Thread by @OAlexanderDK

It is funny to see all the people who have spent the last month stating that US intelligence is constantly lying and can’t be trusted, now suddenly pivot to believing anonymous US officials and intelligence.

nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/…

Unfortunately the new New York Times article doesn’t give any new actionable information that can be examined.

“U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains.”

While an interesting development, I don’t feel that there is any real substance in the article that brings us measurably closer to knowing the truth about what happened. Hopefully at some point in the near future we get more actual evidence in one direction or the other.

There are a few things in this series of events that don’t quite add up on the surface.

- Why only 3/4 pipes targeted?
- Why NS2 targeted 80km away from NS1?
- No evidence of post blast investigation inspecting NS2 and removing unexploded charges.

Was this done by a Pro-Ukrainian group, one would expect that all four pipes would have been targets.

As only three were destroyed this would mean at least one charge failed. Nothing suggests that Danish ships were looking for an unexploded charge at the NS2 site.

A small non-government operation would also be more inclined to place the charges closer together as this is easier. The two NS1 charges were 6km apart with the NS2 leak being 80km away.

A large amount of unnecessary increased complexity.

I can’t wait to see the Russian government’s reaction though.

First they had proof it was the “Anglo-Saxons” and Liz Truss. Then they went all in on Hersh’s article.

What do they do now?

If Russia had any indication that the NS blasts were caused by a Pro-Ukrainian group, it would have been in their best interest to immediately blame them instead of NATO.

Blaming Pro-Ukrainian groups would have been the best way to try to undermine western support for Ukraine

The fact that Russia never decided to, even comically, create an elaborate narrative where it was Ukraine has always surprised me.

So far I have been unable to find any corroborating evidence to support this story using AIS and other data. Will continue to investigate though.

zeit.de/politik/auslan…

Additional questions this raises:

- Previous statements by officials have stated that 1000s of lbs of explosives were used at each site. How are you transporting this on a rental yacht as well as diving to place it?

- While AIS is not mandatory, I expect that the company who owns the rental yacht would have one installed. If this was disabled, that would be very suspicious and probably result in problems regarding both the rental contract and insurance

Interestingly though, this timeline does line up with the Minerva Julie arriving directly over the NS1 explosion sites on September 5th

If a “pro-Ukrainian” group decided to blow NS with 1000s of lbs of explosives, why sail from and acquire the explosives in Germany of all places?

Quite the coincidence for the Minerva Julie, with links to Russia, just so happens to be suspiciously circling the site at the exact same time as a “pro-Ukrainian” group decides to plant explosives on the pipes.

If the “pro-Ukrainian” divers used the rented yacht to place explosives on NS1, there would have been basically no time from the 6th-13th September where the Minerva Julie wouldn’t have have been able to see the operation.

Also why choose to blow up the one of the two NS2 pipes at the exact location where the Russian Akademik Cherskiy picked up work after the Solitaire was forced to stop due to sanctions.

The only logical reason in a situation where this was done by "pro-Ukrainian" divers would be to try to frame Russia, in which why was the other NS2 pipe not sabotaged at the location where the Pioneering Spirit stopped?

There is no evidence that this area was investigated at all after the explosions, indicating that this was never an area that was part of the investigation.

Not sure I understand this final point.

The high quality of the passport forgeries, explosives and experienced diving mean a non-state actor is more likely than a governmental actor that would have a much easier time doing all of these?

https://twitter.com/holger_stark/status/1633227370684465162

Why did they drive the explosives from Poland into Germany and sail from there, when renting a boat in Poland would be easier and closer.

A large portion of the boats that dock in Christiansø during the summer are Polish flagged.

https://twitter.com/MaxRTucker/status/1633370659941150723

The man who reportedly financed this entire sophisticated operation had no idea that Ukrainians blowing up pipelines that had previously supplied Germany with a large amount of gas could increase opposition to the support Ukraine receives?

The rented yacht was searched on January 18-20th 2023.

The German company that rented the boat out is not suspected of any wrongdoing

welt.de/politik/deutsc…

The boat was docked at Christiansø some time between September 16th and 18th. Interestingly just after the Minerva Julie left the area.

ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfun…

Danish police started investigating the presence of the boat at Christiansø in December - January.

They returned on January 18th to try to get more information, which is the same day as German police searched the suspected boat.

On the 5th January a message was posted on the local Facebook group asking for pictures of the harbor in the timeframe. At this time they were already looking for one specific vessel according to the post.

According to the SPEIGEL description of the vessel it is very likely one of Mola Yachting's two Bavaria Cruiser 50s.

They match the size, accommodations and price described in the article.

https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1633567163889098757

The Bavaria Cruiser 50s are 15.57m long, can accommodate 11 people and cost 2998 Euros a week for the time period we are interested in.

mola-yachtcharter-ostsee.de/Yacht/Yacht.ph…

The two Bavaria Cruiser 50s that Mola Yachting operate are from 2012 and 2013.

They are also not equipped with AIS according to the website.

Wieck auf dem Darß seems to be an error. The harbormaster is interviewed here. He knows nothing and suspects it is a mix up. It does not seem like he has talked to any police or authorities prior to this interview.

ostsee-zeitung.de/mecklenburg-vo…

This makes sense as Wieck auf dem Darß isn't deep enough for a Bavaria Cruiser 50 to dock.

Zeit undoubtedly meant the nearby Wiek instead which is deep enough and not as far out of the way.

Russia doing everything they can to talk down this theory and stick with the Hersh story.

"As for some kind of pro-Ukrainian" Dr. Evil ", who organized all this, it's hard to believe in it," Dmitry Peskov

militarynews.ru/story.asp?rid=…

As it is now out there, I can also confirm that the "Andromeda" is the yacht in question

spiegel.de/panorama/justi…

The Andromeda can be seen in this video from 2017 that @AricToler helped me find last night.

@AricToler Screenshot from the video showing the Bavaria Cruiser 50 "Andromeda"

@AricToler I'm not entirely sure why people are pretending that I am the one that decided that this yacht is involved. I just found that yacht that the the Zeit article was talking about and was investigated by the police.

I didn't choose the damned boat.

An update with what we know and the new questions posed by this supposed scenario (there are a lot).

oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/the-nord-str…