 🙂 it's a loooong chat to scroll through

but the AIS track seems to be correct, since someone went through the effort, and cross-checked the position with SAR satellite images

[serene grove]

the article (or at least the google translated version) is pretty wild

[junior moat]

yeah... this whole story with the orthodox priests is crazy

[serene grove]

yeah that's what I was hoping

I'll try and go all the way back before asking stupid questions haha

[junior moat]

no, don't

it's too much 😄

just ask questions

yeah and here is the research paper where someone very detailed correlated AIS with SAR for Minerva Julie vessel
#1072947857654554624 message

[little zinc]

thats not the reality in germany, its normal to get your passport copied in some occasions.

Copy ID card: forbidden or allowed?

The landlord and the bank, but also fitness studios, car rental companies and even online platforms like Airbnb: someone is constantly asking for a copy of your ID to confirm your identity. But is that even legal? It is always said that it is forbidden to copy the identity card. Here you can find out what the legal situation is and what you should pay attention to.

According to the Personal Identity Card Act (PAuswG), which came into force in Germany in 2010, it was actually forbidden in the past to copy the identity card, or only permitted within very narrow limits. But the legislature has apparently realized that such a ban can hardly be implemented in practice. In July 2017, Section 20 of the Personal Identity Card Act and Section 18 of the Passport Act (PassG) were therefore amended. Since then, taking photos of identity cards and passports has been permitted under certain conditions:

Only the ID card holder himself or other persons with the ID card holder's consent may take a photo of the ID document.
The copy must be clearly and permanently recognizable as a copy.
https://www.advocard.de/streitlotse/internet-und-konsum/personalausweis-kopieren-verboten-oder-erlaubt/

[true barn]

this document contains some good maps and charts: https://ens.dk/sites/ens.dk/files/OlieGas/nord_stream_2_eia_non-technical_summary_-_denmark_-_english.pdf

can somebody find details on this old SE-11 monitoring station? it seems to be close to the leakage

[raw nexus]

Hey morning crew. I found something to look in to. This is from scientist on Researchgate and I thought it would be interesting to find something like that from the days prior the explosion. Start the article from the beginning, I will link the page how I found it. Tagging @sand delta and @dire canyon
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Distribution-of-observed-thermal-wake-lengths-a-and-widths-b-in-the-shipping-lane_fig7_354884974

[next dirge]

As a side note to yesterday, I had a look through employees of Minerva management who were findable online, which were mainly Ukrainians (maybe Phillipinos don’t use LinkedIn?) to see if anyone had posted photos of the Minerva Julie on social media. Unfortunately found nothing interesting

[junior moat]

this is something I've been wondering for quite some time. What about all the public research institutions who monitor the Baltic for noise and other parameters ? they have not made any data public it seems

like HELCOM etc .. & Aarhus University has a whole department just for monitoring noise in the Baltic

[raw nexus]

Thx for doing it. This is a one color puzzle.

[junior moat]

like, you cannot tell me that these guys and their detailed research on noise produced by cargo vessels etc .. didn't pick up the noise from the massive explosions
https://twitter.com/Saturn_H2020/status/1630974297677103119

SATURN (@Saturn_H2020)

Later this year, we’ll also be developing numerical predictive models to improve the capability of propeller providers to predict the acoustic signature of a propeller design before it is manufactured.

Learn more about our research at https://t.co/zx93i5UJ2g.

Twitter · Mar 1, 2023, 4:52 PM

[junior moat]

good open-source data for parameters from the Baltic (unfortunately no noise data, mostly temperatur,pressure,etc) https://www.smhi.se/data/oceanografi/datavardskap-oceanografi-och-marinbiologi/ladda-ner-data-1.135101

[true barn]

https://maps.helcom.fi/website/mapservice/

[junior moat]

sound map from that website ... now question is can we access the raw data on the monitoring stations to see noise on Sept 26 ?

[raw nexus]

Did someone check free satellite data for the Andromeda route?

[junior moat]

a little bit, yes but not with much effort

I guess also Maxar & Planet have much better quality if anything .. Sentinel-2 just not high enough resolution

[junior moat]

man, the thing I would like to have the most ist really good images of the seafloor at the leak sites. Someone know how to make a successful FOI request in either Sweden,Denmark,Germany ? 😉

[velvet rain]

I'd go one step further than saying it's just the reality. It's completely fine, legally speaking, if you follow the legal guidelines.

[velvet rain]

That is also very much wrong. There is both a Personalausweisregister and a Passregister.

[tidal knoll]

If it's anything like NL, there are quite a few organisations that are legally obliged to check your identity and have to keep a record of that. And that trumps any other protection.

[little zinc]

in germany its like "if you want to rent a car here you have to give consent to the copying of your pass". no consent, no rental.

[deft stone]

And dont forget Schufa

[velvet rain]

For example for buying restricted chemicals or explosive materials.

[true barn]

following matches from aisdk for this day (coords + 1km radius):

cog matches direction of satellite footage

[rapid copper]

Explosives not necessarily detonate the same day as they've been placed, so maybe a good idea to not focus on that one day too much

[true barn]

don't hesitate to PM me if you'd like me to look up AIS data for september. Provide date, lat, lng and I'll come back to you as soon as I find time.

[sand delta]

By the way, when we say that Denmark releases its ais stuff on AIS.dk, is it everything they detect on Danish AIS receivers? Or do they do some data management and cut out anything outside their EEZ?

[true barn]

good question, gimme some coordinates outside their EEZ

(but close enough)

[sand delta]

55.5970527, 14.6294006

Definitely in Swedish waters, but close ish.

[velvet rain]

Can you do a concave hull in PostGIS?

[sand delta]

Do you want GIS shapefiles of these zones?

[true barn]

https://postgis.net/docs/ST_ConcaveHull.html

hold your horses a bit, I'd need to optimize my setup first for queries like this

[sand delta]

https://www.marineregions.org/gazetteer.php?p=details&id=5674

https://www.marineregions.org/gazetteer.php?p=details&id=5694

[velvet rain]

Yeah, that's a bit tricky with this amount of data. I think a relatively small sample of your data would be sufficient to get an outline.

But there will almost certainly be glitches like 0 coordinates or bit flips in the coordinate values. Might not be worth the effort.

[sand delta]

https://dma.dk/safety-at-sea/navigational-information/ais-data

Danish “area of coverage”

🤔

[true barn]

@sand delta couldn't find any data so far

[sand delta]

All good.

[true barn]

looks like they drop data beyond EEZ borders, but I know too little about all of this.

[little zinc]

new article by german tagesschau, not too much news in there i think.
one bit i didnt read before:

According to the operating company, the "Minerva" was waiting for new instructions near Bornholm, a process not unusual in the shipping company.
https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/nord-stream-pipeline-anschlag-ukraine-sabotage-101.html

[subtle finch]

I messed things up here, only fingerprints get deleted.

[velvet rain]

Exactly, those are already stored digitally on the passport itself. Which is sufficient for the purpose they are collected for.

[sand delta]

It’s all good 🙂

[sand delta]

Also, the two forged passports were apparently Bulgarian.

[sand delta]

If you rent boats there is no SCHUFA.

[sand delta]

The drifting part isn’t weird, as such, in vacuum.

[sand delta]

MINERVA is a tanker right? Its super usual for them to wait for instructions in case unloading date changes or something. I worked on ships for 6 years.

The area they chose to drift is certainly weird though.

[sand delta]

Also a sailor here, the thing is that they were on a ballast voyage back from Amsterdam.

(ballast voyage meaning no cargo)

Oh okay thats weird then. You got MMSI? I dont want to scroll up to get it so I can look up the track also.

[sand delta]

I know🫡

IMO 9380831, MMSI 240716000

Pipelines are monitored by companies paid to do this job.

https://www.siitech.com/Solutions/Underwater-Pipeline-Cable-Surveillance-and-Protection

Using AIS that is, as much as I’m sure Nordstream is a shitty company, surely the people they are contracting to do this job are actually doing it.

So why did they „allow“ them to drift over this area

Makes also no sense

Only mention this because I’ve been on the receiving end of such angry phone/radio calls.

If its a sensitive area

On a ballast voyage (and really even if it was full) it’s freeboard is going to be way too big to launch a diving operation off.

[restive kelp]

Which dates did you check? Did you also check the night light feature of globalfishing?

[sand delta]

So if we assume it’s involved, what could it offer to such an operation?

Yeh not saying that they did that. But still weird to let them drift there.

[true barn]

„In a bankruptcy, who takes care of safety and maintenance of the pipeline?

The Stralsund Mining Authority is responsible. "The mining authority is in contact with the employees of Nord Stream 2 AG to monitor the pipeline," said the spokesman[…]“

https://www.cio.de/a/konkursentscheidung-bei-der-nord-stream-2-ag,3692609

[sand delta]

Maybe they covered something below them?

[deft stone]

Of course there is. Pretty much every transaction in germany is covered by that. Either directly or indirectly

[sand delta]

You have to sign a „SCHUFA-Klausel“ before. Every time I rented a boat, brought my credit card for deposit. All fine without SCHUFA-Klausel

@sand delta https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16694491/SFH00000/Pub195bk.pdf

https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16694491/SFH00000/Pub194bk.pdf

I’m so far as this might provide some additional navigational information.

[deft stone]

So andromeda for the diving platform but Minerva for the crane/ Explosive placement?

[sand delta]

Will have a look on that as soon as I am home! Thanks for that!

[deft stone]

Aighty. Nevermind then

[sand delta]

Happy to help. 🙂

[sand delta]

Throwing stuff at the wall, it’s purpose could just be to create a tonne of noise over the site.

[velvet rain]

Just checked Mola's contract. Nothing about Schufa consent mentioned.

[sand delta]

Even unwittingly.

[restive kelp]

It was very cloudy at that time.

[true barn]

another question is if the area of leaks / minerva roaming is a common place to wait for further instructions

in other words: how likely is it that minerva was hanging out there coincidentally.

maybe even blocked andromeda from operating in the area

[sand delta]

You can drift anywhere you’d like, as such.

[junior moat]

a little tiny tiny bit of new information dropped in ARD/Tagesschau here : https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/nord-stream-pipeline-anschlag-ukraine-sabotage-101.html

• apparently both fake passports were Bulgarian
• indeed Zeit / ARD published their research early because of the NYT publication of US intelligence
• return date to Mola not known to the journalists, but of course must be known to investigators

[sand delta]

Countries might say tankers can’t do it in their territorial waters, but go 12 nmi out and you can tell the country up yours.

Follow the COLREGs and it’s fine. Now how common doing it in that area is, that would be interesting.

[sand delta]

Knowing it goes to Dranske to go into winter storage a month or two later, I’d love to try to see if we could look between then and it’s supposed return date to get a firm picture of the Andromeda in late September/October/November in Hohe Dune, and then work back.

There’s like 20k photos of Hohe Dune on Google Maps, it’s quite photographed, has to be surely.

Even a firm picture of something looking like a Cruiser 50 in the area we have the suspected Andromeda.

[junior moat]

yeah I agree, it should be there on some photo .. unless they knew it was the last booking for the year and immediately transferred it to Dranske or something

but best bet would be to identify it at some date in October/Nov in Hohe Düne, yes

by the way ... for the AIS-nerds among us ... how did this happen, some weird MMSI 999999999 in the middle of all the German warships ? Who did the spoofing, and was there even a ship in this position, or they just sent the signal from somewhere else ? 🤔 (just curious how this can happen)

[sand delta]

Navigational aids start with an MMSI of 99-

On the tracking websites, all-9 MMSIs seem to be military vessels who don’t want to broadcast their MMSI.

Likewise with all-9 IMOs.

[junior moat]

yeah okay, so I guess would assume there was another German warship there that didn't want to be identified .. best guess

would make some sense

[sand delta]

Theres no German warship named Elona though.

[junior moat]

yeah but then they just made up this name together with the number

[sand delta]

Oh hold on

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/photos/of/ships/shipid:6128586/shipname:ELONA?order=date_uploaded

[raw nexus]

Back last year they said two dark ships

[sand delta]

It isn’t the name of an Arleigh Burke, but seems to be showing up as an Arleigh Burke.

When was this AIS data, I think I know what it is.

[junior moat]

October 8th 2022

[sand delta]

Yea, I know exactly what it is.

One sec

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7478749/221019-n-hd110-0259

The USS Roosevelt was with the German ships taking a look.

[junior moat]

wow yeah, that matches with what Oliver had found, and is already in my list

thanks 🙏

[sand delta]

Yep.

Oliver is how I know 😛

[stark palm]

What was the date of that track?

[junior moat]

let me check exact time... but somewhere Oct 8th 2022

actually maybe bit early for USS Roosevelt

[stark palm]

That is before the USS Roosevelt entered the Baltic

My new update with some more info should be done in about an hour

[sand delta]

Oh damn 😦 Whoops, sorry guys.

[stark palm]

Think it is the USS Paul Ignatius

[junior moat]

okay just so we have a version including timestamp:

early hours Oct 9th 2022

[sand delta]

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7462424/uss-paul-ignatius-ddg-117-daily-operations-baltic-sea

Paul Ignatius in the Baltic on the 10th.

[junior moat]

👍 very plausible

[sand delta]

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7462425/uss-paul-ignatius-ddg-117-daily-operations-baltic-sea

[junior moat]

wonder if Elona is some insider joke in the US Navy 😄

[sand delta]

Same day, driving around in their RHIB.

[stark palm]

Found it

It met up with the USNS William McLean on the 7th for replenishment

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7458151/uss-paul-ignatius-ddg-117-conducts-ras-with-usns-william-mclean-t-ake-12

[sand delta]

Nice.

[junior moat]

US Navy is trying to disguise as some Container Ship 👻 😉

[sand delta]

I wonder if that’s just some bug of Marine Traffic.

Or not bug, but rather, you can broadcast AIS without including a name, the container ship Elona’s MMSI is definitely not 99999999, it’s not an aid to navigation.

So if we assume that the ship there wants to broadcast AIS, but doesn’t want to give an MMSI in that message (because that would be identifiable), they fill up their details with null numbers.

[junior moat]

yea sounds about right

found this crazy complex-looking research into AIS spoofing.. I don't think I want to dig that much into it to bother to read this though 😬 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351955850_AIS_Data_Vulnerability_Indicated_by_a_Spoofing_Case-Study

wow, same research 😄

nice

but you found the important quote

nice

[sand delta]

If the German ships are all happy to be broadcasting AIS, there’s no reason for one German ship to not want to.

So that also suggests foreign, again suggesting a U.S. ship, likely the Ignatius as Oliver suggests.

It seems crazy that there is no new reporting on the 2 dark ships (SpaceKnow)

[junior moat]

well I kinda captured the only moment when all of them were broadcasting at the same time... they go on and off all the time

[deft stone]

Didnt you say during the night there is usually a service calling you up if you get to close to a pipeline for to long? Or Did I misread that?

[junior moat]

but yeah different pattern from what US Navy is doing (using 999999999)

[sand delta]

Any time, as such.

If through their AIS monitoring you trip one of their configured events, their office will get a ping and they might call you, using the Coast Guard over the radio or by phone.

https://www.siitech.com/Solutions/Underwater-Pipeline-Cable-Surveillance-and-Protection

https://gatehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GateHouse-Asset-Protection-for-Offshore-Pipelines.pdf Whoops, it comes from this pdf.

[deft stone]

Ah. I see. Thanks ^^

[sand delta]

https://youtu.be/3nmBoITLQ8M

Fwiw, you can tell them to go and stick their complaint where the sun doesn’t shine, they don’t have any legal power to direct a vessel to do anything.

[deft stone]

Hm. Is there any way to find out if they DID complain about the Minerva? Or anyone else for that matter

[sand delta]

The Danish and Swedish coast guard, maybe.

The Danish/Swedish coast guard stations station officers would be keeping a log of all radio and other calls they receive and transmit.

[junior moat]

actually, maybe now this funky database of amateurs logging VHF DSC calls can finally come in handy

let me check it

[sand delta]

A coast station starts in 0

https://www.itu.int/mmsapp/CoastStation/list

Denmark has two

Sweden has six.

[junior moat]

uh yeah

this could be something, mayyyybe

need some experts to decipher this

[sand delta]

🫣

[junior moat]

all communication of M.Julie in September 2022 that was captured by amateur loggers

[sand delta]

Test is just the required test calls.

[junior moat]

J3E TP?

[sand delta]

Single-sideband and independent-sideband amplitude-modulated emissions for telephony or multi-channel voice-frequency telegraphy.

TP means telephony.

[little zinc]

another article, florian flade is one of the better security researchers/journalists in germany. https://twitter.com/FlorianFlade/status/1634908177736007681?s=20
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/nord-stream-explosionen-sabotage-ermittlungen-ukraine-1.5767316?reduced=true
archived: https://archive.is/fNHyc

[sand delta]

Or in short, single side band voice communication.

Used on HF frequencies, which 8414,5 is.

[sand delta]

Returned a few days before the 26th hmm.

Also the category is RTN = routine.

EOS is end of sequence, ACK is the acknowledgment that you’ve received their DSC ping and that you’ve tuned to the channel.

REQ is the request call where you call the ship.

All the calls that aren’t tests are ones by Minerva Julie to coast stations that aren’t sending an acknowledgment back.

[junior moat]

ehm, can we quickly (before coming back to VHF DSC) talk about Süddeutsche suggesting the supposed oligarch behind the plot has his birthday on 26th of September ? 😄

[sand delta]

Aka, they called and nobody is home.

[sand delta]

Narrows it down a bit.

How many Ukrainian million/billionaires have their birthday then.

[junior moat]

exactly... also apparently he was in politics

😱

[sand delta]

The chocolate seller

[tired monolith]

he would be the first suggestion I think of everone since hes been central to the UA war effort

[sand delta]

Close up shop guys. We’ve got our culprit.

[tired monolith]

if you want to look at UA options

[raw nexus]

A two week trip

[sand delta]

Is Poro a CEO of a Western European company?

[tired monolith]

yeah, so both his prior political work, the wealth and also been very visible especially during the first days but also have his own funded batallion if I recall right

[tired monolith]

not sure about that part

[sand delta]

I can’t see how he’d be described as such, that’s not his claim to fame, he’s the previous President of Ukraine after all lol.

[raw nexus]

🍫

[velvet rain]

Actual footage of Poroshenko planning the operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qj1T3E0r_Y

[sand delta]

No way it’s chocolate boy.

He’s too big to fit in a diving suit.

He’s eaten too much chocolate.

[tired monolith]

I mean, its a reason why all these things come drip-fed - everything about it really makes it look like someone went out of their way to direct shit towards Ukraine and partially Germany and Poland

[sand delta]

https://tenor.com/view/augustus-gloop-chocolate-pipe-wonka-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-gif-17950807

[velvet rain]

Oof, isn't he diabetic?

[raw nexus]

That was the time Scholz got fired at from all sides

[raw nexus]

That's why we don't sleep anymore, you give us nightmares 😂

[junior moat]

so now we know who left a "peculiar calling card" .... will he go public and talk about the allegations ? poor guy, all press will storm him now

[sand delta]

https://tenor.com/view/charlieandthechocolatefactory-chocolate-boy-greedy-throughthepipes-gif-3521684

[sand delta]

There can’t be many rich Ukrainians with their birthday on that day.

[little zinc]

The analysis of this explosive alone took several months. The investigators are now supposed to assume that it was not tons of classic TNT that was used, but probably smaller quantities of another highly explosive substance, the effect of which has probably developed a force comparable to several hundred kilograms of TNT

[tired monolith]

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/08/03/the-poroshenko-battalion-a-political-device-fighting-for-ukraine-s-future_5992318_4.html

[velvet rain]

Oh god, I hope it wasn't actually one of his chocolate bars left on the yacht.

So we're back to the Right Sector business card thing.

[junior moat]

seems like it 😬

[little zinc]

so the calling card would be the date of the explosions as its the same as porochenkos birthday?

[raw nexus]

Imagine all the confusion y'all started in the heads of the officials lurking

[sand delta]

What do you mean, I thought we were all CIA plants.

[stark palm]

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1634920503516487680

Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK)

An investigation into the Minerva Julie and the evidence of a possible submarine being active in the area at the same time.

https://t.co/nh1PYDT5xG

Twitter · Mar 12, 2023, 2:13 PM

[raw nexus]

Damn I forgot about that

[stark palm]

https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/the-minerva-julie-unknowing-submarine

[sand delta]

Covering for a submarine 👀 unwittingly

[velvet rain]

Breaking news: Online investigators find damning evidence in Nord Stream case.

[junior moat]

I really hope that's not their only lead 😄

[raw nexus]

Did we ever talk about underwater drones?

[tired monolith]

They also stated that this type of holding pattern might suggest that the vessel was told that it would have an updated destination shortly for the duration of the hold. This could mean that the crew of the Minerva Julie, if the ship was somehow involved, may have had no idea and simply been used to hold position near the pipeline for the duration of a possible sabotage attempt.

how realistic is it that they dont have intel on submarine movements in a NATO lake, though?

[sand delta]

The open-source tracking data did not show any military vessels from any other nations riding jointly with the Germans when they circled east of Bornholm between 9 and 14 September. But according to a later press release from the Germany Navy, they were accompanied during the maneuvers by the German submarine „U 32“ and the mine sweeper „Bad Bevensen“. The latter indeed showed up in the maritime tracking data on 13 September

[stark palm]

"As early as autumn 2022, probably very shortly before the Nord Stream pipelines exploded, the US secret service CIA had sent a warning to European services: A few Ukrainians were planning an attack on the Baltic Sea pipelines and were currently trying to invade Sweden boat for charter. At the time, however, even the Americans considered the information rather implausible, as it came from intercepted Russian communications."

Does anyone else find it odd that this specific part of intel came from intercepted communications?

[tired monolith]

I like the general theory here, but seems weird they would not then have enough oversight to understand what activity below water was occurring - so guess at that spot you are back to speculating if it could be something from NATO trying to pin it on Russia or RU pulling it off undedected (or that west allies dont want RU to get the blame openly in the current situation)

RU would have the incentive to fabricate or leak details pointing back to UA though, dont see why NATO would have any interest in that

[stark palm]

Russia supposedly had this information, yet have never decided to blame Ukraine only NATO

[deft stone]

well. There are Ukrainians working for russia

[sand delta]

The hypothesis of NATO (the U.S.) being behind it would seem to be more damaging to Western stability, perhaps?

[true barn]

„In the Baltic Sea, it’s particularly hard because the water is shallow; the average depth is only 200 feet. In this case, they are hunting in an area that is 60 feet deep. It also consists of many layers of varying degrees of salinity and temperatures. In combination with the shallow waters, this means that a sonar will not be able to propagate very far to detect and track targets. Submarines can use these conditions to great effect to operate undetected, and escape attempts to find it and attack it.“

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/sweden-ends-its-hunt-for-a-foreign-submarine-in-its-waters/

[tired monolith]

I mean even if its problematic down to the exact you would think they would track entry and exit points from coverage in addition to additional surface movement to the point you roughly "know" - even if its been dark sitting in a hole its not spotted for a longer period

[stark palm]

I would say Ukraine doing it would be the best case for Russia at that time

[next dirge]

It makes sense for Russia to blame NATO as their whole propaganda machine is centered on being in a war with NATO itself

Might also be humiliating if Ukraine blew up the pipeline alone

[junior moat]

this Süddeutsche article is just wild, Imma have a break and recover .. 😅

[raw nexus]

It was all about the oil and gas boycott, the US selling gas to Europe and Scholz under pressure in that time frame. Pushing the NATO hoax seems plausible but they also blames the Brits, so 😶

[elfin cradle]

Hii, I have seen my shitposting on twitter beeing mentioned a couple of times in this thread lol.

Im trying to catch up the thread.
But we at acwpodcast.slack we did some magic with some code and the Danish AIS data and some SAR stuff. And started to work on an AIS + optical recogniton from video but stopped when Andromeda became public.
Can check with the others if I can share the code later.

Just to give more context - here's what all the other traffic looked like in this zone during the 05-13 September in black and the Minerva Julie in blue.
The vessels doing the patterns in the bottom right/south east seemed to be German Navy vessels Schleswig Holstein and Oste.
While Minerva Julie was out of the main traffic route in the north, it seems like it was behaving pretty uniquely during that time period.
And one of us made this less likley "cover ship" story.

[tired monolith]

with ties to Russia doesnt seem that wild its a possibility that the boat was used as a pawn in order to obscure from something else

[limber hinge]

If I understand the most recent Oliver Alexander article correctly my theory would be the explosives were placed by a sub, the tanker was, perhaps unwittingly, providing cover. What the yacht was doing remains a mystery but perhaps they needed to get close to the charges to set them off, or initiate a timer.

Or it could be a decoy to shift blame, or not related at all. The explosive traces could have come from any number of sources, not this particular charter.

NATO knew they were up to something. And perhaps this was not an isolated event. Perhaps they placed charges on a number of underwater infrastructure items, and are using that as a threat. They blew this one just as a demonstration?

All wild conjecture.

[next dirge]

I mean we effectively know nothing about the ownership structure of the Minerva Julie. “Ties to Russia” is highly speculative

That it could be trying to obfuscate something would be by the virtue of its suspicious movement

[tired monolith]

Im working on memory but the memory might be failing. Even if the boat isnt tied there if its operating on RU cargo they still have a good portion of potential control of it actions, though

[sand delta]

Commercially, sure.

[next dirge]

The management company has heavy ties to Ukraine - the ships are transporting Russian cargo. It’s all conjecture which can be pulled in both directions. The reality is that Greeks will transport anything that prints money and is legal

Which this is

[sand delta]

But worth remembering that the Captain (Master, rather) (and his representatives, the Chief Officer/OOW) are ultimately responsible for the navigation of the vessel.

[elfin cradle]

https://twitter.com/DmytroNatalukha/status/1562817824321851394

[next dirge]

Sure, but their legal responsibility is to the company and its contracts. They would open themselves up to a lot of liability by just idling about in the Baltic

[tired monolith]

sure, and even inside UA they could be RU supporting for all we know - if its illegal or not isnt the point though, its the degree they could be used as pawns (and implicitly you answer that also, as long as they get paid it prob wouldnt be hard to accomplish this if its doing RU traffic, right?)

[next dirge]

Thank you for this

[next lagoon]

Not particularly, could be lots of reasons for that

[elfin cradle]

Needs to be confirmed by more sources. But it can be a good start to investigate deeper.

[sand delta]

Why would they leave the Dutch port if they knew they'd be idling for a week.

or at least, why did they choose the half way point to idle.

[next dirge]

Yes, its a good start. I have looked into the ownership, supposedly an Alexandra Shipping SA (iirc) registered in Malta, but as far as I understand you have to pay to get access to board of directors etc

[sand delta]

Must have been a change of plans mid-journey.

[next dirge]

A week is a long time to idle indeed

I’m generally convinced the Minerva Julie was just a coincidence, but could be worth looking into its previous shipments and whatnot, if there is a pattern you could potentially narrow it down to a few contractors, trading firms or w/e

Im busy until Wednesday though

[limber hinge]

During the USA West coast shipping problems recently many vessles were idling off shore, across the horizion, so they could not be seen in the USA. They were waiting a week or more for a berth.

[next dirge]

That was due to logistical bottlenecks

If you are referring to what I think

You mean the container havoc during Covid, yes?

[elfin cradle]

Idle in the middle of open sea is a bit weird tho. Especially where its windy and too deep to use anchors.

[distant olive]

The Maltese branch is defunct

[next dirge]

Idling outside a port due to bottlenecks is one thing, idling in the open sea for a week is a bit more unusual, but does happen

Afaik that would often arise suspicion of illegal ship to ship transfer (sanctioned oil trade)

[tired monolith]

seems like an extremely dumb area to be trying to do that, specifically - but could have interacted with smaller vessels harder to spot / track

[next dirge]

Unlikely

[tired monolith]

so its hard to come up with a scenario its tracked activity makes sense outside of the suggested theory that it was told to hold in that specific area (and most likely after it was already underways)

[tired monolith]

if you take out the war-situation, what or where would be the most likely action such a ship would take if it was told they couldnt complete their trip for another week (and how much delay would make them take any other action than to stay put?)

[sand delta]

Go somewhere nice and sheltered, drop the anchor, put your feet up.

[elfin cradle]

Video on how it moved 5-13 September.
https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/mj.mp4

[sand delta]

The only benefit of being drifting is that in that situation, if you were to notice a ship on a collision course to you, theoretically you wouldn't have to go through the effort of raising your anchor before you could maneuver out of the way.

But being adrift, under the COLREGs, your ship is treated the same as any other vessel that's actually moving through the water. Same lookout requirements, being at anchor you can be much more lazy.

[tired monolith]

it sounds like you have to really construct a situation where this would naturally happen, but I can believe the people operating it might not have known about the purpose of it

[next dirge]

Potential legitimate options for them to idle: they are under a time charter with oil trader and waiting for cargo, and in this case had to wait

Or, they operate in spot market and were waiting for rates to improve (seems unlikely?)

Im not an industry expert but have some familiarity

[elfin cradle]

Vs USNS Patuxent doing ship-to-ship replenishment during Baltorps. (it was the
https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/Patuxent - Colour Coded Labels.mp4

That MJ cross straight above the exact position of the explosion sites could be a coincident..
But no other ship during 2022 has been in the vicinity as long as MJ has been (excluding the investigation ships after the boom).

[tired monolith]

if you know the conditions of how to do the correct adjustments / correction to their trip in order to have them stay there you could leave it in the dark - and also its a possibility that it went through the company and they said as long as we are getting paid we dont care

[nimble gull]

Always thought it was so odd no one (seemingly) followed up on this. Was there an attempt to rent a boat in Sweden - or just talks of it? Or was it just ignored as seeming inplausible, until a week ago.

Also, Der Spiegel (where I first read this) claimed August 2022 I believe.

It could just be that this is inaccurately translated from German but doesn't that sound like an attempt was made, or at least the russians thought an attempt had been made.

Looks like WSJ posted some more info in relation to this on Wednesday. https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-nord-stream-probe-german-investigators-search-boat-that-may-have-carried-explosives-379505f9

"Between June and July 2022, months before the Nord Stream attack, the Central Intelligence Agency sent out a warning to its German counterpart, the BND, as well as other European services, that a group might be preparing an attack on the pipeline, according to intelligence officials familiar with the notification.

The warning included information about three Ukrainian nationals who were trying to rent out ships in countries bordering the Baltic Sea, including Sweden, these officials said."

[distant olive]

For those looking at the ownership angle, here are a couple of obserations

Alexandra Maritime is still registered in Panama (see screenshot 2)
Both the ICIJ and OCCRP Aleph databases has a couple of leads on the directors, although these are likely to be lawyers or strawmen.

What is more interesting imo, is that the ownership changed within 24 hours in 2008. The original owner, Marnavi SPA, is pretty well known in the shipping industry (https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/1162Z:IM?leadSource=uverify wall)

The Minerva is still classified with the Registro Italiano Navale (IACS) which certainly does not rule out that Alexandra Maritime is connected to Marnvi in some way.

Bomus: During the last inspection of the Minerva in Hamburg (the report is dated 02/02/2023), the charterer was Petrokim Trading Middle East and Asia DMCC which was involved in a bunch of shady oil deals with syria

[tired monolith]

that also sounds like planted RU material intentionally tbh

but since other actors know RU likes to spread tons of garbage info they can also play into that if they want

[nimble gull]

Could be, or not. Nothing good has ever come of WSJ quoting "an anonymous intelligence source" also.

But it sounds like Swedish (and others) journalists need to get busy looking into foiled attempts to rent boats in summer.

[sand delta]

lol

[nimble gull]

But yeah, it sounds like intentionally planted russian material, intentionally re-planted by CIA. Wilderness of mirrors shit.

[little zinc]

the sweden-rental thing comes from the CIA while most of the leads here come from the leaked german investigation. good to remember the sources for different info-bits.

[nimble gull]

Yep

[sand delta]

Interesting.

[nimble gull]

But the WSJ info definitely made it seem like it did happen, incl. the "three Ukranian nationals" bit is new to me at least.

[sand delta]

The inspection you're talking about is PSC right?

[distant olive]

Yup

[sand delta]

Also it was detained by Belgian PSC in Antwerpen in 2021.

Unsafe means of access, inoperative fire detection system, emergency generator "not as required", onboard medical guide "not as required", emergency fire pump "not as required", missing remote means of closing of vents, and it's ISM (international safety management) system (basically the international standard for ship operation procedures) was "not as required."

Detained for 4 days before it was allowed leave to directly go to a repair yard.

[plain escarp]

😦 someone should make a list of the theories i am loosing track...

[sand delta]

• The sailing yacht Andromeda did it alone
• The Minerva Julie did it alone
• The Minerva Julie was intentionally, if unwittingly, put above the Nordstream sites to provide cover to a submarine who did it
• A submarine did it alone
• A NATO minehunter did it, and a MPA dropped a sonobuoy to trigger the charges
• The pipeline was built with a flaw and operated poorly and operator error.

And there's theories that suggest Russia, Ukraine, a pro-Ukrainian group, NATO (specifically the US, UK or Norway) did it

[sand delta]

And that one is America. The "pro-Ukraine" thing in the NYT has been coming from American intel, and in contrast to the Hersh story they did not deny it.

[plain escarp]

question about this, it seems to draw a constant pattern? isn't that something that can be checked as normal/abnormal? (makes a v shaped pattern, constantly going back into the direction it came from)

[junior moat]

they did deny it

https://twitter.com/NSC_Spox/status/1633484265064132610

Adrienne Watson (@NSC_Spox)

The NSC is unable to confirm this NYT report.

As the reporter acknowledges in this podcast linked below, the anonymous claims in the NYT report did not come from downgraded intelligence shared by the US govt, and sources were not authorized to speak on behalf of the U.S. govt.

Likes

286

Retweets

117

Twitter · Mar 8, 2023, 3:06 PM

sort of, anyways

[sand delta]

not confirming isn't equal to denying, or am I missing something? "The NSC is unable to confirm this NYT report." compare to ""utterly false" regarding Hersh.

[junior moat]

fair enough

[sand delta]

Good god, I've had enough of looking through the 20,000 tagged pictures of Hohe Dune lol.

Surely Google has a means of fetching all those pictures and only giving you the ones in a desired period.

https://goo.gl/maps/VcEmWtAc4aDcjNfE8

Oliver has a suspected Andromeda

that's gone during the period in question

But there around the 6th and the 26th, apparently.

If we can find a picture of the Andromeda/Cruiser 50 in and around that place, from September/October, that would confirm Oliver's thing.

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1634212297626271745

Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK)

Webcam footage from Hohe Düne shows a vessel that I suspect is the Andromeda at the marina on the 5th September. It is then missing on the 12th and 19th and returns on the 26th.

Likes

182

Twitter · Mar 10, 2023, 3:19 PM

Oh @pallid moat...

https://twitter.com/Sepulco1/status/1634231182253498368

Sepulco (@Sepulco1)

@OAlexanderDK This Facebook profile has a number of images in better resolution from that webcam, posted last year: https://t.co/yfpxSFCeXP

Added available pics uploaded on 5 Sept to 3 Oct sequentially in this vid for comparison, along with your two screenshots from the 7th:

▶ Play video

Twitter · Mar 10, 2023, 4:34 PM

[rustic bay]

Hi all, here's your daily reminder to please link to things and not just use screenshots. You can in fact, do both - screenshot the relevant part and link to the source document.

[vocal violet]

Hey everyone, I'm trying to update the summary. I have just finished reading Oliver's post and the SZ article, and I'm trying to fit in where are we now, since even if I read all that's being done here I still get questions.

1 - Seems that the attention has shifted to the Minerva Julie. Of course not neglecting Andromeda but Minerva Julie's drifting and later transporting oil from Russia increases suspicions (note that back then oil contracts that had yet to be fulfilled were not illegal). NATO was watching over it closely. Is that correct?
2 - NATO ships were trying to locate a sub in the area (which would be the first evidence against Russia I believe? But needs to become something more solid). Correct?
3 - Where the heck did that link towards Poroshenko come from?

4 - Anything else I'm missing?

[sand delta]

Regarding, 3. Sud-deutscher Zeitung said that the 26th was chosen because it was the bankrollers birthday.

[velvet rain]

3: Because Petro is our little birthday boy

[sand delta]

3: https://archive.is/fNHyc

Hold on, they are now saying he's active in politics...

[sand delta]

? "used to be active"

[vocal violet]

Yeah, but who pointed that out? lol

Oh, it's in the SZ article? I missed it

[sand delta]

Peter noticed it.

[velvet rain]

Yeah, it's pretty weird that they don't highlight such an important point more prominently.

[vocal violet]

I'm a bit confused now, I don't see anything on the SZ article regarding Poroshenko. Can you please give me the link @sand delta ?

[sand delta]

Poroshenko has his own private funded military units btw: "Res_Publica. Брати по Зброї" ("Brothers in Arms").

[vocal violet]

That's the SZ article I read

[velvet rain]

He isn't named directly. It's just the reference to the date of the birthday.

[sand delta]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/west-nato-nord-stream-attacks-protect-ukraine-qsrqxvssw

The Times is saying it's a Ukrainian who is not affiliated with the Ukrainian government.

So a Ukrainian businessman, formerly politically active, not affiliated with Servant of the People...

[vocal violet]

So it's the Times who suggest Poroshenko, not SZ, am I understanding correctly?

[sand delta]

born on the 26th September.

[sand delta]

No.

Left is SZ, Right is the Times.

[vocal violet]

What paragraph is that in SZ? I'm going like crazy translating it with DeepL

[nimble gull]

I mean they all but spell it out. Kind of crazy

[plain escarp]

question, do we even know what kind of weather it was there? after the minerva left until the 26th? guessing to go dive 80 meters deep with a ship like the andromeda you would want awsome weather?

[sand delta]

SZ is referring to Scandinavian intel "shortly after the sabotage"

[sand delta]

Wer aber könnte hinter dem Anschlag stecken? Einig sind sich die Fahnder nur, dass da wohl keine Amateure am Werke waren. Schon kurz nach dem Attentat auf die Pipelines soll unter skandinavischen Geheimdiensten die Information kursiert sein, dass die Sabotage möglicherweise nicht das Werk irgendeines Geheimdienstes war - sondern eine private Operation, durchgeführt von ehemaligen Militärangehörigen, in Auftrag gegeben und finanziert von einem ukrainischen Oligarchen. Auch ein Name machte früh die Runde. Es handelt sich um einen sehr prominenten Geschäftsmann, der früher in der Politik aktiv war. Die Nord-Stream-Anschläge fanden am 26. September statt - seinem Geburtstag.

[sand delta]

quite calm and cloudy

[vocal violet]

I just need "paragraph X" being a number. I don't speak much German so I'm translating it with DeepL

Can I please have that? Thank you

[sand delta]

It will come up when you open this link, it's next to the 40% marker that you can share.

[vocal violet]

That link didn't work but I finally found it, thanks

[sand delta]

Whoops, sorry.

[vocal violet]

I went through that paragraph 3 times and missed it, sigh

[velvet rain]

I blame the article

[vocal violet]

So the whole reason to suspect Poroshenko is that he's a rich businessman, former Ukrainian president, whose birthday happen to be the day the explosions happened?

[sand delta]

Yep, at least publicly.

[nimble gull]

Doubt that's all. Several journalists have hinted at knowing but not wanting/being able to say

[vocal violet]

If you heard a sound any time, that's the shockwave of my facepalm

[vocal violet]

Fair, so these journalists hint at it but all they can say is that? I don't know, it remains very vague and open ended

[velvet rain]

And there's this of course.

[nimble gull]

This is thm saying its Poroschenko without being sued for libel

[sand delta]

"whose birthday happen to be the day the explosions happened?" No, read the article.

All they need to add is "Chocolate seller" and "diabetic"

and they've all but named him.

[vocal violet]

The Nord Stream attacks took place on September 26 - his birthday.

[sand delta]

Yes, but the article is not saying, that he is suspected NOT only because of this.

[rustic bay]

There may be translation problems, can you speak a bit more broadly?

[vocal violet]

Which is what I am saying, he's being suspected entirely about this

[sand delta]

I wanted to write "not Only" LOL

[sand delta]

We need a German.

I'm German

[nimble gull]

Makes me wonder about the "unique calling card"

[sand delta]

My condolences.

"Auch ein Name machte früh die Runde [!]. Es handelt sich um einen sehr prominenten Geschäftsmann, der früher in der Politik aktiv war. Die Nord-Stream-Anschläge fanden am 26. September statt - seinem Geburtstag."

[nimble gull]

Lots of chocolate and explosives found on the boat? 🙂

[sand delta]

#1072947857654554624 message

[little zinc]

i think the "calling card" is referring to the date of the explosions / his birthday.

[sand delta]

One name circulated from early on. Prominent businesman, formerly politically active. Nord stream sabotage was on his birthday.

[rustic bay]

Thank you, can you perhaps translate the relevant parts for us to English?

[sand delta]

"One name circulated from early on" seems to be unlikely that a befriended intel just suspecting former president because of his birthday.

[vocal violet]

Yeah, so it's information that was circulated by Scandinavian intel, that at some point they were considering him. But we don't know if they still suspect him or not, or anything else. Just that they were looking at him shortly after the explosions by Scandinavian Intelligence.

Is that all we got?

[velvet rain]

The machine translation seems fine here. I just double checked the output from DeepL and don't see anything wrong there.

[vocal violet]

Yeah, I think it was not a translation issue but a communication issue here and the fact that I may have jumped through that bit when I read the article

[rustic bay]

Thanks, erredece is trying to get something sorted for everyone's good and I would appreciate people helping him 🙂

[sand delta]

presumed American, German, and Scandinavian intel/invesitgation leaks are quite congruent at the moment regarding this pro Ukrainian direction.

[vocal violet]

While also being the pedantic fact checker that I am

[rustic bay]

Pedants are my favorite. Never stop

Source everything

[sand delta]

Maybe we can find the polish company mentioned. Owned by 2 Ukrainian nationals funded by Poroschenko (or one of his company's) or another Oligarch.

[rustic bay]

It's what makes this server different from every other place on the internet

[nimble gull]

I would assume with details like that in SDZ and Times, it'll be out in the open tomorrow

[raw nexus]

Lol

[sand delta]

?

We're meming.

[vocal violet]

Yes, but that only means that they were looking into it, it's not strong evidence, which is what we are looking for here.

It can be a lead, or it can be a red herring. And I need to make sure what we know about this thus far before I write it down for anyone else to read, because I don't want to spread a mere rumour

[sand delta]

A little friendly anti-German banter.

[velvet rain]

We deserve it

[sand delta]

We do.

[raw nexus]

Did you take a look at @hoary maple Google doc, pinned

[sand delta]

We are not spreading rumors, those media do. We can investigate and try to falsify or confirm reported facts..

[raw nexus]

Ich fand das witzig

[vocal violet]

Exactly! That's also what I want to have clear, what has been published in media to give this any sustain besides "oh, someone leaked that intel was looking into him" without elaborating

[hoary maple]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tOOGkKuCyPtcbVoIntlrlzITSHYZjZQrOdB_XuDFenM/edit#gid=75035612

I've not gone through any of them in particular detail.

[rustic bay]

Is this pinned/do you want it to be?

[hoary maple]

I think it was, but it's not anymore

[vocal violet]

We can leave it in the summary, if it isn't there yet

Honestly that summary is starting to grow, some trimming is needed

[velvet rain]

I mean, technically it's not even that. "A name also made the rounds early on" could just mean that some people in the intelligence field speculated without evidence.

[raw nexus]

It was in there the last days

[velvet rain]

It doesn't necessarily imply that any investigative work took place.

[vocal violet]

Yup, that's all we got then, just need to make that sure

[sand delta]

https://twitter.com/CaseStudyQB/status/1633475874698801154

[sand delta]

This is the polish company register. It is more likely that the company is located in Województwo lubelskie
or Województwo podkarpackie as they are right next to Ukraine.

https://wyszukiwarka-krs.ms.gov.pl/

"If only we know who is behind the sabotage of the Nord stream, maybe we would thank them because it served Russia right" - Poroshenko, a couple days ago.

[rustic bay]

That's from the tweet, Erredece

[sand delta]

Okay, so we have to look elsewhere, because he said he doesn't know who it was 😛

[tidal knoll]

Water tight evidence.