Seems Confirmed: US Destroyed German Pipelines

For anyone who needs convincing, Moon of Alabama has a remarkably thorough post this morning:

Whodunnit? - Facts Related to The Sabotage Attack On The Nord Stream Pipelines

Moon did the work to assemble what’s known—a bit more below. He begins with some common sense. The US is the party that has long opposed Europe receiving gas from Russia. The US has also issued threats against the pipeline. Then:

Russia has no motive to destroy the pipelines it owns. These are valuable, long term assets and the gas that escaped from them yesterday was on its own worth some $600 to $800 million.

During the war in Ukraine Russia has not stopped to deliver gas to Europe as contractually agreed. Instead European countries, Poland, Ukraine and Germany have blocked overland and sub sea pipelines that brought gas to Germany.

German people have protested against the U.S. ordered shut down of the Nord Stream II pipeline. (Nord Stream I was recently offline because Siemens was prevented by sanctions from maintaining its compressor turbines.)

The motive is clearly on the US side, since in a political sense, the sanctions war is clearly going Russia’s way—as witness recent electoral results across Europe. There’s no point in re-beating that horse. But Moon also gathers damning circumstantial evidence that points to the means. What follows is the tip of Moon’s iceberg.

First, a separate but related incident:

In 2015 Pipeline Journal reported:

[T]he Swedish military has successfully cleared a remote operated vehicle (drone) rigged with explosives found near Line 2 of the Nord Stream Natural Gas offshore pipeline system.

The vehicle was discovered during a routine survey operation as part of the annual integrity assessment of the Nord Stream pipeline. Since it was within the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) approximately 120 km away from the island of Gotland, the Swedes called on their armed forces to remove and ultimately disarm the object.
...
The national identity of the drone has not been verified so far, as many countries use Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) of a similar construction, [Jesper Stolpe, Swedish Armed Forces spokesman,] said.

In other words, the pipeline has been targeted by state operators for years.

But then—and this is copied from Moon’s post—beginning with this account of a recent naval exercise in the Baltic. Specifically, the naval exercises were led by the US Sixth Fleet and took place close to the sabotage sight, involving sophisticated underwater technology:

The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO. This from June 2022:

"BALTOPS, with the high degree of complexity, tested our collective readiness and adaptability, …

Led by U.S. Sixth Fleet, BALTOPS 22 was command and controlled by STRIKFORNATO. From the staff’s headquarters in Oeiras, Portugal, Rear Adm. James Morley, STRIKFORNATO deputy commander, was responsible for ensuring participants met all training objectives.
...
[Rear Adm. John Menoni, commander, Expeditionary Strike Group Two,] also noted several instances in which forces stepped beyond know warfare methods to push limits with new technologies at sea and ashore. “Whether it was mine-hunting UUVs, persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance from an observable UAV, …

At sea, ships fine-tuned tactical maneuvering, anti-submarine warfare, live-fire training, mine countermeasures operations, and replenishments at sea. …, mine operations served as an ideal area of focus for testing new technology.

Scientists from five nations brought the latest advancements in Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios. The BALTOPS Mine Counter Measure Task Group ventured throughout the Baltic region practicing ordnance location, exploitation, and disarming in critical maritime chokepoints.

While the Baltops 22 maneuver already took place in June and July of this year the U.S. Sixth Fleet left the Baltic Sea only a few days ago (in German, my translation):

…

Parts of the Kearsange operations in the Baltic Sea were dedicated to test special sub sea mine destruction technologies:

A significant focus of BALTOPS every year is the demonstration of NATO mine hunting capabilities, and this year the U.S. Navy continues to use the exercise as an opportunity to test emerging technology, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa Public Affairs said June 14.

In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.

Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring all under the direction of U.S. 6th Fleet Task Force 68.

Off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, is where the pipelines were hit. Just days ago the USS Kearsarge was in that area:

AZ @AZmilitary1 - 13:52 UTC · Sep 27, 2022

An expeditionary detachment of US Navy ships led by the universal amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge days ago was in the Baltic Sea
It was 30 km from the site of the alleged sabotage on the Nord Stream-1 gas pipeline and 50 km from the threads of Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline

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AZ @AZmilitary1 - 14:12 UTC · Sep 27, 2022

On September 2, interesting maneuvers performed by an American helicopter with the call sign FFAB123. Then it was assumed that this board was from the USS Kearsarge air wing, and today more details were looked.

According to the website ads-b.nl , this call sign was used by 6 boards that day, of which we managed to establish the side numbers of three. All of them are Sikorsky MH-60S.

By superimposing the FFAB123 route on the scheme of yesterday's accident, we get a rather interesting result — the helicopter either flew along the Nord Stream-2 highway, or even between the points where the accident occurred.

The Sikorsky MH 60S carry sophisticated equipment that allow them to locate underseas pipelines. Follow the link for more details re those helicopters and their flight paths.

Anyway, Tucker was excellent last night: