An explosion of misinformation
On 26th September 2022, some seven months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Geological Survey of Denmark seismometers recorded a spike measuring 2.3 on the Richter scale at 2:03am local time (1:03am British Summer Time). It then measured a second spike, with a 2.1 magnitude, at 7:03pm local time, 6:03pm BST. Seismometers in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Norway recorded corroborating data. Simultaneously, the German end of the Nord Stream pipelines recorded a huge and sudden pressure drop, from 105 bar to only seven. Military response aircraft sent to investigate filmed huge methane gas leaks bubbling up through the Baltic Sea.
The synchronised explosions across all four of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, and the size of the ruptures in the pipes, left no doubt that the incident had been the result of deliberate sabotage. Furthermore, the technical requirements and complexity of any such clandestine operation suggested a state actor – and from only a limited number of states at that.
First, the pipelines themselves were made of steel as much as an inch and a half thick. They were then further encased in as many as 4.3 inches of concrete. To tear huge gashes in a maximum of six inches of concrete and steel, shape charges (a type of bomb in which the explosive force is channelled in one direction) of perhaps more than 16 stone each would have been used (which matched the seismic readings). Such huge shape charges are not commonly available.
Secondly, the pipelines lay under as many as 60 fathoms (360ft) of water. The deepest of the explosions was almost 50 fathoms. At this depth, divers feel the weight of 10 atmospheres pressing upon them. Special breathing gasses are required. Bulky dry suits must be worn. The divers would have had to have contended with strong currents, and the Baltic is a busy shipping lane. A decompression chamber and a specialised doctor would be required for the returning divers.
For these reasons, military divers and underwater demolition experts – sometimes referred to as ‘frogmen’ – are among the most highly trained and most selective of all special forces. Indeed, a relatively small number of nations maintain the sort of special forces capable of carrying out an underwater demolition such as the September 2022 sabotage of Nord Stream.
Media reports that the sabotage had probably been committed by a state actor were therefore logical. Less reasonable, however, was their credulous and imbalanced reporting that Russia was most likely to have been the ‘state actor’ in question. There was not a shred of evidence that even suggested Russia was responsible (there still isn’t, some five months later). In fact, there was no evidence that pointed at any specific culprit, Russia or otherwise. The only facts available were the explosions themselves, which could only have been deliberate sabotage, and the obvious difficulty of such an operation, which implied the culprit was one of a very small number of state actors, including Russia, but also the UK, France, the United States and a handful of others.
Yet, as The Guardian put it on 28th September, two days after the explosion: “Fingers pointed at Russia.” When The Daily Mail wrote the next day that “the world assumes it to have been” Russia, it was being accurate. Reports on the attacks quoted anonymous ‘defence’ and ‘intelligence’ sources as being of the belief that Russia carried out the attack (only the Kremlin was quoted as believing it was somebody else). Newspapers wrote technical articles on how Russia could have undertaken the operation – implying that it did, with the only unsolved puzzle being how.
Likewise, the Times reported on 29th September, that “Nato warned Russia that any further ‘deliberate attack’ on pipelines or other fuel supply infrastructure to Europe would be met with a ‘united and determined response’”. In the United States, John Brennan, the former Director of the CIA, said “Russia is the most likely suspect”, while Jack Keane, a retired US Army Four Star General, said that “Russia is the cause of it”. Even Mark Galeotti, one of the more rational Russia experts in Britain (and certainly one of the most knowledgeable), penned an article for The Spectator titled The Nord Stream blasts are Putin’s warning shot to the West.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the World Economy Editor of The Daily Telegraph, went even further, writing as though it was settled fact that Russia had destroyed Nord Stream. In an article published as late in the day as 24th November, he opined on the matter of the West’s sanctions war with Russia: “We must assume that nothing is off limits, given that Putin has already destroyed his own Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic.”
Mr Evans-Pritchard first rose to journalistic fame in the 1990s, when he had been so sceptical about the official version of President Bill Clinton’s past, and so tenacious in following up on leads, that Salon once referred to him as “the Pied Piper of the Clinton Conspiracists”. It therefore seems strange that in less than 30 years, and despite writing with pleasing elan, he could be reduced to such incuriosity and journalistic sloppiness. To be fair, he was not alone: the legacy media’s general coverage of the Nord Stream attacks was disgraceful, placing narrative before objectivity, and presenting guesswork as fact (albeit often under the protection of the passive voice).
In the absence of evidence, all that was left was motivation, and here, those who believed it was Russia had a rather difficult story to tell. For Russia, the Nord Stream pipelines were not only a crucial economic project in which it had invested tens of billions of dollars (and was set to make hundreds of billions in profit for decades hence), but central to the country’s geostrategy and foreign policy. Why would it want to destroy them? If it simply wanted to ‘weaponise’ its gas by further restricting the flow to Europe, why would it not simply turn off the taps?
Indeed, Russia had already done just that, ostensibly due to a dispute over the servicing of Nord Stream equipment. In the event, the natural gas volumes transported to Germany did not greatly decline after the explosions because the flow through Nord Stream 1 had already been significantly reduced, and Nord Stream 2 was never started. Further, the destruction of the pipelines deprived Russia of a crucial bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Europe: the ability to restart the flow of cheap gas.
Finally, if the Kremlin had wanted to send a warning to the West, why didn’t it simply go through diplomatic channels? Clearly, given their response to the Nord Stream attacks, Western governments, security agencies, militaries and experts already believed that Russia had the capability, ruthlessness and risk tolerance to carry out such an operation. Why, therefore, was there a need to demonstrate it? And if a demonstration was necessary, why would it destroy billions of dollars of its own infrastructure? It would be like Michael Corleone sending a warning to the other New York Families by killing one of his own leading capos.
Sadly, none of our much vaunted free press were much interested in asking these questions in the days and weeks after the Nord Stream attacks. Instead, newspapers pushed a narrative that suggested Russia as the most likely culprit – or, in some cases, as we have seen, that Russia was the culprit. In the next article, we will chronicle the breakdown of this narrative, and the effort to create a new one.
Read more from The Nord Stream Files:
Part one: A brief history of Nord Stream
Part three: The truth bubbles to the surface
Part four: Why this matters
