Nord Stream Pipeline

[velvet rain]

And that post was two years after his last activity on the platform.

[junior moat]

the group is also super anti-Putin though

very Nazi (it gets worse the more you scroll) but very anti-Stalin/communism/Putin

[velvet rain]

Sure, but I wouldn't use that to make any conclusions about him for sharing that.

[junior moat]

yeah true ... it's a fascinating world of its own to dive into .. my eyes are hurting

[velvet rain]

You might be interested in #far-right-monitoring for topics like this.

[junior moat]

okay so in another post the group mentions that "I do not deny the closeness of the Ukrainian people, but at the same time, their independence is obvious to me." ...
interesting ideology/mindset

[strange bane]

The only reason we’re unsure is because we went through the posts one by one

And translated everyone of them.

And none of them are even nationalist leaning

They are just weird Pagan shit

Not denying there’s an ideological connection

But if he’s weird enough to post Pagan stuff, why not Ukrainian nationalist stuff?

[junior moat]

I wasn't actually checking his profile .. just this group out of interest .. and it appears very russian nationalist (but anti-Putin hardcore white supremacy style)

[strange bane]

Plausible he is far right/hardcore Ukrainian nationalist

But not confirmed, is basically the long and short of it

[junior moat]

yeah 👍

[stark palm]

I know as late as July 2022 atm

[strange bane]

Oh wow, I see.

Different account?

[stark palm]

Different sources, but your average TDF dude

[dire canyon]

Just want to point out that Ukraine banned VK in 2017, so keep that in mind if activity suddenly stops around that time. I have no idea how effective the ban was though...

[stark palm]

These pics are also pretty “far-right”

[velvet rain]

He posted stuff from an account called СБУ - Служба Бандеризації України. That seems somewhat more far-right.

[strange bane]

Ahhhhhhhh

Sorry, working off the account that went dead in 2017

[tidal knoll]

For this case, that seems to be more relevant than his ideology.

[stark palm]

The relevance of the ideology is that it exponentially increases the risk for Ukraine if the operation is compromised

[junior moat]

this exact image was also posted in the 'Über Alles' group

[stark palm]

”Ukrainain Neo-Nazi sabotages European gas supplies to freeze Europeans” is pretty much a home run for Russian propaganda

[pure finch]

Don't worry Russia will be reluctant to admit Ukraine could pull this off on their own, so they'll link the Nazi adjacent symbology with, German tanks and Gladio and... blame the US/Britain ultimately.

[strange bane]

And don’t forget the Grayzone boot

What size shoe is Valery?

[strange bane]

🥺 Any chance you could DM me the new account 🥺

[junior moat]

this journey of Andromeda also gets more weird by the minute
if they stopped in Kołobrzeg in Poland for 12 hours on Sept 19 (and got searched by Polish border police)
when on earth did they actually place the freaking explosives ?

I guess if Christiansø is a pretty good 'base' to place the charges at the northern locations
Kołobrzeg is a pretty good 'base' to place charges at the southern location

[vocal violet]

They would still need to bring those charges to Christiansø and hide them temporarily there, considering it's a very small, touristic island, I don't think it would be easy, especially without any local help

[junior moat]

yeah maybe in Christiansø they were just waiting for better weather conditions (also apparently cannot refuel there) ..
I mean hypothetically, I don't know if they would actually be sailing under sail, or simply did the whole journey using the engine

here's the wave data (I know we had a better version somewhere but I don't find it anymore)

so from 17th onwards it should have been possible to operate from the boat (my educated guess)

tomorrow I'll have a look, trying to remember what was the time we agreed Andromeda was returned to Hohe Düne

[strange bane]

The more we learn about Valery

We know he's a Ukrainian in the 93rd Brigade of the UAF

But the travel agent is half owned by a Diana B. (changed name to K.) that is a known collaborator in Kerch

Full credit to @vocal violet for raising this to me, just for fairness

[vocal violet]

It's just very weird that the two leads one goes to a woman in Kerch, known to collaborate with Russia, and then you have this guy who is in the Ukrainian army and appears to be a strong Ukrainian nationalist worked together

[junior moat]

I'm gonna simply drop this 🍫 here and go to bed now 😉 .. see you tomorrow

[strange bane]

I believe we know it was returned on one of the 20 days

by 20 days I mean 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

[vocal violet]

Even if you account for "they got paid really big", it makes little sense to combine these actors

There's no apparent link between them, why put together two people with very strong differences and interests? It's unnecessary risk

[strange bane]

Additionally, why is a Ukrainian in Kyiv, operating a company in Poland with a """"""Ukrainian""""""" (aka, basically Russian given her treason/collaboration) in Kerch

Crimea is under EU sanctions, how does that company even function, how can she get paid?

(Hell, the entirety of Russia is under EU sanctions, but particularly occupied Crimea/the occupiers in Crimea)

Diana B./K. is the owner (Russian collaborator), Nataliia A. is the CEO.

which makes it even weirder, she owns a company she can't receive money from due to sanctions?

[vocal violet]

I'm honestly suggesting to scrap the Expressen article and maybe focus a bit more on what Spiegel brings

Which is not much, but the Expressen article has more holes than the Moskva

[strange bane]

Spiegel does confirm the person that Expressen used as a picture

[vocal violet]

I mean, sanctions can be looped around, but yep, no evidence for that

[strange bane]

Waleri K. in Spiegel, Expressen's picture gives us a Valery/Valera Kolesnik

[vocal violet]

I mean, it serves as crossvalidation for Valery Kolesnik, I mean more about the story it portrays

[strange bane]

Oh fair, yea.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-warned-ukraine-not-to-attack-nord-stream-7777939b

https://archive.ph/bYsdE

Paywall avoided

Its passengers returned the boat unwashed, allowing investigators to recover fingerprints, and traces of explosives—as well as DNA that they have tried to match to at least one Ukrainian soldier, through his son, who lives in Germany.

So another reputable journalistic outfit on this lead.

Expressen is too tabloid to be trusted, but Spiegel and WSJ cross confirmating that element

total sidetrack

https://energetyka24.com/gaz/wiadomosci/polskie-dochodzenie-obala-niemieckie-oskarzenia-o-sabotaz-nord-stream

Polish investigation refutes German accusations of sabotage of Nord Stream

....

"Both threads were checked and they are definitely not leading" – a person familiar with the Polish investigation told Rzeczpospolita. As the newspaper reported, this man "indicates that the people on the yacht did not look at all like professionals who could perform such a task. - They were partying, they were loud." "No professional would draw attention to himself so ostentatiously" – added the journalist's interlocutor.

Which leads to a conclusion (re this article) that in so far as the German investigation is following a lead

It's a lead of breadcrumbs possibly laid by someone who is trying to finger Ukraine

The Valery lead is the guy the German investigation is following, but it could be a lead planted by someone intentionally as a cover to their op.

Wouldn't be surprising if Russian intelligence were combing VK and other Russian social media sites for Ukrainian servicemembers (posting in uniform, etc) for such people to pin shit on

[eager moss]

I previously posted some information on winds during the period September 2022 which shows for each day the wind speed and gusts together with hourly wind direction. This correlates very well with the wave data in the image you posted. (here are the wind data charts again).

I correlated the wind data with the wave data using Bretschneider and estimating fetch lengths from the marine charts. This Bretschneider nomogram is a simplified version of the one included in the Shore Protection Manual (US Coast Guard)

To place the wind and waves during the period in the context of statistical data for the NS1 ruptures location I compared the wave and wind during the period to the wind/wave roses for the location (I posted some days ago). It places the conditions during September 15th to 29th in context of the frequency of occurrence. (I suspect most can see for themselves what this shows.)

I've been working with metocean data for offshore engineering and construction for over 30 years (and in my younger days i had to develop forecasts of wave and wind conditions from raw data); this is a good correlation and is what would be expected. In the absence of better wave data relevant to the rupture locations the wind data provides a good basis for understanding the conditions that prevailed during this period provided wind direction is taken into account.

[whole thunder]

https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2023-06/nord-stream-anschlag-andromeda-jacht-polen?wt_zmc=sm.int.zonaudev.twitter.ref.zeitde.redpost.link.x&utm_medium=sm&utm_source=twitter_zonaudev_int&utm_campaign=ref&utm_content=zeitde_redpost_link_x

New article mentions that the andromeda made a stop in Poland on the 19th of septemver where the passengers where controlled by border control. Nothing special was found and no loading took place within the short stay

[stark palm]

I am trying to find out when the last contact with Valery was.

In theory if he was KIA or is a POW his DNA wouldn’t be hard to acquire

[stark palm]

with the 19th in Poland we are running out of days to do the operation where there aren’t other ships directly above the site

[whole thunder]

The article doesn't say if border control was on board, only that nothing was abnormal. Could mean they only checked documents.
But if they were on board and didn't found the equipment to be abnormal this would be weird.
So either they were on board and the equipment wasn't there at that point and no loading took place on the 19th, which would mean they loaded the equipment and explosives later or they weren't on board.

[whole thunder]

A later loading would mean even shorter time frame available to do the operation.

[junior moat]

this article confuses me even more. if I read it correctly it suggests the Andromeda stopped in Poland twice .. once on the way to Christiansø and then also on the way back (on 19 Sept) ?
https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/nordstream-sabotage-andromeda-polen-100.html

I guess that suggests the operations around the NS1 leak locations had to happen in the timeframe when Minerva Julie was also lurking in the area

here is the Polish version of the news : they specifically mention that there is contradicting info if it was in Poland twice or once only
https://frontstory.pl/wybuch-nord-stream-niemcy-polska-jacht-andromeda-kolobrzeg/

other interesting tidbits : "The second [identified] Ukrainian is a person associated with work at sea."

[pure finch]

And the Minerva Julie is still happily plying its trade in the Baltic to this day...

I have wondered if the MJ was performing an overwatch function, due to better radar and situational awareness than a smaller vessel, such as the Andromeda, would have had.

But that would require crew involvement, pre-agreed communication protocols between the vessels and... minor point... I have zero evidence... and as noted above, the MJ is still happily plying its trade in the Baltic, where it's currently approaching Tallinn.

[junior moat]

yeah. all of it also really depends on how much time they needed for a single dive (and whether they would only do it during the night etc) ... if this is feasible etc. still a lot of unknowns

Another tidbit that I had missed before from Frontline : " A van with Polish license plates arrives at the wharf [in Rostock...] The crew used satellite communications. "

(probably wanted to avoid being tracked using cellphone triangulation)

[hushed karma]

It is not uncommon to have satellite communication on board of a sea worthy vessel. So there is no real clue on this IMHO

My brother in law used to have a sailing ocean worhty ship in a greece harbor and had that to installed.

Another theory comes to mind. And sadley that missing sub at the Titanic made me think about this : How far could a sub from the MJ go from the mothership to get to that south spot ? Is that a viable clou to follow up on ?

[strange bane]

The Minerva Julie is a tanker

It has nowhere to store a submersible

And it’s deck cranes are nowhere near enough to lift it into the water if it was onboard

[hushed karma]

Than i am mistaken by the name. Sorry. There was a Russian vessel involved also as i remember wel which had a sub on board. Ill dive in to that.

[strange bane]

SS-750 yea

[hushed karma]

Are there plotting charts of the SS-750 ? Or satellite imagery of its whereabouts known ?

[strange bane]

https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/danish-defence-command-confirms-russian

The Danish Defence says it was close by

The Danish patrol boat Nymfen is trackable

And the Danish say it took pictures of Russian ships in “the vicinity” of Nordstream

And we know the Nymfen was in the vicinity of Nordstream.

[strange bane]

According to Wikipedia

The AS-26 submarine has a range of 21 nm

And an endurance of 120 hours with 4 onboard or 10 hours with 24 onboard

[hushed karma]

There is another fact mentioned before within one of Oliver Alexander mentioned articles. And that is the possibillity that the UFA B-588 stays a full week longer out of port at the same time that MJ was doing its “dance” around the mentioned spot. Might it be possible that this was as to supply that sub or to be there to be the diversion of that sub doing wat is within that same timeframe ? . #1072947857654554624 message.

[strange bane]

Well that’s the thing, absolutely.

It’s a rescue sub which has an attachment gasket to attach to Russian navy submarines to rescue them

But it’s not like you couldn’t fill it up with shit if you wanted to.

[hushed karma]

That is why i came up with that. The possibility to use it

[strange bane]

That said, the the Ufa would have more than enough endurance to carry out the operation.

[hushed karma]

But if the SS-750 had that stuff on board and counting the times it went back and forth ?? It could play te role of supply ship in this

[strange bane]

The Baltic is home turf for the Russian Navy

[hushed karma]

I do think we have a clou taht might be more viable than the Andromeda lead, due to the timeframes and dates it was checked by customs in Poland

[strange bane]

Unless you mean SS-750, I don’t see the role of the Minerva Julie in a military op other than unwittingly floating over the top.

[hushed karma]

Corrected. Sorry 😅

[strange bane]

It’s all good.

[hushed karma]

Well. Lets say. That sub could be supplied with the needed explosives. And charge by charge. I am going to count the number of erratic movements there as shown in charts in here before

[junior moat]

I still have people on social media telling me the Andromeda story is fake, and the journalists have unreliable sources (and thus keep them anonymous). As if there isn't a lot of evidence the investigation is actually happening and is in full swing 🙄

[hushed karma]

That is why i am going to dive in to another theory due to the lead i just wrote

[strange bane]

Watch this flip as soon as the Ukrainian nationalist Valery story gets out

[junior moat]

yeah true

[strange bane]

A submarine launched mission is relatively easy

(German Kampfschwimmer preparing to enter the torpedo tube of one of the German submarines)

https://vxtwitter.com/bundeswehrinfo/status/1458371392806789120

Plenty of Russian pics of this sorta thing too, it’s basic military diver stuff, if your special forces aren’t able to dive out of your submarines, you’re not a terribly good Navy.

[junior moat]

only thing I'm really wondering about the official German investigation .. why is there so many Salami-style leaks ? Is this on purpose or is it individual investigators who feel safe enough to pass on some bits of info ..

[hushed karma]

So. As mentioned before. How many times does a sub like B-588 needed to be supplied to perform this task ? As a sub is far more possible due to the fact that there is also stated that at some locations land was in clear sight by @Peter Dunn
#1072947857654554624 message.
Stating land is in sight as in this video ?

#1072947857654554624 message. But than again the name of that MJ turns up here. And this might very well be supply movements. But does the timeframes do concur with each other in this. ?? #1072947857654554624 message

[hushed karma]

True point. It might also be for political reasons to not blame one of the suspected country’s

[junior moat]

yeah or maybe the journalists are really just following the same clues as the investigators independently, simply interviewing people who previously got questioned by police .. who knows

[strange bane]

Probably it doesn’t?

The Baltic is definitively the “back yard” for Russian navy ops.

[hushed karma]

If i count correctly. And follow the Greenpeace conclusion that a 12 meter pipe was missing. And both sides of that pipe examined were blown up. Counting that the 4 pipes of NS1 and NS2 in that case needed to be blown on two spots per pipe ! if there was a cutting cord type explosive used, they might not needed resupplying. And than a week time is a large time opportunity. Well. Because a rescue type of sub must have larger space/room to store rescued persons they had storage and all equipment at hand

Which makes the MJ most likely the chosen diversion

[eager moss]

What I think we know about the damage caused to the pipelines based upon publicly available information is as follows - ENE of Bornholm : NS1A there were two full-bore ruptures 240 metres apart (may have been more explosives in between but we don't know at this time), NS1B it's not known how many ruptures but possibly just one full-bore rupture based on vision of gas at sea surface (no publicly available subsea vision as yet), NS2A there was one hole not a full bore rupture, NS2B no hole or rupture is known at this time. SSE of Bornholm : NS2A one full bore rupture, no other pipelines known to be damaged at this time.

[hushed karma]

Thank you @eager moss very well summarized. So. There is no conclusion we could make out on this point so far.

One rupture could very well have blown away another placed charge. Depends on type of charge and if detonation was not exact at the same time. Which is plausible if there were long range distance ignition devices placed.

[limber hinge]

Thank you.

[limber hinge]

It would be highly likely the Charter company would record the engine hours at beginning and end of charter. Engine maintenance cycles are based on engine hours. I.e. change oil after 200 hours.

[limber hinge]

Would be ballsy to do an entry with explosives or other suspicious equipment onboard.

[limber hinge]

It would be HIGHLY unusual for a charter boat of this caliber (low) to have sat comms. If they had sat comms it would likely be portable like Iridium.

[limber hinge]

Sound pollution? Disrupt somar?

[strange bane]

Even if we assume the company execs were involved, the crew onboard being told what they were actually doing would be weird right?

[strange bane]

It’s a merchant oil tanker

I work at sea

It doesn’t work like that

It’s not some oceans eleven thing

Ships drift when waiting for orders

It’s not terribly weird

[hushed karma]

I delete it. Thought you talked about the Andromeda.

[strange bane]

Oh sorry

Yea

I can’t share what I know

r.e. Andromeda

But… there will be more reports basically

[hushed karma]

Deleted. But. Pm me ?

[strange bane]

Not my work to share with you, sorry

[hushed karma]

Okay. Accepted 👍

[strange bane]

There will be more reporting on it shortly is what I imagine.

[hushed karma]

I guess so. Lets wait for that than

In mean while the decoy theory is now also openly published. For wat its worth. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/03/nord-stream-bombing-yacht-andromeda/

[junior moat]

will this new reporting finally give a reason why they blew up the same string of NS2 twice ? Were they drunk ? (everything else I don't care so much to know) 😅

[strange bane]

Lol

[stone wadi]

depend if the real value is the same as the nominal value or if one tank is only half the real size and the rest it space for a submersible

[strange bane]

Have you seen the deck cranes of the MJ?

It’s a tanker

It doesn’t have a big open hatch that opens and exposes all the oil

It’s just a warren of pipes and stuff

What you’re thinking of is a bulk carrier

[hushed karma]

But it could be the supplier of the B-588 with that crane.

[velvet rain]

What exactly are you proposing there?

[hushed karma]

Than that B-588 has possibly not onboard the team that normally is trained and drilled to perform tasks together. So that might be the reason why there were “mistakes “ made

[strange bane]

Russia has submarine tenders.

[hushed karma]

Are there views on these in that timeframe around that area ?

[strange bane]

SS-750

[velvet rain]

I do not understand the point you are trying to make.

[strange bane]

Minerva Marine is a Greek shipping company

Personal experience, Greek shipping companies like to have Greek officers on their ships

And then Eastern European or Filipino ratings

(Which also aligns with the crewing offices you can find on Minerva’s website)

We’re entrusting our super secret squirrel mission to a ship crewed by NATO citizens…

And Filipinos?

[hushed karma]

I do not rule out anything. One pipe was blown twice as stated before. That could be a mishap in placing charges. And most mishaps are due to miscommunications amongst fresh working teams >> #1072947857654554624 message

[strange bane]

Ironically their crewing offices are in Odessa and Manila (and Greece)

[velvet rain]

I am asking you to outline your proposed hypothesis clearly. Are you suggesting that the crew of the Minerva Julie operated the SS-750 in some fashion? Or just that the Minerva Julie was supplying materials for the operation to the SS-750?

Assuming that's the ship you meant.

[hushed karma]

Might be. Or the SS-750. But the latter is more obvious. And the Odessa connection SaraL stated does make me not ruling that out

[velvet rain]

Sara was just mentioning the crane as an example for why Axel's idea would not work. And you picked that up to draw some connections for which there is no basis.

[strange bane]

If Minerva were collaborating with the Russian Navy

[velvet rain]

The mods have reminded you countless times now to please tone down on the speculation and focus on the facts.

[strange bane]

Wouldn’t their office in Odessa have been raided by SBU

[velvet rain]

@hushed karma could you please acknowledge that you have taken note of this?

[stone wadi]

I was thinking more on the line of a false bottom in one of the tanks and a opening in the hull

[velvet rain]

@hushed karma, okay, cool, thanks. At least for me it's getting difficult to catch up with this thread after a while, because the speculation (as justified as it might be) tends to drown out any new facts and developments that get posted. And I have the impression that others might feel the same way.

[strange bane]

"

What the inside of a tanker hull is like

Tankers don't have openings to take stuff out of.

[stone wadi]

no not normal ones

[strange bane]

That's a transverse bulkhead

to stop sloshing the entire length of the ship

r.e. free surface effect

[hushed karma]

I understand that thoughts that i think should not be ruled out better are not always been noted here.

[stone wadi]

why don't they have it in the center tank?

[strange bane]

the entirety of the tanks are subdivided

that's just one portion of the ship

Also, just r.e. sourcing these pictures

these are personal photos

[stone wadi]

would be intresting if somone tried to set sail with only a section like that

[tidal knoll]

If you off-set the compartments it might further minimise the effect?

[strange bane]

yes, there's longitudonal and transverse bulkheads

that compartmentalise the cargo

longitudonal being lengthwise

and transverse being side to side

[stone wadi]

anyway
what I was thinking about was a special build tanker that have one tank that is ether special built and only half the size or don't exist in reallity at all and instead have a small sub bay opening under water

[strange bane]

Minerva Julie has been PSCed multiple times

[stone wadi]

?

[strange bane]

Port State Control

https://www.parismou.org/inspection-search/inspection-search

Search the Minerva Julie here.

If there was non-standard stuff going on, the PSC teams would have discovered it.

Minerva Julie was even detained for non-conformities in 2021 iirc

Clarification: It was detained because the crew were morons, not due to a non standard compartment

[stone wadi]

in what specfic way?

[strange bane]

Permanent means of access being unsafe means they didn't rig their gangway properly and it was unsafe as hell.

All ships have an emergency generator that powers an emergency switchboard of the essential things, radio, nav equipment, it being not as required means it's not being run regularly, the crew not knowing how to use it (Grounds for Detention)

Fire detection equipment being inoperative is self explanatory

The medical chest and medical guide not being as required means that the ships medicine stocks, morphine, medical guide being substandard and not being kept up to date/in regs.

ISM means International Safety Management code, basically this is an international regulation that codifies that ships need to have SOPs for every operation onboard, permits to work, risk assessments, etc etc, not being as required means their systems were jank and not being followed (Grounds for Detention)

Remote means of controlling the opening of vents into machinery spaces is a requirement to be able to smother a fire but cutting off oxygen, them not working is a safety issue and the fault of the ship being run badly (Grounds for detention, probably what they were sent to shipyard for)

And the emergency fire pump is a water main ring that runs the entire length of the ship to power fire houses, it not working means no water in a fire, (Grounds for Detention, also thing to be rectified in shipyard)

also

https://www.leonardoinfo.com/leonardoInfo/LeoInfoLogInExternalServlet?ImoNum=9380831

here's the Minerva Julie's class inspection by Registro Italiano Navale (it's classification society)

Equasis is a system that combines all the classification society, PSC, countries websites and whatever else into one portal

it has a link to it's classification society profile

it had it's annual crane test on 7th November 2022

Had a class survey in Yalova, Turkey on 24 May 2023

it has 15 separate compartmentalised cargo hold tanks

TL;DR no evidence of a secret compartment.

[elfin cradle]

That makes no sense at all.
If you are using a Kilo class sub it will already have a Underwater Demolition Team and the explosives, just do limit the explosure of doing stuff on surface. You use a sub to be secret, why do a lot of stuff on the surface then?

[elfin cradle]

My German explosives guy are saying that it would be SOP to have 2 charges on every pipe, incase if of one charge does not work.
So there are some few questions there until we get even more images from the sites.

[hushed karma]

Good point. And also taken in consideration before in these questions. And some are cleared already. The only open point remains on the B-588 whereabouts in that extra week in the Baltic area. #1072947857654554624 message

[junior moat]

I just realize .. do we even have any real information when the explosion at the ENE (Swedish EEZ) NS2-A happened ? We're only guessing that it happened in parallel with the NS1 explosions (i.e. 17 hours after the south explosion), right ? Only thing we know for sure is it got discovered with a bit of delay

[elfin cradle]

¯_(ツ)_/¯
We will probably never know.
Its not like the Russians would say where it was just to clear thier name.
However that SS-750 are traveling "alone" to an area near the pipelines its not used to be COULD be a circumstantial evidence.

[elfin cradle]

iirc, the seismographic reports are telling of 3 explosions at the north site, almost 7 seconds between eatchothers, and maybe a fourth explosion.

[junior moat]

from what I read, it really only says two explosions at north site: https://www.snsn.se/stora/Events_20220926.php

[elfin cradle]

Let me see if I can find it fast

Ooooh. This was just relaeased today.
I wondred if the force detected were combined or for a single explosion for the later explosions.

"The magnitude of the first event was estimated at ML 1.9 and the combined second and third event had ML 2.3. "

https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU23/EGU23-6775.html?pdf

[junior moat]

wow thanks

[elfin cradle]

Sadly the pre-preints from the EU-geological is so short, and not the full papers that they present on the meetings.

Im pretty sure that they maybe saw an article where they maybe saw an fouth event in the data due new algorithms but it was hard to see as that wave fused together with the previeus shockwave.

[junior moat]

yeah either way it appears the NS2-A string northern explosion was a lot less powerful (missing recording, apparently didn't rupture the pipeline, only created a hole) .. and I think the only really plausible explanation is that it had less pressure inside and the pressure-flow didn't contribute to the seismological event like it did in the other locations (its a bit speculative, I admit)

[hushed karma]

It is known that NS1 had 220 bar and the NS2 had 105 bar pressure before the detonations.

[elfin cradle]

Speculating: I suck at math. But could this mean that it was 4 explosions (and we are just seeing 2 explosions as the explosives explodes at the same time in each group?). What other reason to use that much more explosives than the first (south) explosion?

Sorry, I have to go and celebrate midsummer now! Otherwise I would get stuck here the whole day.

[junior moat]

have fun ! 🍻

[limber hinge]

Thoughts on Andromeda.

I am writing this off line and can not check some facts at the moment.

Range/fuel consumption
Assumption that she has a 75hp Yanmar engine, likely a 4JH series, should be a good assumption.
Fuel - 130 gallons ?
This below should not be far off (hp given at prop)
75hp at 3,200 rpm - 5 gph - 9 knots
26hrs - 400nm 740km
40hp at 2,600 rpm - 2 gph - 8-1/2 knots
65hrs - 550nm. 1,020km
20hp at 2,000 rpm - 1 gph - 7 knots
130hrs 910nm 1,700km
Above for calmish conditions, degrades with weather and direction of waves/wind. NM/gal can drop-off fast

Additional fuel usage to charge batteries (frequently - no solar or wind gen) and heat (1 -2 gallon a day?)

It is very roughly 200nm Rostock to the site, one way. Actual journey would be longer, say 250 minimum. Very roughly 35 hours one way, not counting the outbound stop. But they should have had plenty of fuel for the journey, even just on engine, provided they run reasonable speed.

It might be interesting to ask how many hours they ran the engine. Charter company surely knows that for their maintenance log.

Remember Andromeda, as a charter boat, will have minimal equipment. She is mostly set up for day sailing; marina to marina. It is likely her sails are original; old and tired. She will not perform to advertised specs, especially without a crack crew.

Mission!!!
I am assuming Andromeda never left Schengen territory, at least never landed outside Schengen. Yet her crew were, at least in part, non-Schengen. That said I am a little surprised the Poles checked passports.

If I were to run a covert operation I would do everything possible to NOT attract attention. I would want to look just like everyone else. Andromeda would stand out for several reasons.

This was a one month charter at the end of the season. But they returned the boat early. Probably said they were not having fun. Believable.

A 6 person charter crew would normally be 6 drinking buddies or 3 couples. This crew was 5 men & 1 woman, that is weird, awkward.

That might raise eyebrows and encourage an inspection. Why risk it? And they are from a war zone area? Getting caught with explosives would have been very bad no matter who the sponsor is. This pushes me towards assuming they had no suspicious material aboard.

I do suspect Andromeda had a role, but what role? The lady was likely a mission specialist.

Recall also the Sweeds (?) made a statement that this was state sponsored and they had an idea of who had the necessary equipment. If they were assuming a yacht could have done it then this statement makes no sense, it could have been anyone, any fishing boat.

I am surprised no one has interviewed the crew of the MJ. Surely there must be a open source crew list?

If the MJ was in close proximity to the operation she may have had visual contact with other ships involved in the operation. Small tanker, small crew, most likely most if then had bridge time as watch standers and may have seen something.

[stone wadi]

Yeah if you read between the lines the Swedish prosecutor said that it was a state behind it and that they know who (might not be able to fully prove it in a court but that don't mean they don't know)
He also said that the Germans are barking up a stupid tree

[eager moss]

That may be the case; I'm just listing what we know based on the available rov vision. There will be hopefully be more information available at some time soon following the rov survey of all four sites that has been completed; the rov vision of the hole in the NS2-B pipeline was interesting. There has been a lot of speculation over the mass of explosives used, type of explosives etc and as more information becomes available we might get a better answer to these uncertainties.

[stone wadi]

2 charges don't mean that they aren't right next to each others

[junior moat]

He did not say anything about the German investigation. The "barking up a stupid tree" quote comes from some tweet that went a bit viral

[stone wadi]

Yes that was from a tweet
But he said something about having discussed with the German investigation, that had a tone of dismissal in it

[junior moat]

If we start basing our assessment of investigative effort on "tone" of language, we might as well straight up start reading tea leaves 😉

[stone wadi]

You are not going to get much more than that from a Swedish prosecutor before they dump the whole thing in front of a judge

[eager moss]

Agreed - it's a remarkably smaller degree of damage that was caused; another uncertainty of which there are many.

[vocal violet]

Also please provide sources for your claims

[stone wadi]

https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/spelet-om-sanningen-bakom-nord-stream-sprangningarna-grans

[pure finch]

That's quite a statement and it would be worthwhile including the exact language used beside it.

[eager moss]

my understanding is that the authors of the papers at the geological conference have decided to combine their findings and present them in one paper that is yet to be published; also that the presentations at the conference were very very short and not the full presentations as might have been expected.

[eager moss]

it's very unlikely that NS1 pipelines had a pressure of 220 bar at the time of the explosions; 220 bar was the inlet pressure when the pipelines were at maximum delivery capacity and even then the gas pressure would have been about 115/120 bar at the rupture locations. However, we know that the pipelines had been shut-in about 2 weeks prior to the explosions and had been operating at 20% capacity immediately prior to shut-in which means that the inlet pressure would have been a lot less than 220 bar. So the pressure at the rupture locations would have been much the same as the 115/120 bar if the outlet pressure had been maintained at the normal 105 bar.

[hushed karma]

Well add. Thank you.

[junior moat]

Thing with the German Federal Prosecutors' Andromeda investigation: Even if this was not the boat (or not the only boat) that was involved in the operation – it 1000% wasn't just some unrelated tourist boat:

• it was rented with fake passports (witness in Hohe Düne) from a fake company (there is witnesses in Warsaw)
• it was in Wiek (there is a named witness), it was in Christiansø (there is a witness), it was in Kołobrzeg (there is a witness)
• there was explosives residue (why would investigators lie about this?)

[eager moss]

Interestingly the NS1 pipelines had been operating at over 100% capacity continuously for over a year prior to the delivery rate being reduced to 40% and later to 20% after the maintenance shut down period in 2022. The compressors at the russian landfall had been delivering at around 8% over capacity.

[stone wadi]

At 20:45 starts the discussion with the prosecutor
First they talk about out if Swedish land or citizens have been involved.
He than say that the analysis of the what have been recovered is almost done.
The explosives used have specific compositions that their specific inference can be inferred from.
The way the attack should have been done that exposes what kind of equipment and resources was needed and who have and who have not been involved.
23:00 the hypothesis that a state is behind this have been strengthened but he can't say why as that is covered by secretes.
24:00
Have meat with the German prosecutors and work with them, but do not want to comment on the German investigation

[junior moat]

will sign up to Duolingo Swedish course now so I can listen to it tomorrow ✅ 😉

[hushed karma]

This graffic says around 200 bars ? And drops after the leak occurred

[stone wadi]

I interpret the "work with them" as "we listen to them to not be rude"
If it had been "we work closely with them" it would be "we actually work with them and they have worthwhile stuff to say"

[stone wadi]

Wouldent the pressure equalise when it stand still?

[junior moat]

I again don't think we need to respond to potential passive-aggressive bickering among investigators ... factual info should be what concerns us

[stone wadi]

I wouldent interpret it as bickering
But 🤷

[eager moss]

yes it would; there would be a 'settle out' pressure but if the inlet pressure is sufficient to only deliver 20% of capacity then the settle out pressure will not be much greater than the 120 bar (best guess). With an inlet pressure of 220 bar the settle out pressure is 165 bar.

[junior moat]

It'd be really great if the Swedish investigation came forward with evidence that disproves Andromeda's involvement .. then we (and the other investigators) can spend their time on other things
(if they have such evidence they could at least provide some of it to their German colleagues)

[stone wadi]

They won't tell anyone until they decide it's the right time.

Their are a lot of things they might know but not being able to tell anyone bout

[junior moat]

They should just join the OSINT crew. Open source is the better lifestyle anyways 😁

[eager moss]

i think you're misreading the chart - the explosions occurred at the end of week number 39. The drop in flowrate that you see in the chart is to 40% capacity, then to zero when there is a shut down for maintenance, then an increase to 20% after maintenance, then termination of gas delivery in week 36.

[hushed karma]

So. That is flow chart of gas. Not a pressure chart. Seen it just now. It gives the millions of gas flow. Which does not mean pressures in the pipelines. No flow does not mean no pressure.

[stone wadi]

I would not be terrible surprised if they consider other nations investigations as being on basically the same security level as civilians

[eager moss]

that's correct, but we know the outlet pressure was 105 bar

[junior moat]

My opinion is that it would be about time the investigation teams got together and presented some preliminary progress report (after all they are public investigators, not intelligence services)
the preliminary report in the MH17 case also didn't take forever
... but then again I do realize my opinion doesn't really matter that much, so I'm kinda fine working with just the information they are dripfeeding us 😄

[limber hinge]

Peter,
I agree it is very likely Andromeda played some role, if only to lead investigators astray. Almost certain. I personally think it had some technical role. But that is merely my conjecture.

[stone wadi]

Public prosecutor is not the whole picture
The investigation is being conducted by the Swedish Security Service under the management of the Public Prosecutor at the National Security Unit at the Swedish Prosecution Authority.

 
 Chief prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnström.  • Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hans Ihrman.  • Chamber prosecutor Ewamari Häggkvist.  • Chamber prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist```
<https://www.lansstyrelsen.se/download/18.6ae610001636c9c68e53ecf3/1530088801366/Riksenheten%20f%C3%B6r%20s%C3%A4kerhetsm%C3%A5l.pdf>

https://www.aklagare.se/en/media/press-releases/2023/april/still-unclear-who-is-behind-gross-sabotage/

[junior moat]

Yeah I guess the Swedish and German investigations are at a different stage. The German federal prosecution office last week informed two different parliament committees about their preliminary progress. (these committees are like 30 people each, so that's the kind of number of people where it stops being a secret). The parliamentary oversight committee chairperson had this to say:
"Great understanding that careful investigations take time. But there is also an obligation to provide information to Parliament and the public." (which I personally agree)

[stone wadi]

Iirc the Swedish prosecutor don't inform anyone in the parlament (given that politicas are not allowed to involve themself anyway)

[junior moat]

Hm so the Polish official says the Andromeda went from Wiek/Rügen directly to Poland indeed .. which still mis-matches with the witness in the port who says the boat was there on the 19th of Sept
https://twitter.com/StZaryn/status/1671823921337827330

Stanisław Żaryn (@StZaryn)

Jacht ten przypłynął do Polski z Rugii, a na jego pokładzie znajdowało się 6 osób. Po 12-godzinnym pobycie w jednym z polskich portów jacht opuścił polskie wody terytorialne.

Twitter · Jun 22, 2023, 10:14 AM

[hushed karma]

Translation of that message.

The Polish prosecutor's office is conducting an investigation into the blowing up of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. In the course of the investigation, no evidence was found that the people on the Andromeda yacht were involved in the damage.
This yacht came to Poland from Rügen, and there were 6 people on board. After a 12-hour stay in one of the Polish ports, the yacht left Polish territorial waters.

The findings of the investigation show that during the stay of the yacht in a Polish port, no items were loaded onto its deck, and the crew of the yacht was inspected by the Polish Border Guard.

There is no evidence of any involvement of Polish citizens in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

The statements contained in some publications that "Poland is a logistics hub for the operation of blowing up Nord Stream" are completely untrue and are not supported by the evidence of the investigation. The reports appearing on this matter look like a typical tactic of blurring the picture of events by multiplying speculations and hypotheses.

This is a typical disinformation practice that can make it difficult to clarify the truth.

As @junior moat stated. Some data does not add up around the Andromeda

[stark palm]

This is a big hole in the Andromeda story if true. Not much room to hide the equipment needed on the Andromeda.

[junior moat]

I understood it as 'the passports/crew were inspected' not necessarily that the boat was searched.. but who knows, Polish Border Guard declined to comment

[hushed karma]

How is the routine on checking individuals of incoming vessels in a Poland harbor ? Do they check a crew already on docksides ? Or are they approaching an incoming vessel in more open water and check all before laying at the dockside? If that is known you might also know if they were onboard and visited the cabins to see if more crew was there ?

[junior moat]

that's another thing that is weird. it does not seem to be routine at all for vessels such as this to be checked in Polish ports ... why they decided to check this one is unclear as far as I understand

I'm gonna sign up for Duolingo Polish, and when I'm done with the course will drink a couple Żubrówka with Anna from the Border Guard and try and find out 😁

[stone wadi]

You would check ships that are behaving oddly
And a rent yath out of season in bad weather will fall under that

[junior moat]

kinda true, especially after the weird Spaniards who were caught 'diving for amber' not so long ago in the Baltic off Poland

[vocal violet]

They were smuggling cocaine

There's plenty of coverage on that in Spanish (for instance: https://www.publico.es/internacional/polacos-creen-buzos-espanoles-rescatados-baltico-buscaban-cocaina-no-ambar.html)

[junior moat]

that makes more sense, definitely 👍

[stone wadi]

Amber floats

[junior moat]

google search turned up an article about amber divers, so it seems to be a thing: https://www.ft.com/content/5f8f6226-2edd-11e9-ba00-0251022932c8

[stone wadi]

https://archive.is/ILlSp

[stone wadi]

Used to be that it was mostly just collected on the shores of the Baltic Sea
But yeah not too surprisingly that desperate peaplr do stupid stuff
FFS they should just dredge and sift it, would not even be that hard to industrials mining on a massive scale

[vocal violet]

I wouldn't read much into that anyway, as said it was a lame excuse by people who got caught smuggling drugs

[stone wadi]

Mm

[hushed karma]

That recent drugs/amber scene might be the reason they were inspected by Polish border controle. But , at this moment in time, that is also an assumption and is also still not a clear fact. As the obvious left behind traces inside the Andromeda. Them left behind traces made me wonder from the start of the value of the reported findings of them. That might only be if they were in a very high speed of leaving that vessel for some reason. Otherwise you might think they were professional enough to erase fingerprints and traces of a certain kind. But again. This is all on the road of assumptions why what happened there with that vessel.

[stone wadi]

might been sanction busting too

[limber hinge]

Peter,
I have no experience with Polish ports but if the boat is Schengen registered then there is little reason to check. A charter out of season, a weird crew mix, an odd accent all may have brought attention. Especially if the crew seemed incompetent, had trouble docking. OTOH if you desired to desired a fake story for diversion, then you would want to draw attention. Ask some stupid questions.

What would be very odd is if they did NOT get diesel. Why else come in?

[vocal violet]

I think there's a bit of a mismatch in timeline. The drug smugglers thing happened this Winter, several months after the NS explosions. It is not related at all with neither NS sabotage or Andromeda

[hushed karma]

I did not mentioned this in or with Andromeda timeline. But in a reaction and as a probably reason why they were looked at by Polish customs. That question was raised. And that could be a reason.

[velvet rain]

That recent drugs/amber scene might be the reason they were inspected by Polish border controle.
Who is "they" then if not the Andromeda people?

How could they have been searched for an incident that happened months after the search? That is what erredece asked you.

[hushed karma]

Tried to explain. As erredece stated in his thread. And i combined reasons why customs will over a longer periode keeps inspecting vessels. As one cause leads to other discovery’s and i used that also as an example as he did. #1072947857654554624 message

[velvet rain]

I don't know what else to say. It's a very simple question.

[vocal violet]

I didn't provide an example, I was precisely saying that it was something that wasn't related and not worth looking into it

[stone wadi]

to bad weather to want to bother being at sea
or wanting to have a hot meal
or something else mundane

[limber hinge]

Yes, all possibilities.
Except then why go back out?
Why stay in only 12 hours?
What drove them back out?
Just so much in the behavior that makes me suspicious.
I wish I had a better time line of events concerning Andromeda.

If I am not mistaken she left the initial port and immediately went to another port to take on provisions.
Then show up at Burlholm.
Then Christanso.
Then Poland once or twice.
Then back to initial port.
Not a lot of sightseeing on that trip. Not a typical charter profile.

[stone wadi]

Yeah, they behave really strange

[junior moat]

This 'Feeria Lwowa' company also as suspicious as anything.
In 2016 got founded as a retail company, but doesn't do any business.
In 2019 a notary makes changes in the Polish business register, changing everything about the company. The shareholders, address, and also now it's suddenly a tourism company.
In 2020 in the middle of the Corona pandemic it receives 2.8 million EUR out of nowhere.
In 2022 it rents a boat in Rostock.

[strange bane]

And it also only makes profits of like 2.000 €.

Which I guess might be after paying staff, but the numbers just don’t make sense.

[stark palm]

https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/krigogkatastrofer/mystisk-sejltur-russisk-krigsskib-passerede-nord-stream-laekage/9830543

[stone wadi]

mystical sailtrip; russian warship passed nord stream leak?

intresting if true

[junior moat]

yeah but tbh it's not super surprising .. the Danish ship Assister was done inspecting the pipeline leaks in the Danish EEZ on Oct 18th .. so I guess the Danish authorities figured they don't have any real excuse not to allow the russians to navigate in the area

[stark palm]

The interesting part is that this happened while Russia still keeps insisting that they were never allowed near the site etc

[junior moat]

hmm ... true 🤔

[junior moat]

In other news, the Hungarian foreign minister appears on Chinese state propaganda CGTN and agrees there is "no coverage in western media" about NordStream explosions
https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1672987133626183684

COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality)

Hungary Foreign Minister: "How on earth is it possible that someone blows up critical infrastructure on the territory of Europe and no one has a say, no one condemns, no one carries out an investigation?"

Likes

13759

Retweets

5140

▶ Play video

Twitter · Jun 25, 2023, 3:16 PM

I'm disappointed they didn't bring Jan Oberg on as well to provide newest insights (sorry, channel insider joke from the early days 😄 )

[pure finch]

Minor update to the previous September timelapse - with some additional vessels added.

[junior moat]

nice, now imagine Andromeda very slowly crawling through the scene from Rügen in the south-west on Sept 9th towards Christiansø on Sept 16th/17th .. and then straight south towards Poland on the 18th/19th .. then back up again towards the southern blast site ... and then back past Rügen towards Rostock on Sept 23rd

[junior moat]

by the way, the WSJ article contains the reason the Polish Border Police inspected the crew of Andromeda in Kołobrzeg:
Krzysztof Sieniawski, a port official, alerted border police about the presence of non-EU citizens speaking Russian or Ukrainian. “They seemed strange to me”
( https://www.wsj.com/articles/fresh-leads-point-to-poland-as-hub-for-nord-stream-sabotage-bf35ee3e )

[limber hinge]

Alex,
Do you have date, and location of the photo and who took it?

[limber hinge]

Perhaps pedantic but they are NOT navigating. They have a sub down so they are stopped.
There is a Colreg category for that, sort of like a fishing boat with nets down.
SaraL

[stone wadi]

you need to mix the last 3 letters again
the image is form the danish article abow so that might have date and time

[strange bane]

RAM

[limber hinge]

Alex,
Please remember you are talking to a dense old guy.
Mix last 3 letters?

[junior moat]

hint: Alex is an anagram of Axel 😉

[stone wadi]

Axel
not Alex
though don't worry too much about it, I am farly used to peaple making that mistake, especially in duscussions in English as its a fairly rare name in the English world

[limber hinge]

Got it, thanks.
I see no attribution so I assume that is simply a stick photo.
Of no significance to this investigation.

[pure finch]

An initial look at vessel activity around the northern leak sites during October 2022. This still needs work, but may be of interest here, as is.

The diagonal dashed line is the EEZ boundary between Swedish and Danish waters.

Nefrit appears later on - relevant article from the time:
https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/russia-starts-its-own-investigation-into-nord-stream-blasts/2-1-1343098

Thanks to @velvet rain @strange bane @vocal violet for their help.

Data from dma.dk.

As ever, my usual caveats - AIS reports may be incomplete, any vessel without an active AIS transponder will not appear, AIS reports can be spoofed etc. etc.

I hope to get around to the southern site next, but it'll take a while.

[hushed karma]

In addition. But unshure how well informed or reliable this source is. https://twitter.com/warmonitors/status/1673360548296110083?s=46

War Monitor (@WarMonitors)

⚡️#BREAKING Russia asked the UN Security Council for a new discussion of sabotage at Nord Stream for June 27 — TASS

Likes

907

Retweets

226

Twitter · Jun 26, 2023, 4:00 PM

[strange bane]

https://twitter.com/scrtweets/status/1673459149814874112

Security Council Report (@SCRtweets)

Tomorrow (27 June), following the consultations on the MEPP, #UNSC members will hold a meeting under "any other business", at #Russia's request, to discuss the 26 September 2022 explosions that caused damage to the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. No briefer is expected.

Twitter · Jun 26, 2023, 10:32 PM

[junior moat]

Hm, so the "Feeria Lwowa" company was founded in 2016 as a Polish subsidiary of a company in Kyiv with the same name. The business didn't work apparently, and they sold the company in 2019 when it got repurposed as a fake tourism company. The original "Feeria Lwowa" in Kyiv produces .... .... => chocolate. 🍫 .. yet another chocolate-connection .. conspiracy overload 😄

[elfin cradle]

The German explosives expert are skeptical about Oktogen contamination:

TLDR: There is no reason to remove the plastic protection around the explosives, so you should not really have much of contamination if you arnt really really sloppy.

*"Plastic explosives leave no traces when pierced. A residue may remain on the spike, which can be the starting point for further contamination.

How can it be spread over a large area: Not at all if you make sure to work without leaving a trace. If you do not value freedom from traces, a procrastination, e.g. B. by falling explosives, which you then stepped on and which then spread everywhere, could be a possibility.

Oktogen is said to be commercially available. However, I don't know of any dealer who offers this, since inexpensive Semtex is the more economical alternative for most applications. Accordingly, I do not know the current price for octogen, a colleague reports a price of around 2000 euros / kg. Semtex is around 100 euros / kg for the purchase of small quantities (25 kg carton).

Crime scene security: I am not aware that Germany has secured crime scene traces. It should also be borne in mind that the Baltic Sea is a dumping ground for war weapons and therefore a "background noise" of all possible explosives in the Baltic Sea water is to be expected."* (This has been proven by the lab-report Greenpeace released)

Also, he is still not convinced that a shaped charge were used even based on the most recent images/videos but its really hard to tell on the material that has been shown without take sample to a metallurgical lab:

"I still consider the use of cutting charges to be very unlikely - if you look at https://nyheder.tv2.dk/krimi/2023-06-20-lille-detalje-paa-den-oedelagte-gasledning-ved-bornholm-sladrer-om-hvordan-sabotagen-blev-gennemfoert looks, the cutting charge should have been positioned on the concrete casing, especially since parts of the reinforcement are still visible. A smooth cut, as can be seen on the video recordings, cannot be achieved in this case. Here it is more likely that the Swedish government cut out part of the tube to preserve evidence or for further investigations, or that the tube was demolished as a result of the blast. Because the other defect images do not show cut surfaces, as is usual with cutting charges, but the defect image that results from the computer simulation (see also update of 03/18/2023 on Scott Ritter's thesis on the blasting of Nord Stream with references).

The statement "Den måde metallet i indbøjningen er formet på, tyder ifølge Niels Kamp på, at det har været kraftig opvarmet, hvilket er typisk for en retningsbestemt “skærende” sprængning." Translated with deepl.com, since I don't speak Danish: " According to Niels Kamp, the shape of the metal in the bend indicates that it has been strongly heated, which is typical for a directed 'cutting' blast." - I do not share this view, since the working principle of cutting charges is based on the Munroe effect ( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munroe-effekt ), ie the speed of formation of a so-called jet is decisive. Heat effect only plays a subordinate role here."

1/2

"The article goes on to say: “You create a crack along the length of the pipe, and when the crack loses its longitudinal energy, the fracture moves around and cuts the pipe. It's a bit like what we're seeing here," she says." Unfortunately, I can't share that assessment because no footage shows the pipelines "unfolding" as in the photo in the article, and the defect image from the computational simulation shows one at a distance applied charge matches well.

A metallographic report is required for a qualified statement. The interviewee is of the same opinion: "Nielsen, who emphasizes that he cannot say with 100 percent certainty what happened as long as he does not have the opportunity to analyze the fracture surface in a laboratory." And it is precisely this fracture surface assessment that is missing.

Since Sweden is still keeping the test results under lock and key, my statement is unfortunately only speculative and based on experience. As I said: I can be wrong and my statements do not claim to be true. Unfortunately, the published traces do not currently provide any indications for a reliable delimitation of the blasting methods and explosives."
2/2

[junior moat]

I'm hesitant to share this but the masters of "mixing legitimate information with complete bogus information" at TheGrayzone have a new article out ( https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/27/evidence-nord-stream-underwater-expedition/ ) :

of which the first part ( about the explosions, especially the one at NS2A (Swedish EEZ) ) is quite interesting, especially if that sonar image is legit. Indeed I more and more tend to agree the explosions did not cause the seismographic readings, but these are rather due to the depressurization of the pipelines.

---

second part of the article (someone can fact-check this maybe): they claim that after 2017 there is no social media presence of Valery K. with the exception of a profile that looks like identity theft according to them. Can we confirm this ?

[storm wren]

The Insider has a new piece https://theintercept.com/2023/06/28/nord-stream-pipeline-bomb-investigation/

The Intercept I mean

[velvet rain]

He also discreetly joined Bellingcat’s Discord forum on the Nord Stream bombing and said it appeared to him to largely be a groupthink operation aimed at proving that Russia was behind the attack.
Nice of you to mention us, @exotic shale.

[stark palm]

I have seen evidence of his existence on social media up until July 2022 atm

[strange bane]

Tangentially related, but nice bet.

[stark palm]

“Andersson believes the saboteurs experienced magnetic interference with their compasses when trying to place a bomb on Line B and accidentally rigged a second bomb to the A line, which was just 50 meters away.”

What?

”Andersson’s current hypothesis is that a small team of divers placed a single bomb under both lines of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and mistakenly placed two bombs on Line A of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. For yet unexplainable reasons, the first bomb on that line exploded at 2:03 a.m. and then all the other bombs exploded 17 hours later.”

Did they also mistakenly travel 80km before placing the NS2 charge?

[graceful wharf]

at least he has come to the conclusion that Hershs Story doesn’t make sense.

Just cost him 20k and several months

🤷‍♂️

[velvet rain]

@topaz mortar, look, you've also been linked to in the article.

[little zinc]

another one:

Who blew up #Nordstream ? The Swede @ Erkperk
rented a boat, drove to the scene of the crime – and was able to partially reconstruct the attack. I met and interviewed Andersson in Gothenburg:
https://twitter.com/holger_stark/status/1674014787385151489?s=20
https://archive.ph/hG6aS
https://www.zeit.de/2023/28/nord-stream-sprengung-anschlag-rekonstruktion

Holger Stark (@holger_stark)

Wer sprengte #Nordstream? Der Schwede @Erkperk mietete ein Boot, fuhr zum Tatort – und konnte den Anschlag in Teilen rekonstruieren. Ich habe Andersson in Göteborg getroffen und interviewt: https://t.co/ImhZ9kCPTC

Twitter · Jun 28, 2023, 11:20 AM

[tired monolith]

if its so important to be objective and accurate theres a lot of questions to be had about that article, presentation and credibility - my problem is mainly that all of the explanations presented for other actors than Russia seems to be 10x as wild of story involved

but I think if there was more convincing evidence I guess they wouldnt be as interested in the first place, perhaps?

if proof emerge that leads to someone else at least every possibility under the sun will have been looked into

[junior moat]

this also contradicts German investigators who apparently believe there was an attempt to damage NS2B as well, which failed

[junior moat]

the problem with 'russia as perpetrator'-theory is that you somehow have to connect Andromeda's trip back to russia then. So if they used e.g. some submarine for the sabotage, they still had to do Andromeda as a false flag in addition. This seems quite complex for a russian intelligence operation, usually they like to keep it rather, well, dumb and obvious (like Skripal poisoning etc) 😅

supplementary material from Andersson https://anderssonerik.substack.com/p/a-trip-to-the-nord-stream-blast-sites
I do give credit to him for publishing this material ... seems very legit
( easily worth 20.000 € in my eyes 💶 😁 )

[raven charm]

Russia would have somehow gotten wind of the existing Ukrainian plan, copy it (either used Andromeda as decoy or as the main ship) and in the end still not blame Ukraine. Doesn't really make any sense for me.

[hushed bay]

Really interesting read! Yeah renting that equipment and heading out there is called dedication haha so cool that he was able to do that

and even a guest apperance by !!!!!!!

[tired monolith]

yeah its a good point, although I would argue operation in this area for this purpose during a war is quite a different level of operation and much higher risk of outright getting busted unless you put significantly more work into it. So dangerous to undervalue the possibility of RU being capable of doing it in signifcantly more complex setups

[velvet rain]

I mean, this was literally the Grayzone expedition.

The article seems to try to obscure that fact a bit.

[strange bane]

Can we call it a Grayzone expedition if Grayzone stiffed the journalist who they sent on it for expenses, causing him to expose them for making their journalists ignore the truth to conform with their agenda?

[vocal violet]

It's probably coincidental, but I find it odd that this article, which attempts to discredit Oliver Alexander with the language used to describe him, is published at the same time he's also in the middle of a harassment wave on Twitter by Zs

[upper dew]

I love it when uk tabloids citate from

[exotic shale]

I think they could have left the northern area thinking that they had rigged the B String of NS2. Then later returned to the southern site thinking the A-string was the one that was left to bomb. Trond confirmed to me he had the same compass problem in the Northern area. You can look at his footage now after lookinng at my Geotiff linked on my substack.

[hushed bay]

yeahh they snuck it in there, didnt mention them but linked to them

[stark palm]

Seems like quite the coincidence, espectially with the choice of location for the southern blast.

It is in an objectively terrible location for any kind of covert action no matter who is responsible.

I will say that I don’t necessarily personally agree with the shaped charge hypothesis that the journalists I was there with are running with

[warped hawk]

https://twitter.com/jeffreybrodsky5/status/1674094518826565640?s=46&t=lLahqVBUjg2PYawTEGcO_Q

Jeffrey Brodsky (@JeffreyBrodsky5)

1 New Revelations from Nord Stream Expedition* (June 19)

Underwater drone images & videos & anaglyph 3D images provide insight into the amount of explosives used in sabotage. The images & videos herein have never been seen by the public before.

*expedition organized by @Erkperk

▶ Play video

Twitter · Jun 28, 2023, 4:36 PM

[inner sandal]

Re explosive contamination on the yacht: Is it possible that the evidence came from fingerprints? I've seen a scientific article that says traces can be found in fingerprints. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00340-013-5500-8

[junior moat]

Slightly off-topic: Grayzone is gonna ~~speak ~~ lie on behalf of russia again tomorrow at the UN SC
https://twitter.com/SCRtweets/status/1674159979119386624

Security Council Report (@SCRtweets)

Tomorrow afternoon (29 June), the #UNSC is expected to hold a meeting on Western arms supplies to #Ukraine, at #Russia's request. @INakamitsu, @MaxBlumenthal, and @BowesChay are expected to brief.

📚SCR on Ukraine: https://t.co/Cb3UkBeECd

Twitter · Jun 28, 2023, 8:56 PM

[strange bane]

Max Blumenthal from Grayzone,
Chay Bowes from Russia Today?

And some UN bureaucrat I suppose, probably invited to speak by someone else.

https://m.sundayworld.com/news/irish-news/leo-the-leak-campaigner-claims-christchurch-killer-trained-with-ukraines-azov-battalion/a76538026.html

Well, this is going to be a shitshow.

https://vxtwitter.com/boweschay/status/1673676514519384064?

Not even pretending to have experts speak on their behalf, literal sycophants.

[tired monolith]

just the material for people who already bought in or outsourced their politics, basically - aka theather

with the bonus they stir up all the conspiracy people along the way

[elfin cradle]

Technically yes, but practically no. Not outside a lab. The field-use Raman devices are so new that they were still just prototypes when I was at the OPCW. Its first the last 2 years that they have started to come onto market but they are like US DOD-expensive that no-one else can afford them. Plus they need to be validated for forensic use, than just quantitative detection as they are used now.
Raman spectroscopy is really interesting for detection of chemical agents because theoretically you can do it from space. something something wonky PoC project with detecting specific pesticide from space based on spectrum

[eager moss]

In the context of publicly available information I think we should give credit where it is due. These are the most technically competent surveys performed at any of the rupture sites and the most informative report that has been prepared on the findings of the surveys. The information provided has added substantially to the publicly available information; in particular the sonar records and the manner in which they can be used to pull together all of the other information to provide a more coherent understanding of the damage caused.

[exotic shale]

I just learned that Trond had a 30000 Euro multibeam sonar on his 25000 euro drone + gripping claw and another identical drone and a positioning system -200000 euros total. I called him because I was jealous of his sonar but this was a little much for me. Anyway, he was busy and his company didn't let him open-source his footage which I suggested he did to match my disclosures. In particular he can measure distances and see the seams on his sonar because of the softer material. I can also see seams but the distance measurements are unreliable due to the movements of my side-scan sonar. Anyway, I'm interested in the exact distance from the end flying in the water at 71 meters depth to the first seam. I measure 9 meters, but if you have access to Tronds footage you can say exactly and then determine how much of the pipe is gone. Maybe the pipe surrounding the actual explosion has been removed?

[exotic shale]

when I paid for the charter it was clear I would own the footage so I could release it. If dktv2 and rtl paid for your trip I suppose they have the footage? Trond filmed all the way down in the northern trench and said the pipe wasn't broken there. Also interesting but i doubt it

I can't get hold of the software but was able to teach the caaptain how to do screenshots and above you see the depth profile along the white like going across the northern kink at NS2AD. I'd be surprised if the pipe isn't broken here considering the mud has been blown away around it. But maybe it's just a small leak there and the only big rupture is at the gap in the south of the area

[junior moat]

Since unfortunately I cannot add anything valuable in terms of sonar images 😐😐 .. I will share an observation from the 'information space' ... in far-right German media (which some suspect partially gets funded by the Kremlin) I see a new storyline plopping up :

Supposedly the money that was used to finance the Andromeda-diving-operation comes out of the Burisma-Holding corruption case, and this money was allegedly paid by the Biden family to keep Hunter's record clean. => so this is how the Andromeda is now linked to Biden (of course fully without any evidence).
Someone was thinking hard how to tie Biden back into the mix 😬?;)

source: https://www.compact-online.de/bidens-nordstream-sprengung-von-ukraine-finanziert/

[hushed bay]

Can you please find these article(s) and link them here please? So that we can evaluate the source and information ourselves

[junior moat]

yes sorry. added the source

[hushed bay]

np! Thank you very much

[junior moat]

also love how they don't even bother to name the author. it's just an anonymous "guest author"

and omg .. they're also gonna publish Sy Hersh's story as a print magazine .. coming to German kiosks from mid-July 🫣
https://www.compact-shop.de/shop/sonderausgaben/edition-11-seymour-hersh-der-nordstream-krimi/

[junior moat]

addendum: found the pretty much exact same story on a Polish blogging site ... also with an anonymous author:
https://www.salon24.pl/u/kresy2030/1310721,od-skandalu-wokol-burisma-po-atak-na-nord-stream-2

[civic rapids]

Argentina also https://argentina.indymedia.org/2023/06/28/burisma-y-el-sabotaje-del-nord-stream-2-nuevos-detalles-de-la-implicacion-de-la-familia-biden-en-el-atentado-al-gasoducto/ and German https://publikum.net/vom-burisma-skandal-bis-zur-bombardierung-von-nord-stream-2-neue-details-uber-die-beteiligung-der-familie-biden-an-einem-angriff-auf-europa/ Not seeing in an English language, yet

[civic rapids]

https://cz24.news/nemecke-media-je-rodina-bidenovcov-priamo-zapojena-do-teroristickych-utokov-na-nord-stream-2-rusko-ziada-osn-o-spravu-ohladne-vysetrovania-poskodenia-nord-streamu/

the Czech article seems to source this from 15/06/23 https://unser-mitteleuropa.com/wer-finanzierte-nord-stream-zerstoerung-ukrainische-partner-von-biden-unter-verdacht/

[junior moat]

"flooding the information space" 🌊🌊🌊🌊

the link between the money and Andromeda is super-weak though ... I mean the Ukrainian military intelligence surely has enough money to finance some operation, why would they specifically use money from this court case, that's just a very desperate way to create a link

[civic rapids]

Will be aimed at the crowds following the laptop and Biden Burisma corruption conspiracies I'd expect. I just searched with Andomeda as an extra keyword, not many pages in Google yet, but duckduckgo had quite a few

[vocal violet]

Man, they're really trying to bundle up all the conspiracy theories, don't they?

Also the fact it's being released in Czechia, Germany and Argentina is quite interesting 👀

But that's more of a #disinfo-and-propaganda angle

[hoary maple]

Well, if you can’t have multiple groups controlling the entire world can you?

[vocal violet]

You mean as putting all of them together in the same bag?

[hoary maple]

ig lol

idk, Americans who believe in conspiracy theories are the same kind of people who don’t understand that other countries have different political situations.

[vocal violet]

True, but all those three are countries that have a history of Russian propaganda in them

[hoary maple]

mhm

[junior moat]

okay, apart form monitoring the information space, had a thought:
Is there any realistic way a group of semi-professionals with limited resources (sailboat, blocks of explosives) could find a way to remote-detonate these explosives? Or is it very likely they used timed fuzes? Anyone read anything in this direction before

[junior moat]

I'm thinking why not simply use 80m+ of wire, tie it around some rock on the seafloor, and on the surface have a small floating device with a radio receiver ... simple enough ?

[limber hinge]

While I think Andromeda as a diving platform is absurd it may have had some other role such as this.

There may be some concern the gas from the rupture would sink the boat, reduce the density of water enough the boat no longer floats.

Or they may have attached a much longer wire. This means the explosions could have been carried out at some later date, undetermined when the charges were placed.

BUT there may be some technical difficulty, related to the remote fuse, I am not aware of.

Or it could have been a data link, to set the time of explosion.

Lots of possibilities.

[strange bane]

Is it really worth discussing the technical feasibility of X or Y vessel at this point though?

The pipelines blew up, absent some cosmically unlikely natural event that coincidentally happened all at once, someone did something down on the sea floor.

Whether it’s a shooting divers out of a torpedo tube, a DP vessel sitting over the top deploying an ROV/divers, the Andromeda or other sailing vessel, a naval vessel, or any vessel or boat in general, the dive is clearly feasibly possible, because clearly it happened.

Not trying to shutter debate here, but I only mention it because for a while the Andromeda theory was a source of mockery, if you looked on Twitter “we’re supposed to believe this little boat did it,” but now we’re getting an Intercept article where the same people are unironically agreeing with the theory (just coincidentally at the same time that “conclusive” reporting comes out linking it to Ukraine).

There’s no consistency, and ultimately, you can make up a pretty credible plot for basically any vessel type you like.

[strange bane]

We’re at a time of an ongoing conflict involving Russia, where (a) Russia, its leaders and soldiers have behaved criminally, and (b) more relevantly, just decided to abandon the truth, and gone head first into total information war against the West.

There’s a theory to suit everyone’s preferred perpetrator. The SS-750 and Russian ships in the area (photographed by the Danish navy), BALTOPs and NATO vessels operating in the area in June/July, or six Ukrainians bobbing around on the Andromeda, take your pick.

[strange bane]

Not to sidetrack, but take the recent stuff at the Nova Kakhovka dam, it’s pretty self evident that Russia did it.

(Note: It would have to be done internally, and since November, only the Russian controlled side has existed, the Russians having blown up the Ukrainian sides access bridge).

But ask the question online and you’ll get answers ranging from the Ukrainians, to NATO, to the CIA, and eventually, to Russia.

Not a perfect analogue, but we’re talking about an operation in a place where it’s nigh on impossible to develop open source proof of anything,

Back to Nordstream, to the extent anything is OSINTable (and with full regard to the need to be careful), ascertaining as much as we can with regard to the Polish company may provide greater situational awareness than any sighting of X supposed involved vessel arriving/departing Y port at Z relevant time.

Ascertaining the nature of its owners collaboration with Russia, etc.

[junior moat]

I think we can look at the "how it was done" somewhat separately from "who did it"
.. and I think it is now reasonable to include that it was done solely by Andromeda with a couple of divers in the realm of possibilities. Why?

• the footage from @exotic shale from NS2AS makes it clear no massive amounts of explosives were used, seismographic readings are result of depressurization, not explosions
• we have multiple named witnesses on record that confirm the Andromeda wasn't just some tourist boat
• we have 2 experienced Baltic divers on record saying it would be very possible to do these dives from a sailboat (Peter Andersson, Achim Schlöffel)
• the German investigation has determined that it is possible to do these dives from a sailboat (the investigators might have a slightly political agenda, but they can't really be outright lying since in the future have to defend their case in front of a court)

[limber hinge]

The question was
Could Andromeda have some auxiliary role? R.g. Detonation.
I believe that is entirely possible.
It still says nothing about WHO did it.
For that matter nationality if participants matters little.
It is their motivation and affiliation that matters, and in that we have nothing.

[junior moat]

Danish Defence Intelligence DDIS says they were not notified by the Dutch MIVD about potential plans of an attack on the pipelines. https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfund/sabotage-modtog-ikke-advarsel/9836190

[strange bane]

This is getting farcical. We’re supposed to believe that the MIVD had some well placed source that knew about an upcoming attack, in the areas of interest of multiple NATO and EU allies (not the Netherlands), and didn’t share it?

Screams like a random intelligence agency was pulled out of a hat to suit someone’s agenda.

cough I can’t see any reason why this might be related (/s) to the MIVD/AIVD embarrassing the shit out of the GRU/SVR during during multiple ridiculous operations in the Netherlands in recent years. cough

Absent the MIVD coming out and confirming these suggestions, I think we can pretty confidently put in the conspiracy bin.

[hushed bay]

I mean, to be fair it's also possible MIVD made a mistake by not telling them or waited too long

People and orgs make big mistakes every day

[strange bane]

Danish intelligence has been used as an inside mole by the United States to spy on other European countries in the past

If the US is the ultimate source of this intelligence, they aren’t sharing it with one of the countries it’s directly applicable to, and one it has a long standing relationship related to highly sensitive information?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57302806.amp

[hushed bay]

Yeah I don't know, people make dumb decisions all the time and also there's a billion things happening in the background here that none of us is privy to

[strange bane]

A country who could rather inconspicuously sit over the pipelines with a patrol boat to deter an operation the United States is supposedly trying to deter.

[strange bane]

Oh I get that, but the suggestion smells pretty stupid.

[velvet rain]

Considering that one of the pipelines passes directly through the Danish territorial sea around Bornholm, not informing them would seem like a particularly big oversight.

[hushed bay]

Yeah hard to believe I guess for the reasons you've outlined

[strange bane]

It smells pretty stupid and sounds like something added to the story by the supposed source who wants to sex up their story by adding elements of conspiracy and “three-letter agencies”.

[junior moat]

yeah me personally, this whole intelligence service information is just kinda pointless. it's all anonymous sources, could be making up anything, no accountability anyways - little value to the public. just adds confusion I feel 😄
public prosecutors a whole different deal since eventually their goal is to present information to the public, and actually share material

[strange bane]

The original source is an NOS article

https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2478802-us-warned-ukraine-not-to-sabotage-nord-stream-after-mivd-alert

It’s the weirdest game of telephone I’ve ever read.

And sounds like something fresh off the writers block at RT after they finished snorting their latest batch of cocaine.

[junior moat]

for completeness sake NTV included some "confidential" document from Danish intelligence that is supposedly showing they weren't in the loop

https://bilder1.n-tv.de/img/incoming/origs24229424/1102795011-w0-h0/DK2.jpg

count me like 20% convinced, maybe (I don't actually understand what this doc shows at all) ... source article: https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Daenen-wurden-von-CIA-nicht-informiert-article24229449.html

[nimble gull]

Plenty of precedent for that

[nimble gull]

The source of the “stories” is pretty clearly (at least) from within, and presumably sanctioned by, one of the three-letter agencies though.

So, with the risk of getting into conspiratorial waters, would the CIA knowingly throw MIVD under the bus like that?

For what conceivable purpose? Besides outright confusion (and yea, I’m confused..)

It’s easier to believe they reported “up the chain” to the US agencies, assuming it’d be disseminated if the threat was deemed serious. We know from the early Spiegel reporting (although the source of the info was named to be captured Russian chatter) that the CIA didn’t think it was very credible. So maybe they just didn’t tell anyone besides the Germans?

[junior moat]

the nol.nl article claims the MIVD informed the German 'colleagues' directly though: https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2478802-us-warned-ukraine-not-to-sabotage-nord-stream-after-mivd-alert ... but yeah who knows

[stone wadi]

That was a major Danish scandal (even more than regularly) as it was done without political approval

[strange bane]

So the US told the MIVD and allowed them to share on the intelligence to other nations (which is weird), and they informed Germany, but not Denmark?

US intelligence was apparently made releasable to the Netherlands (MIVD) and also releasable by the Netherlands on to third countries?

Remember the scandal when Trump shared Israeli intelligence with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office?

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/5/17/15653434/israel-spy-compromised-trump-russians

[tidal knoll]

Okay, but do you have any concrete source to share with us one way or the other?

[strange bane]

To say it’s not true?

Impossible to prove a negative, but from following this story there’s been a lot of odd sounding intelligence that’s been shared around in view of supporting one theory or the other.

Sy Hersh tell us his reporting is based of what his totally real source in the CIA told him.

[tidal knoll]

Maybe we should focus on things we can prove?

[strange bane]

Absolutely, it’s why I said this.

[tidal knoll]

Good. Let’s agree not to return to thi until we have evidence.

[junior moat]

As far as I understand the nos-article it's actually the MIVD that has the Ukrainian HUMINT source to begin with (and notified the Americans, and later Germans) ... but yeah I agree the media is already speculating enough, no need to join in that game too much 😉

[strange bane]

Whoops, my bad, but agreed.

[pure finch]

So, I finally got around to looking at the AIS traffic recorded around the southern leak site during October 2022. One curiosity is the appearance of a pleasure craft named FLIPPER (MMSI: 211574300) around the 19th of October.

I've had a quick look for what it was up to in the Danish data between 16th & 22nd of October, but no joy - perhaps someone with a pro account on an AIS tracking website could help?

First thought it is that maybe it brought media to the site? But that's pure speculation.

[strange bane]

@junior moat Do you have your ROV dive list to hand?

[junior moat]

https://muddy-dianella-dc9.notion.site/82bf1be02c704b79a1f53e6141df6956?v=bff1e2d021c44f1f99581dd0391eb780

[strange bane]

So it's not one of them, damn.

MMSI 211574300.

I'll use the ITU ship list to identify the owner.

And of course the owner isn't named.

Most recently in Glowe.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:141478/zoom:14

https://www.pc-ostsee.de/ostsee/mecklenburg-vorpommern/glowe

[junior moat]

I mean 19th of October is the day when the mysterious russian ship Georgiy Titov started inspecting the leaks in Danish waters (after Danish Assister was done) .. unfortunately no info whether they were at the southern or north-eastern leak site

[strange bane]

The southern one or the northern one?

[junior moat]

yeah we don't know I don't think .. info comes from this article : https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/krigogkatastrofer/mystisk-sejltur-russisk-krigsskib-passerede-nord-stream-laekage/9830543

@pure finch can you see what else was Flipper up to ?

[strange bane]

Could it be some nerd who just wanted to go visit?

[pure finch]

I looked from 16-22 of October in the Danish data and that track from the 19th was all I had - but I'll expand the dates tomorrow, just takes time.

[strange bane]

https://goo.gl/maps/pta3fkmmfxNaL96z9

[pure finch]

I mean, if I had a boat nearby, I probably would have taken a look 🤓

[strange bane]

Since searching the ship doesn't bring up a picture

Found one on Glowe's picture list.

[pure finch]

NICE!

[junior moat]

it's a charter boat https://www.ruegens-fischerman.de/charterfahrten.html
MY Flipper

[pure finch]

[strange bane]

Specifically one used to take fishermen out

[strange bane]

Charter

[junior moat]

apparently people also rent it for sea burials : https://www.kleine-seebestattung-ruegen.de/

[strange bane]

HOLD ON

https://www.blueyerobotics.com/blog/underwater-drone-located-and-inspected-the-damage-on-nord-stream-pipeline

29 ft Targa

From the Rugen website: "The offshore motor yacht "Targa 35" is built..."

[pure finch]

https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/ndr-info/erste-unterwasseraufnahmen-von-den-schaeden-an-nord-stream-1/ndr/Y3JpZDovL25kci5kZS83OTgzMzE2Mi0zNmFjLTQ2ZmYtYjFlNi1jMjIxNGM2NTE2NGM

From 18 October 2022

[junior moat]

Expressen went from Sweden though .. on the Marie II

"Marie II" and "Flipper" seem to both be Targa-type boats

[pure finch]

https://www.ruegens-fischerman.de/files/bilder/motoryacht/flipper_1055.jpg

[strange bane]

Complicated by these all being Targa designs.

[junior moat]

so was the NtM still in place on Oct 19th that required permission from the Danish authorities to visit the leak site, correct ?

in that case they either just said 'f*k it' and went to have a look anyways .. or they got permission

[pure finch]

Looks like the danger areas were still being broadcast on AIS
2022-10-19 12:09 AtoN 992196152 55.540833 15.7745 DANGER AREA 4 RAD 5
2022-10-19 12:09 AtoN 992196152 55.540833 15.7745 DANGER AREA 4 RAD 5
2022-10-19 12:11 AtoN 992196149 54.876667 15.41 DANGER AREA 1 RAD 5
2022-10-19 12:11 AtoN 992196150 55.535 15.698333 DANGER AREA 2 RAD 5
2022-10-19 12:11 AtoN 992196151 55.556667 15.788333 DANGER AREA 3 RAD 5

[strange bane]

Yep, virtual AtoNs.

[junior moat]

yeah and I think this is only the renewed version of the NtM that was in place the entire time
#1072947857654554624 message

anyways intriguing to know there was a non-official boat this early at the southern site... will continue to look for any clues who it may have been tmrw

[strange bane]

Been snooping around different substacks related to the Nordstream stuff, was reading this: https://anderssonerik.substack.com/p/aircraft-and-vessels-in-seymour-hersh

Just r.e. the Paul Ignatius, small issue I see.

It was a moment of dense traffic and, I guess, reluctantly Ignatius or McLean had to turn their AIS on, but when doing so, it masqueraded as the Greek container ship “Elona”.

Except, it didn't...

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:6128586/mmsi:999999999/imo:8406286/vessel:ELONA

It being assigned the name Elona by Marine Traffic is just a bug in their system.

It's not pretending to be anything, any seafarer seeing an AIS target pop up with a nine digit 999999999 code would be well aware it's a warship.

MMSIs for ships start with the numbers 2-7, no ship ever has been assigned the nine digit all-9 code.

If Marine Traffic didn't assign some weird buggy identity to the MMSI, we have to assume it's masquerading as a navigational aid (a buoy), with an MID (country code) of 999, which there isn't (MIDs only go from numbers starting in 2 to numbers starting to 7), and then the specific identifier of 99999.

The picture it has:

If you search, is the previous name of a ship called Elona.

But it's been broken up for 10 years?

And if you search the details, it was also only ever called the Elona, for it's trip from being operated by Hapag Lloyd to being scrapped at Alang yard in India...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:IMO_8406286

AIS targets with the MMSIs of 999999999 tell anyone looking you're a warship, they just don't give the name/identity away, and that's the entire utility of them, it is the opposite of pretending to be a merchant vessel, it's telling everyone you're a warship who doesn't have to broadcast their true identity.

To steal our dear friend's map from his article, it's extensively used by everyone.

[vocal violet]

I like the idea of a US navy ship that's ocean capable also sailing up the Moskva river to Moscow 😛

[strange bane]

Tovarisch, what great sailing today.

[strange bane]

This reminds me

The UN Security Council meeting about Nordstream called by Russia was a giant clownshow.

https://vxtwitter.com/newsworthy_ie/status/1674508844767014928

https://media.un.org/en/asset/k10/k10qe57xan

Big moment for Grayzone.

Jesus Christ.

[nimble gull]

Still a major o joint scandal. The former defense minister has been charged for “divulging state secrets” (secrets everyone at this point knew). I think he’s going to court this year.

[stone wadi]

Good that it's still taken seriously and handled as such.

I would assume it has put a damper on any US-Danish deep covert cooperation for a while yet.
(And any US-German/Swedish/Norwegian/etc covert cooperation....

[inner sandal]

I'm struggling to find a scenario for the detonations that would fit the known facts:
● All four explosions occurred at three minutes past the hour (plus some seconds).
● The southern explosion occurred 17 hours before the others, though the charge was probably placed a few days after the others.
● The three northern explosions occured within seconds of each other.

Scenario 1: The simplest method would be for divers activate a timer at each location after placing the charge. Timers could be set to delay detonation (say, for 10 days or 240 hours), allowing plenty of time for the saboteurs to make their getaway. However, this would not produce near-simultaneous explosions in the northern area unless the divers were able to start all three timers almost simultaneously -- which is unlikely.

Scenario 2: Alternatively, timers might be set to trigger the explosions at a specific time on September 26. That could explain the near-simultaneous explosions in the north but not the earlier explosion in the south.

Scenario 3: Detonation by remote signals from sonobuoys dropped by aircraft or a boat, on or before September 26. If using a boat, timers would be needed to delay the explosions, allowing the boat to safely leave the area. Sonobuoys have a short range, so the northern and southern explosions couldn't all be triggered by the same sonobuoy. It's possible that a boat activated a timer at the southern site then sailed north to activate the others, but the distance is 70-80 km and getting there shouldn't take 17 hours.

I'd be interested to hear any thoughts about this.

[pure finch]

Re: Scenario 2 - my thinking is it could be explained if the current time on the southern device was set incorrectly, e.g. they set the same detonation time as the northern sites, but neglected to set the current time to match the timers used at the northern sites.

In effect, the clock on the device used in the south was running 17 hours ahead of the clock(s) at the northern site.

It potentially offers a simple explanation: a very human fuck up. e.g. there's a 17 hour difference between PDT (UTC -07) and PGT (UTC+10).

But it is pure speculation.

[eager moss]

when considering the means by which explosives were detonated, one factor is the likely location of the explosives on the pipelines ? For NS 1A there were probably two locations ~250 metres apart; for NS1B there were also probably two locations ~290 metres apart and about 9 kilometres from the explosion locations on NS1A. For NS2A(S) there was one location about 3 kilometres from the NS1B explosion locations. At the NS2A(D) location about 80 kilometres away there were possibly two locations about 75 metres apart.

this is based upon the recent information published by Erik Anderson. I say 'probably' or 'possibly' because it seems that there might be some uncertainty; Erik Anderson suggests that there was only one explosion near the centre of the missing sections on NS1A, NS1B and NS2A(D) and that the ruptures and craters were formed by the escaping gas and violent 'whiplash' action of the pipelines. Whilst I have always argued that the force of the discharged gas is being underestimated by many, I'm not convinced that the ruptures and severe damage was caused primarily by the gas and not by two explosive devices on each pipeline. Several reasons for this but either way we can only speculate as to whether it was one or two explosions on these 3 pipelines at this time.

[stone wadi]

that both sets exploided at "??:03" instead of litterally any other minnut is highly suspicious and make the idea that it was timers started by the divers rather unlikely,

I find the specific time was pre programed more likely
I would guess that the 17 differnce was ether by design or a human mistake
the seconds differnce might been from differnt orientation of the timing circut
(Daves had some issues with that at his previous job https://youtu.be/0UksWKuVFFo)

if we assume that the clocks was actually properly synchronised to start with we would be able to estimate the min and max time between planting and explanation based on the differnce in when the explosions went off.

If we assume that the clocks was not too carfully syncronized than we can still make some estimations on how max time between planting and explosion (but not the minimum time)

[exotic shale]

good points. I was just thinking about the same things. Don't you think there are timers which can be set to an absolute time, like 19:03:50 ? I mean that could have been done before the dive, and the divers would just need to activate with a switch. The timing just after sunset was good and could have been deliberate I think.

[limber hinge]

I use 12VDC timers where you set the time and date (manually) and then can delay the first operation for up to 7 days.
The operations are set to ABSOLUTE TIME as you define it.
They cost $20 on amazon.
Very low current operation.

BUT you set your time to YOUR time, you do NOT set time zone. Making the Time Zone error more difficult.

Yet there are many timers and it may work like that on one.

The other source for such an error is it is was programmed on a device thar was using local time. Say GOS derived. 3 were programmed in one time zine, and one in another. Just saying.

[exotic shale]

I think we should be able to determine if there were one or two bombs at NS2AD. I have spoken to Trond Larsen had he says he has footage down to the northern kink. dkTV2 and RTL sit on it but I'm sure Oliver Alexander has seen it. WIth that footage we should be able to determine with certainty if the pipe is broken at the northern kink and how much pipe is actually gone. If not broken in northern kink, or if it's a clead bend-rupture there, it was only one bomb at the southern rupture.

[limber hinge]

What is abundantly clear is that multiple sources/agencies have much more data and information but are sitting on it for some reason.
PERHAPS the reason contradictory and confusing data is being leaked out is because that is, at least partially, by design.

[eager moss]

Agreed. The release of the information currently being withheld by media companies is hampering sensible engineering assessments whether by design or otherwise. I noted that you show a rupture at the 'far end' of the NS2A(D) location in the 3D graphic that was constructed. There is a lateral movement of the pipeline either side of the damaged section that can be seen on the sonar images; it's not obvious but it's there (I don't mean the apparent movement of the damaged section but in the approaches to the damaged section).

[exotic shale]

The lateral movement is only about one meter max. The side scan sonar images are distorted when bottom is not flat. Trond Larsen however had a multibeam sonar on his drone which is better for distance measurements. We could for instance see the position of the first joint after the open end hanging at 70 meters depth, and then determine exactly how much pipe is gone. One possibility is that there was extensive explosive damage to a few meters which have been removed by investigators.

[eager moss]

yes, it's not a large movement in the approaches but it does show that there was a lateral movement on the seabed at some stage of the destruction process; this image is the 'northern' approach - we can see the disruption in the seabed, it's not just an apparent deviation caused by sonar distortion.

agreed that there is a strong indication that a short section of pipeline is missing at the other end where we have rov vision

[elfin cradle]

Made me think of this above ground explosion of a pipeline.
But we have only the force of the 200bar expanding gas in a 7 bar medium and no ignition right?

#1072947857654554624 message

[eager moss]

No ignition but it's more likely to be about 135/140 bar for NS1 and 105 bar for NS2 discharging into 7 bar.

I did some analysis recently for the reduced flowrate that existed prior to the sabotage and the resulting shut-in pressure for NS1 pipelines. Gas delivery was reduced to 40% of capacity prior to the shut-in for maintenance and then after the maintenance period the flow was increased to only 20% of the capacity. I suspect it means that both pipelines were turned-down do deliver 20% each prior to the maintenance period but that only one line was brought back on to deliver gas after the maintenance was completed. Assuming that to be the case then one pipeline would be delivering gas at 40% of it's capacity which means that the inlet pressure was reduced from 220 bar to 163 bar, hence settle-out pressure would be about 135 bar. If both pipelines were delivering at 10% of their capacity the inlet pressure would be 135 bar and the settle-out pressure would be about 125 bar.

[strange bane]

https://twitter.com/thegrayzonenews/status/1673837783494918144

The Russian ambassador to the United Nations retweeted Grayzone’s article on Erik (Erkperk’s) expedition which he went on with a (at the time) Grayzone journalist (which they obviously are trying to obscure).

Fun reminder that Grayzone is a pretty unashamed supporter of Russia, cough https://vxtwitter.com/adnashmyash/status/1674866201061646371 cough

Full respect to Erik, but people really need to remember the connections that Erik chose to allow with his expedition, and how they really undermine a claim to just being an interested citizen.

He says himself, he won a lot of money on a bet on Trump winning the election (which is just the most hilarious plot element I’ve ever seen), had plenty of money to fund the trip, and he chose to bring along a Russian propaganda rag (Grayzone) and then partnered with The Intercept for a later article.

And, in his interview with The Intercept decided to insult us, lol.

https://theintercept.com/2023/06/28/nord-stream-pipeline-bomb-investigation/

[hushed bay]

Well, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Not sure what the "operation" part is about because that implies someone directing the action, which is just factually wrong, but yeah everyone's entitled to their opinion.

[vocal violet]

But I think we all agree that while we're entitled to have an opinion, if we're going to conduct any kind of research it has to be based on evidence rather than just "opinions"

[hushed bay]

(I personally don't get insulted by people's opinions because those are completely subjective)

[tired monolith]

I already commisioned the illustration of you being the puppetmaster and pulling all of the strings 😉

[strange bane]

Sure, my opinion is simply to say that I don't think his role here is to contribute to any investigation.

And moreso, in the interests of transparency, he should be stating the seeming partnership with Grayzone when his material comes up.

Or well, when he discusses his expedition in general.

[vocal violet]

And tell Grayzone that he didn't "discreetly" join here, precisely 😉

[hushed bay]

Ya that Grayzone partnership is oooof, it's well known that they're some of the worst dictator apologists out there

[strange bane]

Their editor (Max Blumenthal) spoke in the UNSC at the invitation of Russia on Nordstream about 4 days ago.

[hushed bay]

Ya, and Max has a history of not only carrying water for Putin and Assad but also of COVID 19 denialism and generally supporting whatever nonsense he thinks his base will like. The Intercept article talks about Erik's personal beliefs (liking Trump, conspiratorial thinking, etc.) so it makes sense

Periodic reminder that Ben Norton, who made a career at Grayzone by supporting whoever showed up and murdered protesters or threw opponents in prison in the name of anti-US imperialism, quit the website allegedly because Max got too bootlicky and conspiratorial for him

[vocal violet]

Besides all of that, I don't think it gives a good image when you're trying to conduct an investigation and you show connections to one of the potential subjects and are quick to dismiss any evidence that may culprit your side, especially when you proceed to label them or even attack those looking into such evidence (see the words towards Oliver Alexander or this server)

It's a strong indicator of bias

[strange bane]

“Even if Ukraine did it, the US must be involved.” - Erik’s own words in the article.

And he’s accusing us of group think? 🤡

Dude’s got an agenda in all this, and I just think it needs be called out.

[tidal knoll]

That's his problem, really.
As long as he stays factual here, he has as much right as anyone to contribute.

[vocal violet]

The question is that I am not convinced of that factuality

[strange bane]

Sure, and I have the right to the opinion that he’s full of 💩

[vocal violet]

Or even with factuality, if there's relevance for it

[tidal knoll]

Of course! But here you can concentrate on why his findings are wrong.

[vocal violet]

Which is what I've seen Sara do more than anyone else here in this channel

By far (Well, we also have people like Oliver Alexander but he's more focused on his own side of the investigation)

[strange bane]

In the interests of ethics, can I please ask that Erik is directed to clarify his partnership with Grayzone and The Intercept?

If I was involved with an article with NOS or DW or whoever, on whatever, and I posted it here and was taking part in the discussion around it

[tidal knoll]

Exactly. If she keeps doing that, that would be great!

[strange bane]

Surely I’d be asked to clarify my relationship with them?

[hushed bay]

For sure! I mean he's in here, you just asked the question, maybe tag him to make sure he sees it?

Then it's up to him to answer or not

[vocal violet]

The problem is, however, that there is no incentive to do so, and efforts like that one get buried again in chattery that feels more like an echo chamber than research

[strange bane]

@exotic shale Could you please kindly clarify your relationship with Jeffrey Brodsky (of Grayzone) with regard your expedition to the sites, your later involvement with Grayzone directly in their reporting. and also your involvement with The Intercept in relation to their reporting on Nordstream?

And can you also elaborate on your comment that the Bellingcat Nordstream channel is a “groupthink operation.” Thank you kindly.

Also, do you have any comment on Mr. Brodsky being fired by Grayzone since the expedition for (and I quote):

“Refusing to politicise my reporting and findings, bending them towards their own world view and political biases.”

Only for Grayzone to continue with the story without him and report the story without any reference to this?

https://vxtwitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1671068337588039680

[exotic shale]

I'm not sure if it's deviating east or just downward in the mud. The side-scan sonar is only accurate when it's flat. The apparent eastward bend to the left in your picture is actually just a bend down,

[exotic shale]

This could be true, but the Swedish seismologists told me it was 164 bars and they got it from a "source" . I'm suspicious about the 164 figure though since it's published as the settle out pressure and "the source" could have just assumed that was the case.

[velvet rain]

@exotic shale could you please acknowledge the questions above that have been directed at you?

[eager moss]

you're correct to be suspicious of what you were told by the seismologists; I would ignore that piece of information.

[vocal violet]

Why would you be suspicious of seismologists?

[strange bane]

Damn seismologists, and their expertise and qualifications in talking about what seismic data!

Anyways @exotic shale, could you please engage with the questions put to you?

[eager moss]

haha no, in talking about gas pipeline hydraulics, pressures etc. maybe a gas pipeline engineer knows a little better . . . . .

[eager moss]

because they were talking about pipeline pressures and i will know more about that subject than a seismologist

[vocal violet]

Can you please demonstrate it and explain why that information is relevant? Thanks

I just want to be able to follow up

[strange bane]

Also, will you issue a correction that the USS Paul Ignatius was masquerading as the Elona?

Contained in your article here: https://anderssonerik.substack.com/p/aircraft-and-vessels-in-seymour-hersh

[eager moss]

the information is relevant because a number of people are making assumptions about differences caused in the damage to pipelines as a result of external explosions based upon misinformation regarding the settle out pressure of the Nordstream 1 pipelines and the gas pressure in the nordstream 2 pipelines. See earlier posts for details.

admittedly it has nothing to do with a maritime version of trainspotting

[strange bane]

Also specifically to this, who do you think individually is engaging in group think?

[vocal violet]

Ok, that makes some sense, I can catch on that a bit better now, thanks

[exotic shale]

I planned the expedition with Jeremy Scahill, but he had to cancel at a very late moment because of family issues. Jeffrey contacted me around the same time to write an article for a left-wing paper called "In These Times". I invited Jeffrey to take Jeremys place on the expedition but ITT couldn't get it past their lawyers and backed down. I had already persuaded my daughter to film everything like a reality show so I invited Jeffrey to come anyway because I wanted an english speaker, but Jeffrey didn't want to come. He had some kind of scholarship from Leonard Goodman but needed to convince an editor to get paid. Goodman who also funds Greyzone connected him to them. Max Blumenthal called me the day before we were to sail out and wanted an exclusivity agreement which I didn't agree to. I paid everything for the expedition and Max persuaded Jeffrey to go without knowing him. After the trip, I signed a non exclusive agreement with Max, but Jeffrey did not perform. He had brought some mud samples home to Spain which I had promised to Greyzone and told a lab he had explosives at home, so the lab answered he should turn in those samples to the police. Jeffrey got scared and threw the samples away. Then he came to me in Sweden for new samples and took them for himself, thinking he could take them if he didn't accept payment from GZ. He is not quite well, I think.

[strange bane]

Just for future reference.

[strange bane]

So you planned the expedition with Grayzone (edit: and the Intercept)?

With Max Blumenthal… you know the guy who spoke 4 days ago at the UNSC as a sycophant for Russia.

https://media.un.org/en/asset/k10/k10qe57xan

But thank you kindly for admitting your connections to unironic Russian propagandists and their involvement in the planning of and expedition to the sites.

[velvet rain]

Anything on this point, @exotic shale?

[rustic bay]

I'm curious to hear more about Leonard Goodman

You can DM me

[strange bane]

To engage in some selfthink…

There’s basically no credibility to this expedition anymore so. You arranged your expedition with what is little more than a propaganda arm of the Russian government.

Looking forward to reading Der Stürmer’s investigation of the Gleiwitz incident and Pravda’s exposé on who really killed Trotsky.

[vocal violet]

If anything, it raises questions into why that expedition was arranged

[stone wadi]

propaganda exercise 🤷

[strange bane]

Just a heads up, The Intercept has a habit of exposing their sources to legal repercussions.

The Intercept sent Reality Winner’s leaks directly to the NSA with Microdots and all.

[exotic shale]

I agree with you that MarineTraffic has terrible bugs and that's the best way to describe the matching to "Elona". However I got this form their support, and the direct matching to USS Paul Ignatius I got from Oliver Alexander. I have not been able to get confirmation from any other sources. My only contribution is that I found in the Danish AIS data that this mystery ship was roaming over the pipeline already from October 2 and possible earlier. When I wrote that I wanted to verify if the US was involved in picking up unexploded bombs but I don't believe any more that there were any unexploded bombs. I can change my mind again, if any evidence emerges that shows there were more than one bomb on any of the sites. If so, there was likely an unexploded bomb near NS2AS.

[strange bane]

And Mr. Scahill was the journalist who Daniel Everette Hale leaked to, https://www.npr.org/2019/05/09/721737050/u-s-charges-former-intelligence-analyst-with-leaking-classified-data-to-reporter

[strange bane]

But you’re aware a cursory knowledge of MMSIs could prove otherwise?

[exotic shale]

No, I planned with the Intercept. After the expedition was a success, ARD and Die Zeit joined.

[strange bane]

And even searching the Elona would tell you it’s been a pile of steel in India since 2013?

You could tell this even by looking at the Wikipedia article for MMSIs?

So your Elona is a navigational buoy under the flag of Does Not Exist (no country with the MID of 999) and the unique identifier of 99999?

What a foolproof disguise.

Goes without saying that the Elona has never even broadcasted its AIS position with the MMSI of 999999999 (which is how AIS signals are identified) it’s entirely a bug in the database of Marine Traffic.

[exotic shale]

maybe @stark palm can explain to you how this works and why it's likely that the ship recorded with this MMSI around the explosion sites in early October 2022 was probably USS Paul Ignatius or its support ship.

[strange bane]

I’m aware it was the Ignatius

I’m telling you it wasn’t pretending to be the Elona.

It was very openly telling everyone it was a ship that doesn’t have to broadcast its identity, and anyone could tell you it was a naval ship.

It was not disguising itself, it was telling everyone it was a warship.

I work at sea, I know exactly how these systems work, give me any MMSI and I can tell you what it is, misunderstanding what the all-nine MMSI means, is a clear indication that you don’t understand how MMSIs work.

[exotic shale]

OK, thanks. I should correct that. Sloppy of me.

[next dirge]

With all due respect, but you are deliberately misinterpreting his words here. Erik explicitly said he planned the expedition with Jeremy Scahill, and that Jeffrey was invited to come along later.

Erik is being very clear about this with his language - yet you reply to his message with: “so you planned the expedition with Grayzone”.

Also, at least on the claims and evidence you have provided, conclusively saying that the expedition is “little more than a propaganda arm of the Russian government”, sound akin to Russia’s propaganda that Bellingcat is an arm of British intelligence services. As far as I can tell, the findings of the expedition do not even align with the Russian position that the west is responsible.

[strange bane]

“so you planned the expedition with Grayzone”.

What I said:

So you planned the expedition with Grayzone (edit: and the Intercept)?

Between talking to Max Blumenthal (of Grayzone) in the lead up and Scahill (of the Intercept), yes, it's a fair way of describing this situation.

[strange bane]

Also, at least on the claims and evidence you have provided, conclusively saying that the expedition is “little more than a propaganda arm of the Russian government”, sound akin to Russia’s propaganda that Bellingcat is an arm of British intelligence services.

I said that Grayzone and The Intercept are little more than propaganda arms of the Russian government, which has been evidenced plenty of times by their horrendous dogshit reporting.

The Max Blumenthal we speak of, just four days ago, spoke at the request of Russia's government at the United Nations Security Council, and just shared Russian propaganda talking points, that level of cozy relations between a supposedly independent journalist outfit and the Russian state is exactly what I'm talking about.

Remind me when Bellingcat did the same?

As far as I can tell, the findings of the expedition do not even align with the Russian position that the west is responsible.

You mean the reason why we have as an emoji in the server?

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/05/nord-stream-expedition-official-investigators/

The entire article where they use the boot as some batshit connection to the United States.

[next dirge]

The boot was completely dismissed by Erik as well, so I fail to see the relevance of it?

[strange bane]

Dismissed in the sense of him tweeting offering to lift the boot up?

Yea, he totally dismissed it being related, he definitely didn't tweet about going down there to lift it up as evidence in a Twitter discussion.

[velvet rain]

How about looking at his actual reaction to the boot claim at the time it was made?
https://vxtwitter.com/Erkperk/status/1665620056330436608

[next dirge]

He just said he can pick it up?

[strange bane]

And he clearly says he thinks it's related.

Also

As far as I can tell, the findings of the expedition do not even align with the Russian position that the west is responsible.

lolololol

The damn Russian ambassador to the UNSC

Retweeted the goddamn articles.

[next dirge]

So you are saying that, this expedition is propaganda, because an article was retweeted by a Russian ambassador?

[strange bane]

At the same time as Grayzone’s editor being invited to speak on Russia’s behalf.

Yes.

[next dirge]

It is poignant to ask questions, and I was immediately skeptical of Erik to - I still am (especially after reading about Grayzone and Max). But the conclusions you are drawing are simply poor applications of logic

[vocal violet]

Grayzone has a long history of supporting Russia's claims and their members have connections with the Kremlin, as Sara mentioned above Max Blumenthal testified in front of the UN on the request of Russia

[next dirge]

I agree

[velvet rain]

It is hard to believe that someone who has parroted the Grayzone narrative basically since this thing started is suddenly actually in pursuit of the truth.

[strange bane]

We're sick of objective trolls and conspiracy theorists just vomiting all over this discussion.

I personally have held my tongue for quite a long time, but I'm not going to bother anymore.

We've seen since we got mentioned in the articles an uptick in unironic Grayzoners/Intercepters in this chat, just talking absolute bull-💩.

So yea, Erik's expedition, whilst I respect him for putting his money on the line, is the least credible of all them, especially given his self-admitted connections to outfits which are little more than far-left wingnut rags who speak in favour of authoritarian anti-Western states.

[velvet rain]

Just one note for context: Erkperk continues to engage with notorious conspiracy theorists on a variety of topics. Just take a look at his Twitter feed.

@topaz mortar (who also lurks here) is a pretty big Covid conspiracy theorist and is regularly retweeted by Erkperk.

[strange bane]

Angry Monkey is Billy Bostickson on Twitter.

[velvet rain]

Not calling that out is risky in terms of the reliability of the information here.

[next dirge]

I think that’s a much more balanced statement

[strange bane]

I can make it far more unbalanced.

Erkperk is a conspiracy nut.

End of discussion.

If he can call us a "group think operation" in a news article, I'm allowed call him a conspiracy theorist.

[harsh rock]

OK.... lets not ping conspiracy theorists please.
And let's also keep the conversation respectful and step back out of the weeds.
Thank you all 🙏

[strange bane]

[edited] Could we please just ban them.

[harsh rock]

That's a conversation we have between the moderation team.....if you have issues with certain people, flag it with a mod via DM

OK.... back on track please

[strange bane]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-prosecutor-hopes-conclude-nord-stream-investigation-autumn-swedish-radio-2023-06-14/

[stone wadi]

that is if anything a unusiall quick but not unresonable
though we should all be prepered for a lot of "in regard to national security we can't answer that"

[topaz mortar]

I just got a notification by email that someone had mentioned me in this thread, which I have not looked at for about 4 weeks I think, but have now reviewed lots of interesting updates but it is sad to see acrimonious accusations and rhetoric when we should all focus on the available evidence and facts, which @exotic shale has helped (along with the others) to cast light on. Yes, the collaboration with grayzone may have been unfortunate in hindsight, but the photographic and video evidence and the arguments should not be ignored on that basis alone. I also take umbrage to the accusations by @strange bane and @velvet rain about my "Covid Conspiracies". Firstly I have never mentioned my ongoing research with the #DRASTIC collective into a putative lab leak over the last 3 years. Secondly, whether or not you support lab leak theory has nothing to do with nord stream and is supported by the majority of people in most countries according to surveys. Lab leak theory and my role has been the focus of 100s of articles and documentaries over the last two years, as well as congressional and senate reports in the US. We published the DARPA DEFUSE documents and various other leaks and collaborate with US right to Know on FOIAs. Anyway, as I said this is irrelevant to the nord stream investigation, and very disheartening to see such unwarranted attacks and slurs in this forum. I would urge you all to focus on the facts and different claims in a logical way, as I do in my ongoing thread of 630 tweets on the topic, which I will not link here as I will likely be accused of self promotion. All the best with your ongoing investigations!

Also I was a little disappointed to see @strange bane and @velvet rain attempting to downplay the obvious neo-nazi posts of the Ukrainian soldier allegedly involved with the Andromeda operation, which @stark palm and @junior moat corrected. We need to focus on the facts, please, and not try to "alter" reality to support our respective biases, which we all have as humans.

If you are not happy with my occasional contributions (not "lurking" as alleged) then I will also be happy to leave you in peace.

[velvet rain]

Hi, I am not interested in discussing this further. I have mentioned your account and your other activities so people can contextualise the recent developments and the involved actors. If you take offence with that, I can't change that.
However, I disagree with your interpretation of our scepticism towards the far-right posts. It is important to apply a rigorous standard of evidence to any information we come across. This thread has devolved into more and more baseless speculation. And concluding a definitive far-right nationalist motive from a few over half a decade old social media posts (on the account we were aware of) from a person who may or may not have been involved would be irresponsible.

[topaz mortar]

Fair enough!

Back to Business then 😉

[junior moat]

I was thinking if there was a reasonable way for the perpetrators to achieve remote detonation... maybe during the 17 hours gap they were waiting for some reaction, and only later decided to also explode the NS1 pipelines as well.
but this ofc is also just pure speculation – I was just thinking if remote detonation is a realistic scenario, it opens some more possiblilities of what may have happened

[stone wadi]

That would mean that they have been sleeping under a rock for the last 70 years or so.
No one would show any reaction for any single such incedent

[junior moat]

unless ofc they were blackmailing someone or something along these lines ... but yeah maybe bit too speculative 😉

[stone wadi]

Everyone knows they were trying to blackmail germany.

If they had actually gone " we will blow it up if you don't. Than anything to that regard would been published as soon as the first pipe blow

[junior moat]

I was more thinking of business owners on either side of the pipes (i.e. Gazprom and Wintershall etc)

--
small interview with one of the Polish investigative journalists on the Nordstream case (she also works with OCCRP): https://wiadomosci.radiozet.pl/swiat/co-polacy-wiedza-w-sprawie-nord-stream-maly-jacht-i-ukrainski-komandos
nothing really new though, only confirming existence of an invoice paid by Feeria Lwowa to Mola Yachting .. which I guess we knew already

(would love to listen to the podcast this is based on -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBWyIYEN0CA -- but my Polish is limited to 2-3 words 😬 )

[tired monolith]

you can autotranslate the subs?

[exotic shale]

I'm working with Michael Kobs, a strong image analyst, to better understand what happened at the southern explosion site. The model above is based solely on published materials, but there are still unpublished material from the last expedition of RTL and danish TV2 where Trond Larsen brought some pretty good gear and he has told me he has filmed the pipe all the way to the northern trench. My theory is that a bomb exploded in the northern trench 36.6 meters north of the southern open end. The pipeline lifted and it ruptured from bending in the southern end, and the 36 meter piece fell down again displaced a bit to the north. I have reached out to Trond and DkTV2 and encouraged them to publish their footage so perhaps this and other hypothesis can be verified. There is no question that the pipe is ruptured in the northern end because the pattern of carving out a trench around a pipe opening is the same all 6 places where that happened. There is still an open question though if there was one or two bombs and if one bomb, where was that bomb placed. This site is interesting because almost all pipe still seems to be there, so if everything gets filmed we should have the answer.

[vocal violet]

This Michael Kobs? https://twitter.com/MichaKobs

[strange bane]

Michael Kobs seems like a very stable genius.

As always, the people you chose to associate with absolutely have a part to play in determining your credibility.

[exotic shale]

I'm posting this because @stark palm was on the trip filming the missing pieces and you guys might be able to help encourage RTL and DKTV2 to release that footage.

[strange bane]

From the people who were clearly not trying to suggest it was a certain actor and had no agenda.

[exotic shale]

The owners of the footage are media companies, and it's in the public interest to see it , so my argument would be it's in the interest of these media companies to release it.

[strange bane]

https://twitter.com/search?q=Skripal (from%3AMichaKobs)&src=typed_query

Continued reminder that Michael Kobs is little more than a mouthpiece of Russian propaganda.

For someone who criticises us as "groupthink" you really chose a group of people who think the exact same thing (unironic Russian cheerleaders) to associate with your expedition to the sites.

[vocal violet]

Gaddafi apologist, denies the Skripal poisoning and attacking Bellingcat's work for it... that's a résumé

[strange bane]

Oh, and a nice @ to Aaron Maté while we're at it.

[exotic shale]

to be specific, there is a v-shaped kink pointing downwards that is projected to the left and right respectively in the two different sides scan images. I think if the drone footage of this is released it can be very revealing.

I was very close to it with my drone at 84 meters depth but my tetherline got stuck there's a lot of very volatile mud down there so I missed it.

[strange bane]

https://vxtwitter.com/Erkperk/status/1630306059662368768

"I just care about facts."

It's so easy to show you've made your mind up on months ago, and your quest here is just to find stuff that agrees with your viewpoint.

[exotic shale]

I can change my mind.

[strange bane]

https://vxtwitter.com/Erkperk/status/1633719294268669952

https://vxtwitter.com/Erkperk/status/1652242561984081921

Are we "Bellingcat operatives" ?

[exotic shale]

I think, as a matter of methodology, it's a good thing if you can "finish a story". Andromeda story has made some progress and I recognize that. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so sarcastic.

[hushed bay]

Just to clarify, no one in this server is an "operative". This is an open server, and absolutely anyone can join. It's a public space by design. Bellingcat does not endorse any opinion or work proposed by anyone in this server unless explicitly stated.

I think calling people posting here "Bellingcat operatives" is both borne out of and helps to feed conspiratorial thinking that is simply counter factual. So, again, no one here is an "operative", and using that term betrays a deep, deep misunderstanding of what this space is.

[strange bane]

https://vxtwitter.com/Erkperk/status/1630891680864821251

If we're discussing something associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine (which I think is obviously accepted by everyone), just a useful reminder that our dear friend believes that the "USA started the war."

https://vxtwitter.com/Erkperk/status/1633184454108667904

I'm going to continue on to credible news from this point on, but in the interest of transparency, I'd invite everyone here to take a look at ErkPerk's public postings and make your mind up if he's a serious source on this topic.

https://vxtwitter.com/StZaryn/status/1667526108063866880

(Secretary of State at the office of the Polish Prime Minister)

[junior moat]

yeah I tried that .. but it's really no fun, these auto-translations I sometimes cannot even follow which of the two speakers it's currently trying to translate 😄

[tired monolith]

yea its a bit hit and miss - could be it works better if you feed it into whisperai and go that route, but if you dont have it setup and do it efficiently perhaps you might aswell look for someone polish to translate it

[junior moat]

yeah will see... tbh probably a nice interview but most likely no new info

[stark palm]

https://twitter.com/oalexanderdk/status/1675999780005109761?s=46&t=23z1t9Ukhz2rdx08lVsJEw

[strange bane]

Look at this MASSIVE 0.05uSv/h increase in measured gamma radiation recorded at one station in Poland on 28 September.

There must have been multiple nuclear explosions just last week.

[vocal violet]

Ofc that just means Poland is running some secret nuclear tests 😉

(Obvious sarcasm)

[strange bane]

I wonder will we find any U.S. Navy SEAL boots at those sites.

[junior moat]

Florian Flade ( https://twitter.com/FlorianFlade ) is on German TV tonight at 22.45 .. might watch it and live-ticker in case he dripfeeds us any new bits of information 😄

[strange bane]

Watchparty.

[junior moat]

yeahh.. it's one of those obnoxious talkshows though 😬 ... expecting a lot of Bavarian regional politics this time, based on the guests .. and you never know when and how long they will actually talk about interesting things like explosions in the Baltic 😄

[strange bane]

Can’t be worse than that horrendous crime drama show we had to listen to before.

[little zinc]

got a link to the program?

[junior moat]

https://www.zdf.de/gesellschaft/markus-lanz/markus-lanz-vom-4-juli-2023-100.html

[little zinc]

thanks!

[velvet rain]

Oh, since it is Markus Lanz, expect more drama than factual content.

His entire thing is inviting one person with views he doesn't like and then obnoxiously confronting that one person the entire time.

[stone wadi]

Did someone eat a banana and then fart next to the detector two days later?

[nimble gull]

"Bavarian regional politics" ooo boy

[tidal knoll]

Fight!

[strange bane]

So about 27 mins till this starts.

[little zinc]

1 hour later

[strange bane]

God, I completely messed up that time zone conversion, for some reason I was convinced I had to add an hour. 🤣

[strange bane]

15 minutes.

[stone wadi]

Do the 15 min timezone still exist or was that removed?

[strange bane]

Meanie!

[stone wadi]

It was only half a joke. I am curious but too tired to look it up myself

[strange bane]

Starts in 7 minutes, but is likely to be 1 hour of him talking about German politics and 2 minutes on Nordstream.

It's started.

[junior moat]

yeah ... 😄

it's gonna be France riots -> then Bavarian populism -> then Andromeda, I feel 😉

[strange bane]

Florian just sitting there.

He's gonna be sitting for the next hour, lol.

[junior moat]

we've reached the Bavarian populism stage of things 😂 (sorry for off-topic content .. next will be only Andromeda-related hopefully)

[strange bane]

They are just talking over each other.

[strange bane]

Still waiting for the Nordstream portion.

[junior moat]

note to self: never watch this stuff live again .. it's 1000% not worth it 😑 but now stuck in the darned sunk-cost fallacy

[tired monolith]

live stuff is always annoying if its unpredictable over too long time as a main focus

[strange bane]

At most we get 15 minutes.

If they stop now.

[tired monolith]

its ok if its the content isnt annoying so you can have it as radio until something happens - but if you have to sit through pure garbage to reach somthing that might have some value yeah its going to be highly annoying vs a recording (and even better if you have it with indexed subs to search through)

[strange bane]

Introducing Florian and NS.

19th September in Poland?

So he mentioned the Polish stop, and the search in the Polish harbour, and the Poles being skeptical. That the Bundeskriminalamt + Bundespolizei are the investigating agencies in DE. Mentions the Warsaw company being fake, refered to the "two Ukrainian owners" and both refused to comment. The Octogen element.

Rough estimates about the amount of explosives needed. The MIVD element. That the Andromeda people were on Bulgarian and Romanian passports, with real identities, but false photographs within their documents. Says it's an element that there's a concern for a false flag.

And lastly, onto Valery K, how he was found using facial recognition technology (presumably from the documents/CCTV), that he has a child/wife in Germany, and how the boy was DNA tested by German authorities as part of their investigations against the DNA found onboard.

[junior moat]

great summary ✅

interesting was his mention of a theory of a hybrid background again where maybe a private oligarch was involved in some way (well pretty speculative, ofc)

but yeah no additional brand new info I guess

also didn't mention the Feeria Lwowa owner who chooses to live in russian occupied territory

[strange bane]

The politically connected oligarch whose birthday is Sept 26th was originally in SZ's reporting iirc.

[junior moat]

yeah, so I guess it's consistent Florian would mention that again

[strange bane]

Yep, totally not the Chocolate King.

https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_вересня#Народились

Completely unscientifically.

[strange bane]

It should be said that this element of the story was always kinda out of left field and has kinda been dismissed given what we know about the Feeria Lwowa element.

There’s no Ukrainian businessman who has companies in Western Europe and is politically relevant in Ukraine connected to those companies.

In fact the only politically relevant element is that one of the owners of Feeria Lwowa is a collaborator with the Russian occupation in Kerch, and works for the Russian administration in that area.

[junior moat]

small reminder though that the actual Feeria Lwowa company does produce chocolate ... while its Polish subsidiary was repurposed as a cover company for sabotage operations in the Baltic 🍫 😉 ( this is just funny, I don't actually assign this bit of information any real significance to be honest )

[strange bane]

Seems like the sex pest nuclear dude is getting airtime on Russia Today.

https://de.rt.com/international/174430-nord-stream-2-schweizer-physiker/

[nimble gull]

In the absence of real stuff to follow up on, do we have any idea where this detail came from? Or just going off the German journos word?

[strange bane]

It originally comes from:

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/nord-stream-explosionen-sabotage-ermittlungen-ukraine-1.5767316

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.

In short, a journalists word that his name was circulated in Western secret squirrel circles.

[civic rapids]

Was it figured out where exactly those Ru exercises in Sept took place? L2 etc. Still most likely that deeper area of Gdansk bay? >~200km away from where the ships Ru claims are part of the exercises being photographed, seen on sat images and AIS etc?

[strange bane]

Russia issued a Navtex putting a naval practice area into operation.

[civic rapids]

Cheers, I'll have a look for that now

[strange bane]

Here.

There was also Polish and Lithuanian nav warnings for various areas in their waters.

[civic rapids]

Found a few photos of vessels that went through the gap by Baltiysk on 21/09/22 such as the SB6 tug https://sputnikmediabank.com/media/8279546.html?context=list&list_sid=list_284362970

Ah cheers

[strange bane]

https://navvarn.sjofartsverket.se/pdf/NAVTEXkarta.pdf

It's area letter J if you want to do additional searches.

[civic rapids]

Thanks read my mind. Just been working back from the screeny but hadn't seen anything explaining what/where areas are yet

[strange bane]

#1124877931366318192 message

[inner sandal]

Russia is calling for another Nord Stream discussion at the Security Council on Tuesday and says it will be inviting "a couple of interesting impartial speakers". Wondering if one will be the Swiss nuclear man. https://www.newarab.com/news/russia-seeks-un-security-council-meeting-nord-stream-blasts

[strange bane]

https://t.me/dpol_un/578

"I will not disclose their names for security reasons."

[hoary maple]

Hersh, swiss nuclear man, FSB agent

the whole lot

[hushed karma]

As i do remember the sub B-588 that went one week longer out of sight than usual and planned for the first voyage and test, was a kilo class sub ? And that week was to combine within time path for placing explosives. As i do have here a message of a death ( shot in the head ) of a former commander of a kilo class sub. Like to see if this could be related. https://twitter.com/vijesti11111/status/1678483766707122176?s=46. . Which does look like this person. #1072947857654554624 message. Former commander of Improved Kilo-class submarine Krasnodar, deputy head of Krasnodar mobilisation office Stanislav Rzhytsky was shot dead in Krasnodar.

[junior moat]

More background info about Diana B./K. (Feeria Lwowa) from a German RTL journalist ... suggesting she may have ties to russia more than Ukraine
https://twitter.com/MackjackMaier/status/1678444884523458575

Sergej Maier (@MackjackMaier)

Bislang galt bei dem Anschlag auf die #Nordstream Pipeline ein polnisches Reisebüro als stärkstes Indiz für eine "pro-ukrainische" Spur, weil in den Unterlagen zu dieser dubiosen Briefkastenfirma zwei Ukrainer auftauchen. Aber was, wenn....1/

Twitter · Jul 10, 2023, 4:43 PM

I don't know if we had seen her (archived) VK page before ..

--
based on this a politician suggests russia was involved in the rental and trip of the Andromeda
https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/nord-stream-anschlaege-moegliche-schluesselperson-soll-russischen-pass-haben-und-sich-in-russland-aufhalten_id_198728877.html

so apparently Diana is originally from Usbekistan
and studied at National University "Odesa Law Academy"

[rustic bay]

I can't get this Twitter link to work to figure out who the man in the attached picture is

[tidal knoll]

I think this guy: #russia-ukraine-eastern-europe message

And since that sub belongs to the Black Sea fleet, it’s better discussed in that channel.

O fudge, it may have been in the Mediterranean. Still, it’s not new.

[strange bane]

Wow.

[strange bane]

Picture certainly lines up with the lady on the left.

[junior moat]

yep

[strange bane]

Thing I'm finding odd, surely you don't go into business with someone randomly.

The other lady is a lady whose name is N. A.

You can't find a social media connection, surely business partners would be VK friends?

Not to say they've identified the wrong person, she's clearly Feeria Lwowa's owner, the Kerch place, 8th June date of birth and pictures in Poland/in front of Polish registration cars, proves that.

[junior moat]

yeah, pretty much 100% the correct person... interesting to note she probably lived in Poland for a while then.. if it was a pure cover company one could have expected for that person to only go to Poland for a day to register the company never to be seen again

but some news article did mention the owner to be a registered Polish resident, so I guess that matches then

possibly..

[strange bane]

Would be interested to see if the N. A. lady could be identified.

Not to suggest we'd do it in here, of course.

[junior moat]

based on this they now also aired some small TV segment (https://www.tvnow.de/shows/rtl-nachtjournal-290/2023-07/episode-164-sendung-vom-11-07-2023-5564394 .. from minute 17:43 .. sorry wasn't able to download it)

[little zinc]

not bad for RTL, they phoned diana, confronted the prosecutor general with their findings and got kiesewetter (important politician, member of the Foreign Committee) on their side.

another outlet reporting on this: https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Nord-Stream-Sprengung-Die-Spur-fuehrt-nach-Moskau-article24250566.html

[junior moat]

someone managed to download it, so I borrowed it to post it here 😉

[limber hinge]

There is a Chat GBT translation to English on Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/14wklvn/nord_stream_pipeline_sabotage_new_evidence_that/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1

[junior moat]

yeah a lot of people getting really excited now because they're less interested in how the sabotage went down rather than who they can blame.
but I would be very cautious, this is just the owner of some shady fake company, likely just in it for a bit of money. pretty certainly not the actual organizer of Andromeda's trip

[junior moat]

another article from today, a lot of text nothing really new, only German Navy also took photos / registered movement of russian ships same as Danish Navy (I mean everything else would have been not believable anyways)
https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/internationale-politik/id_100205152/nord-stream-explosion-deutschland-raeumt-spur-nach-russland-ein.html

[stark palm]

The most interesting part is that a person who has been publicly linked to the attack, still lives freely in Russia even posting images on social media

If Russia wasn’t involved and this person even had some vague relevance to the explosions, she would have been picked up by the Russian security services by now

[junior moat]

yeah this sound pretty logical. but it's also very murky still ... for me it's early to jump to conclusions just based on her free movement. I believe we'll know more about these peoples' background soon

[stark palm]

Currently looking into here friends on social media

All are either Russian or from Crimea. A few interesting characters that I need to look closer at

[strange bane]

With there now being more information on Diana B./K., I suppose it's worth mentioning that besides the passport photo, we ostensibly have a picture of Natalia A. from the SZ reporting:

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/projekte/artikel/politik/nord-stream-ukraine-russland-e891024/de1ecf976840d5bf361d6d35dcf1e529b1a260e88e513a0d76dc9e59765f48bf_w2880_h1800_r178,0,967,604_q70.png

The caption says it was taken from Facebook, which me and @junior moat have had no luck searching thus far.

But, for what it's worth, in the top right you can see Eta... Paris.

Etam Paris is a ladies lingerie brand, and you can obviously see mannequins with ladies lingerie inside that shop.

https://goo.gl/maps/Brs6Mz61o4XjZXiXA

Lady in shopping mall is obviously groundbreaking news, but interesting that its in Warsaw, I suppose.

[strange bane]

This is obviously Myrotvorets.

[junior moat]

true

[strange bane]

Never had any luck finding her on there.

[junior moat]

here is the entry: https://myrotvorets-center.translate.goog/criminal/borsejtova-diana-raximovna/?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[strange bane]

Ahhh, well there we go so.

Nice find 🙂

[junior moat]

here's also a photocopy of her Ukrainian passport with less redacted parts (she presumably also has Uzbek and russian passports)

from here : https://twitter.com/schmitt_jrg/status/1678745718343753728

[strange bane]

Wow.

[strange bane]

https://twitter.com/maximkireev/status/1678759800447074305

Maxim Kireev (@maximkireev)

@MackjackMaier @schmitt_jrg @ntvde Die Behörde steht ja auf dem Pass: 8012 Центральне міжрегіональне управління ДМС у м. Києві та Київській області. Laut staatlichem Migrationsdienst ist der Pass mit dieser Nummer gültig:

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 1:35 PM

[junior moat]

yeah we did find that before, nice

👀 👀
https://twitter.com/JeffreyBrodsky5/status/1678778472993538048 👀

Jeffrey Brodsky (@JeffreyBrodsky5)

This afternoon, I will be briefing the UN Security Council on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 2:49 PM

🫣

https://twitter.com/TheGreeneBJ/status/1678768867643105286

Bryce Greene (@TheGreeneBJ)

This afternoon, I will be briefing the UN Security Council on the Nord Stream pipeline attacks.

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 2:11 PM

[strange bane]

Erkperk’s partner.

[junior moat]

yes

[strange bane]

I assume his previous defenders are now going to admit that any pretence of him not being a tool of Russian propaganda are plainly false.

But that would require some integrity,

[junior moat]

reading some hints these two women were really just 'straw women' who would own the companies on behalf of someone else for money ... which makes some sense if you want to obfuscate business activity

have a feeling more info gonna appear soonish on the matter

[storm wren]

I don't think some people understand appearing at the UN on behalf on Russia is credibility suicide.

Whatever you do, whatever evidence you find now and in the future, you'll always be defined by that.

Although in fairness if you've had your work published on the Grayzone that rubicon has already been crossed.

[rustic bay]

Is there any evidence of that? [This was a reply to a deleted post alleging that a writer was paid off to remove items from a substack]

[strange bane]

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1671068805575979009

Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins)

He states that the former media outlet he wrote for "insisted that I politicize my reporting and findings, bending them toward their own worldview and political biases." Who did he write for previously on this topic? The Grayzone. https://t.co/MWaHNSIYNf

Likes

224

Twitter · Jun 20, 2023, 8:13 AM

[strange bane]

Whoops, misremembered.

I remembered it being at the top, couldn't see it but now it's at the very bottom.

[rustic bay]

I'm going to edit my post because now it looks like I'm fact checking Eliot.

[strange bane]

Oh sorry, yea.

[strange bane]

*My former media outlet attempted to pay me after this post was published, but I have not and will not accept the money.

I should say that this part is now in it.

[rustic bay]

I'm glad I asked if there was any evidence then. I'm very wary of accusations and ascribing motivation because I don't see how those can be verified in an open source way. Thank you for the update.

[strange bane]

Fair.

https://vxtwitter.com/mbesheer/status/1628159640293842950

https://twitter.com/SCRtweets/status/1678773201177022467

Security Council Report (@SCRtweets)

#UNSC meetings schedule for today (11 July) | 📨 Updates: https://t.co/h0mPNNfFSk
🔷 For background, see @SCRtweets coverage below:
📑 #Syria: https://t.co/SxmDgDmaml

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 2:28 PM

The briefing is at 3PM ET, 2 and a half hours from now.

[junior moat]

need to make sure I stock up on beer until then

[inner sandal]

https://twitter.com/DanishMFA/status/1678669877526122496

Denmark MFA 🇩🇰 (@DanishMFA)

Denmark 🇩🇰, Germany 🇩🇪 and Sweden 🇸🇪 have sent a new joint letter to the UN Security Council 🇺🇳 on the Nord Stream explosions with a status of the separate, national investigations, in light of the upcoming meeting on the issue 👇

Twitter · Jul 11, 2023, 7:37 AM

[vagrant scarab]

Are the germans stating that experts confirm dives from Andromeda are possible, or just that dives in general are possible?

[inner sandal]

Dives in general, I think. Also, by implication, it confirms the quantities of explosives were small enough to be handled by divers

[junior moat]

They are saying the experts concluded dives from Andromeda are considered possible:
"German investigators consider the "Andromeda" to be fundamentally suitable as a base of operations for such a sabotage action."
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/nord-stream-andromeda-gutachten-ausschuss-100.html

[vagrant scarab]

I think it's more likely they talk about the boat specifically since all other statements in that paragraph is about Andromeda

[junior moat]

Citing another article

The operation was possible with the Andromeda, a representative of the federal prosecutor's office reported to a committee of the Bundestag. The authority commissioned an expert report for this purpose, which is said to have come to this conclusion.
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/nord-stream-anschlag-expertengutachten-stuetzt-die-spur-zur-andromeda-a-761602f2-330e-4946-a145-65744ae1b156

[strange bane]

https://diario16.com/sucesos-extranos-durante-la-expedicion-al-gasoducto-nord-stream-en-el-mar-baltico/

Brodsky's article.

This is the what you get from the AIS monitoring I mentioned a while back, it's all automated and pings alarms to control centres when you stick around in areas.

I totally understand why he's trying to make it sound secretive and conspiratorial, but it's not, this is all rather commonplace.

Also the context of SafeSeaNet contacting Nordstream, that doesn't happen lol, SafeSeaNet is arrival and departure information portal for your ship carrying DGs, your crews details for immigration, customs checks, paperwork, passenger list and everything else, it's just a data sharing portal used to make sea trade between European countries more seamless.

Personally, I've used it and there's nowhere you could put "I'm going to visit the Nordstream sites," and irregardless, it wouldn't be shared with some random company. The Nordstream control centre got "upset" because you breached their AIS alarm zones they pay some firm to monitor, and it set off an automatic trigger to tell someone to fire an email to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAa1GiNdgM

[junior moat]

yeah

I got them beers 🍻

[strange bane]

Should we make a Bingo Card?

[junior moat]

https://myfreebingocards.com/bingo-card-generator

[strange bane]

Bryce first.

[velvet rain]

Very predictable so far.

[velvet rain]

Got one

[strange bane]

"Keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down"

[tired monolith]

Forgot the Norwegians

[strange bane]

And that's the way, ah ah, I like it, ah ah.

[strange bane]

Erik is Swedish

Close enough.

[tired monolith]

Sweden doesnt have oil and gas though, which is obviously the key to this 😉

[velvet rain]

Hersh

[strange bane]

SEYMOUR HERSH!

Who was willing to go on the record

[velvet rain]

[strange bane]

To go on the record, you've got to publicly disclose your name.

[storm wren]

Russia is literally just inviting any blogger to speak at the UNSC

[strange bane]

Being an "anonymous source" is not going on the record.

[strange bane]

Can we speak at the UNSC on behalf of the CIA

/s

DUTCH INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES!

We have two, so I guess plural is justified.

[storm wren]

I bet there's no consistency among any of these

It's just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Just Russia's usual strategy whenever they've got nothing.

[velvet rain]

It's a wild mix of all the narratives Russia ever pushed on the topic.

It wasn't the Andromeda, but also it was still Ukraine, but also US.

[strange bane]

You can the nationality from engine sound

You heard it here first.

[storm wren]

I expect this is quite frustrating for other speakers who still take themselves seriously.

[velvet rain]

Feels like the Ukrainian biolabs speeches all over again.

[strange bane]

BRODSKY!

[velvet rain]

"It doesn't matter because it's the West anyway" (not a direct quote) is an interesting approach to consolidating the "US did it" and "Ukraine did it" narratives.

[strange bane]

"Compensating the harmed parties"

[velvet rain]

Reparations for Russia?

[strange bane]

No mention of Erik yet, I assume they are no longer friends.

[velvet rain]

[strange bane]

😢

[velvet rain]

[storm wren]

He should have ironed his shirt

[velvet rain]

He's completely ignoring the statements by the investigating nations.

[storm wren]

It's the UNSC, not a job interview at McDonald's

[strange bane]

"Investigators refuse to share sensitive investigative information with rando"

[velvet rain]

The quote was suspiciously tweet-length.

[storm wren]

This is just the same nonsesne that they pulled with MH17 and chemical weapons in Syria

[strange bane]

Russian representative.

[velvet rain]

Ohh, Russia speaking.

[strange bane]

"They confirm our version of events"