German prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man they believe was involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, which connect Russia and Germany.
The man, who was identified by the media as 44-year-old Volodymyr Zhuravlov, is a professional diver who was last seen in Poland, but Polish prosecutors have said the suspect has already left the country, making it unclear if he will actually be arrested.
The Nord Stream pipelines were bombed in September 2022. At the time, many Western journalists and officials were quick to blame Russia even though it didn’t make sense for Moscow to bomb its own pipelines.
In 2023, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report that alleged the pipelines were bombed under the direction of President Biden. According to Hersh’s account, US Navy divers planted explosives on the pipelines during NATO exercises in the Baltic Sea in June 2022, and they were detonated by a Norwegian spy plane a few months later.
As evidence that the US had the motive for the attack, Hersh’s report pointed to threats from President Biden and former State Department official Victoria Nuland that the US would take action against Nord Stream if Russia invaded Ukraine. After the sabotage, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the destruction of the pipelines a “tremendous opportunity” to get Europe off of Russian gas.
Hersh’s report that the US was behind the bombing has not been confirmed by other sources, and Western officials later began telling media outlets that Ukraine might have been responsible. The leading theory is that a small number of Ukrainians rented a sailboat in Poland from where they carried out the attack, which would have required a large amount of explosives.
The Washington Post reported in November 2023 that a jailed Ukrainian official, Col. Roman Chervinsky, coordinated the attack on the pipelines and that he ultimately answered to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief. But that report has also not been confirmed, and Chervinsky, who was jailed for an unrelated case, denied involvement in the Nord Stream bombings.
This always raised an eyebrow:
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/27/gravy-train-independent-audit-ukraine
As usual all the “investigations” will lead to nothing, fact is the Germans are nothing but subservient to the corrupt USA and nothing will change anytime soon unless the Germans politicians (week as piss) get some real man with long pans. Will this happens ?
I wouldn't say corruption is the driving force for the US in their terrorist attack on German infrastructure. It is part of their war on Russia, and at the same time tackles unwanted competition from European industrial power.
The Germans will play along. Not before they are being sanctioned you will know that German interests are being served.
The arrest warrant was issued in June according to the Financial Times. The Polish protected him, allowing him to comfortably and properly take care of his affairs and let him move across the border into Ukraine in July. And so now mid August he probably got settled and they think it time to publicize it more widely I guess.
Albert, that is corruption. Like organized crime.
Organized crime it is, it's a terrorist attack, an off the scale environmental crime and since it sought to undermine the German economy also de facto a declaration of war, were it not that not only Germany preemptively surrendered but actively participated in it's own economic destruction.
But corruption implies the prime motivating factor is short term financial gain. I think it is much worse than that. I think the prime motivating factor is a fanatical belief in neoconservative ideology. They considered this an important strategic move in the war against Russia. Corruption would have been much preferable, as it usually doesn't culminate in suicidal behavior.
Corruption implies acts for personal gain, which is what this is all about. This is not done to benefit anyone but those at the top. Being corrupt doesn’t imply intelligence or fear of consequences. It often doesn’t.
It is Treason, they sold the nation the same way the Ukrainian Nazis sold their nation.
Scholz is the German Zelensky. The majority parties CDU/SPD are broken the same as the democratic party here.
It is more, it is treason by the ruling coalition against the German people. The government is bought and paid for by the ruling elite, the war profiteers. Tell Aviv and Washington rule the democracies and only Orban has a spine to stand up against the demons in Tel Aviv.
We need an army of Orbans. Men with character, common sense and courage. Kudos to Orban and the Hungarian people who elected him.
They are as corrupt as the USA. I truly believe the same money elite put them there.
Western democracies are ruled by corrupt and criminal people.
The evidence also points to secret service powers allegedly arranging those environmental and sabotage offences …
https://www.euractiv.com/topics/nord-stream-2/
https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15683.doc.htm Nord Stream – Need to Protect Critical Infrastructure
https://www.unep.org/technical-highlight/impact-nord-stream-gas-leak-methane-emissions
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/leaks-in-nord-stream-1-2-will-cause-serious-climate
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/brief-14-august-24
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/former-german-govt-strongly-lobbied-private-sector-project-nord-stream-2-media
https://www.gem.wiki/Nord_Stream_Gas_Pipeline
https://www.energycharter.org/fileadmin/DocumentsMedia/Presentations/CBP-NordStream.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X22001766#b22 Nord Stream 2: A prelude to war
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/falling-like-dominoes-the-impact-of-nord-stream-on-russian-gas-flows-in-europe/
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/690705/EPRS_BRI(2021)690705_EN.pdf The Nord Stream 2 pipeline
https://studentbriefs.law.gwu.edu/ilpb/2022/11/30/nord-stream-sabotage/
https://www.state.gov/sanctioning-ns2ag-matthias-warnig-and-ns2ags-corporate-officers/
https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/921
"The Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019, 22 U.S.C. 9526 note, as amended (PEESA), requires the imposition of sanctions with respect to the provision of vessels engaged in specified activities for the construction of certain Russian energy export pipelines, including the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, the TurkStream pipeline project, or any project that is a successor to either such project."
The Biden regime did a great job destroying the allies, their economies, Germany and the EU. Most NATO members are also EU members. Biden sanction EU members, forcing them to sanction each other if the do not abide sanctioning, Iran and Russia and others. What a great President demented Biden is, bullying and extortions and military threat is all he knows.
Now he is trying the method on China after irrational Trump started it when he was president.
Dying empires die with lousy regimes in power.
Well, if you want to know more about American capitalism, monopoly capitalism, you might reach for the readings, monographs by John Kenneth Galbraith and Paul A. Baran.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/obituaries/john-kenneth-galbraith-97-dies-economist-held-a-mirror-to.html
http://digamo.free.fr/galb2001.pdf The essential Galbraith
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.120773/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater A History Of Economics – The Past As The Present
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8xs5zkx/entire_text/ Paul Alexander Baran
http://digamo.free.fr/barans66.pdf Baran/Sweezy: Monopoly Capital – An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order
http://digamo.free.fr/baran57.pdf Paul A. Baran: The Political Economy of Growth
Please also compare my two points of view on this article (Sorted: oldest): https://original.antiwar.com/megan_russell/2024/08/14/the-us-is-preparing-for-an-unwinnable-war-against-china/
PS: The digital forum of the medium ‘Antiwar’ needs a software extension to link directly to a user's point of view.
@bernhardbinzenbonn:disqus
More links than I can handle, thank you.
I do know about Galbraith and his son. I also read Richard Wolf and Michael Hudson and more. Baran is new to me, I will look for his writings.
I see the brutality of the neoliberal Capitalism pure. Socialistic ideas did to some extent humanize brutality of ruthless capitalism. Capitalism, neoliberal economics, demonized and is destroying social democratic progress in Europe. It started with Thatcher and Reagan in my opinion.
De Gaulle was right when he vetoed BRITISH MEBERSHIP in the EU, the third time she knocked on the door he was gone and they let her in.
Load of bullshit.
You can bet that Zhuravlov is in Ukraine.
Maybe, if there is such a person in the first place. The ruling coalition is in big trouble. Young and well educated people kick the trash the coalition with the Greens has become.
Why else do they control and demonize reputable public figures, old and honorable retired politicians and Journalists like Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, a leading professional journalist, but not toing the line of the Scholz narrative.
The Scholz regime is in deep trouble that is why they keep lying and getting in more trouble.
If this is indeed true, Germany must feel pretty good about funding Ukraine to blow up the pipeline.
Germany had nothing to gain and lots to lose by destruction of the pipeline. It was a US or US/UK operation. And part of the plan was to kneecap German industry. Which is just what happened.
If Germany had so much to lose, why don't they fix the pipeline? It was only broken at one point.
You can bet your last ruble that- even if the Ukrainian guy pulled the trigger- he was absolutely enabled, bankrolled, and run by US intelligence assets. And now he's being outed as the Oswald in the US government's effort to tie up loose ends before the Ukraine situation implodes. One wonders who will get to him first- the CIA or the FSB. Either way, it will be ruled a suicide or 'shot while trying to escape'.
I will take that bet, but I want it in dollars. Rubles are useless.
Germany looking for a convenient scapegoat so they can close the books on the Nord Stream case. In order to protect whomever (US or UK or both) actually set the charges on the pipelines.
But the AfD ( a center-right normal conservative party who serve the German nations interests and not the USA, that does not make them NAZIS as they are being demonized) and other smaller parties will not let them, that is why they are looking for a scapegoat. CDU and SPD are now minority parties and die Gruenen are out. If they get lucky they can win one seat in the Parliament.
The people have not forgotten who blew up the pipeline and is deindustrializing their economy. USA/NATO allies did it.
Hypothesis: The Ukrainian involvement was about to come out anyway, so it was let out in a way that allows Zelenskyy to blame his domestic opponents for a “rogue operation” and pretend he has clean hands.
Such an amazing couple decades to have experienced, since, well, the 1990s. As a kid growing up thru the '80s I thought the hallmark of "the Future" was going to be amazing tech. Nope ! It's the suspension of laws of physics and reality.
Whether it was the impossible suicide of a grunge star; most details of 9/11; viruses that defy evolution by so perfectly jumping to Species B that they no longer infect Species A…or NordStream.
NordStream. Where 3-5 rando Ukrainians easily rented an expensive sailboat in a different country with no evidence of any skill or training in seamanship. Who then tootled off into the Baltic Sea, dove to remarkable depths without the requisite training and gasses, found the pipeline EASILY despite having perhaps 15 mins at depth AND with estimates on grid searching a 1km x 1 km area needing about 3 YEARS to locate the pipeline. They set their explosives properly (no narcosis mind you) in 15 mins, returned to the surface and their boat with NO hyperbaric chamber on board, sailed back to port, turned over the keys, and wandered off.
I can buy a commercial aircraft folding in its wings before hitting the Pentagon and penning 4-5 concrete walls, quicker'n I can buy the "official narrative" on NordStream.
“Where 3-5 rando Ukrainians …with no evidence of any skill or training in seamanship …. dove to remarkable depths without the requisite training and gasses.”
Sure, if by that you mean six active duty military personnel with maritime experience, including an experienced boat captian, and four experienced deep sea divers, including a diving instructor, operating at depths of around 100 meters (a not untypical dive depth — you can get master classes for 150-200 meter diving).
The Dormant Germans are actually doing something…?!
They pretend, the Poles report the guy already left the country. He went up in smoke. The 2 oldest parties CDU and SPD are minor players now, Scholz is a door mat for Netanyahu/Biden. Young and old Germans are fed up with them and the holocaust extorsions.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
It doesn't matter whom they pin this on. The only relevant question is "Who benefits?".
Not the German people and they know it, they don't forget, the American people have not forgotten the Israeli attack on the Liberty.
Most American do not know about the friendly fire incident on the Liberty. That was a long time ago. Just like most American don't know about North Korea capturing the USS Pueblo 7 months later, which was not an accident.
For those people who believe Israel deliberating attack an US ship, one simple question, what would Israel gain by attacking the USA? The most stupid answer I have ever got was that Israel was going to blame it on Egypt. LOL. One, Egypt was beaten at the point in war and two, more importantly, the Israel planes and ships carried the star of David marking.
“more importantly, the Israel planes and ships carried the star of David marking.”
The Liberty was clearly marked too. And the attack went on for hours. It was not a “friendly fire” incident, it was an Israeli attack on the US Navy.
They need some propaganda, just more of the same will not change public opinion. The old parties must pay the piper in Washington, it is killing them.
What do they expect with a stupid trampoline girl like Baerbock as secretary of state, her stupidity beats Blinken, a stupid Kinderbuch AUTHOR who can't add 2+2 as finance minister and a spineless little worm as chancellor, nothing surprises. They match the stupidity in Washington, London, and Paris. The epic failure of a chain of democratic governments, all trampled on the the constituents who elected them, now they have to pay the price.
They serve their paymasters not the voters.