Nordstream Sabotage - Mortymer´s hypothesis

Monday, April 3, 2023

033 - UK has changed its security structures on 23-09-2022

PREFACE/ISSUE

If UK is the suspect of the Nordstream sabotage, and if the operation was planned at the state level, these individuals belonged to power structures at the time of the event (26 September 2022):

National Security Council

The National Security Council (NSC) is the main forum for collective discussion of the government’s objectives for national security and about how best to deliver them in the current financial climate.
A key purpose of the Council is to ensure that ministers consider national security in the round and in a strategic way. The Council is chaired by the Prime Minister.

I. The UK changed on 23/09/2022 just before the Nordstream affair its security structures

23 Sept 2022 - Truss axes national security council, sparking ‘talking-shop’ concerns

Labour says new merged foreign policy council could reduce Whitehall policy-makers’ focus on security

Liz Truss has scrapped the national security council and merged it with two Boris Johnson-era foreign policy committees in a structure that Labour warned risked diluting the government’s security focus.

Created in 2010 under the coalition, led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to better coordinate security policy after the disaster of the Iraq war, the NSC is now to be replaced by a broad eight-strong foreign policy and security council (FPSC).

[M: The change happened just three days before Nordstream was attacked]

II. The Wayback Machine internet archine:

It allows to look at the snapshot from 23/26-09-2022 - here

(there is some doc on UK gov pages but I could not locate it yet)

Foreign Policy and Security Council (FPSC)

under Prime Minister Liz Truss:

Subcommitees:

Nuclear Deterrence and Security Sub-Committee

The terms of reference of the National Deterrence and Security Sub-Committee is to consider issues relating to nuclear deterrence and security. As of 23 September 2022, its membership is as follows:

National Security Ministers

National Security Ministers also meet as a sub-committee due to "...the breadth and ambition of the [government's] agenda...". As of September 2022, it is unclear whether this sub-committee still exists. This sub-committee may be chaired by the Prime Minister or they may choose to delegate chairpersonship as follows:

13 Oct 2022 - "REVISED COMMITTEE STRUCTURE AND INTERGRATED REVIEW REFRESH"

Committee Structure

The Prime Minister has made changes to the previous NSC, including renaming it the Foreign Policy and Security Council (FPSC). The Prime Minister will chair the FPSC on a monthly basis and meetings will focus on delivery and implementation of the Government’s key foreign policy and security priorities. The core members will be:

● The Prime Minister
● Deputy Prime Minister
● Chancellor of the Exchequer
● Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
● Secretary of State for the Home Department
● Secretary of State for Defence
● Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
● Attorney General
● Minister of State (Minister for Security)

Other Ministers and officials will be invited to attend based on the agenda.

III. The next UK government has again reverted to the old structure

19 October 2022 - Ukraine war: Mysterious defence secretary trip to Washington amid fears of Russian escalation
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is on a hastily-arranged visit to Washington to talk with his counterpart and White House officials about "shared security concerns" including Ukraine and Russia, a source and an official said.
The secretive, last-minute nature of the trip and a comment by a second defence minister, James Heappey - who said the conversations that Mr Wallace would be having on Tuesday were "beyond belief" - suggested particularly sensitive and serious issues would be discussed.
However, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly this morning sought to play down the significance of the trip.
"He will be visiting his counterpart at the Pentagon and senior figures at the White House."
"My boss, Ben Wallace, is in Washington this morning having the sort of conversations that… beyond belief really the fact we are a time when these sort of conversations are necessary."
The defence secretary had been due to appear before a committee of MPs in London to discuss the UK, US and NATO on Tuesday but had to cancel.

19 Oct 2022 - Special Relationship goes silent

Ben Wallace, the U.K. defence secretary, made a secretive trip to Washington on Tuesday, to discuss with the Biden administration Ukrainian matters that his deputy described as “beyond belief.”

20 Oct 2022 - Liz Truss resigns as PM and triggers fresh leadership election

1 November 2022 - Following a short change of title to Foreign Policy and Security Council,...

...the National Security Council has been re-established and meets regularly.

IV. About Failure to permit members of the Defence Select Committee access to UK Special Forces

1 Nov 2022 - Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that British navy personnel had blown up the Nord Stream pipelines in September.

1 Nov 2022 - Russia asks UK's ex-premier about explosions at Nord Stream pipelines

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday urged the former UK prime minister to explain her message allegedly sent to the US secretary of state right after the accident at Nord Stream gas pipelines at the Baltic Sea.

"Honestly, I don't care who and how (they) got this information. I am interested in London's response to the following question: Did Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss send a message to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken right after the explosion at Nord Stream gas pipeline with the words 'it's done?'," Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

Zakharova added that "millions of people all over the world are waiting for an answer to this question," stressing that they "have the right to know what happened to the global energy security and what is the role of Anglo-Saxons in the committed terrorist attack."

3 Nov 2022 - UK’s Defence Committee refused access to UK Special Forces in heated debate with Defence Minister.

In a British Parliamentary Deference Select Committee on the 2nd November, 2022, the UK Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, has been challenged for his failure to permit members of the Defence Select Committee access to UK Special Forces.

In a heated exchanged, the Committee chair, Tobias Ellwood MP said that the UK Special Forces were not the best in the world ‘about scrutiny’, and that the Special Forces – including units such as the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Services (SBS) – were “not above scrutiny.”

When asked if the Ministry of Defence could facilitate a visit to Hereford, home of the SAS, the Deference Minister said “no” and went on to argue that “this committee does not have oversight of Special Forces and its operations.”

The chair of the Defence Committee disagreed, saying: “I’m sorry, we have oversight of the Armed Forces in the UK Defence.”

Mr Wallace then said the Special Forces were very busy in operational work.
...Earlier this year, Action on Armed Violence raised concerns about a lack of parliamentary oversight of the UK’s Special Forces...

V. Britain’s culture of no comment (July 2016 - by Emily Knowles)

"The blanket opacity policy that the UK has for its SOF is not standard practice. Other countries, such as the US, Canada, and Australia, make public statements about SOF deployments to active conflict zones, and respond to questions about their mandate and strategy.

The US has increased its transparency over SOF in recent years without it restricting their ability to deploy SOF. The fact that the UK public, and the parliament that represents them, do not have access to any official information about the deployment of SOF means that there can be no meaningful, informed debate about the UK’s role in some of the most important conflicts of our age. This opacity could have damaging implications for the effectiveness, accountability, and legitimacy of UK military options abroad..."

VI. Another changes in UK

26 July 2022 - Celebrated head of the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service retires

Taking over from Commodore Perks is Commodore Dunn who himself has a wealth of submarine experience stretching back to 1989 when he joined the Royal Navy aged just 18 and volunteered for service on submarines.

10 August 2022 - The Prime Minister has approved the appointment of Vice Admiral Sir Chris Gardner KBE as the new CEO of the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA).

Related posts about UK:

OTHER UK RELATED POSTS

most of the research about UK´s role, motives has been conducted in 2023

The summary is here:

121 - Hersh´s claim vs Hard data - and - Mortymer´s Nordstream hypothesis recap

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- INDEX -

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Sunday, April 2, 2023

032 - Attempts To 'Renormalize' Relations With Russia were curbed

PREFACE/ISSUE

This post is explored UK´s political pressure on Europe to prevent normalization of relations with Russia in summer 2022 before Nordstream is blown up.

I. Why just Nordstream pipelines were taken down?

The EEZ vulnerability:

To understand who blew the Nordstream one needs to understand why just #Nordstream was taken out.
Neither Brotherhood, Yamal, Soyuz, Progress, Blue stream nor Turk Stream...
-> An attack by a third state inside borders of another country or in its territorial waters...
...exactly what was the point of Danish and Swedish official statements,... is an attack on its state.
Therefore only certain pipelines IN CERTAIN AREAS could be attacked <-
...do understand this and you get who has done it.

In my first post there are hints.

[M: Note that only 7, 8, 9 are through the sea - this vulnerability was exploited.]

(source Erik Andersson 🐘 @Erkperk)

[M: See that these are close to Territorial waters but blasts are in EEZs.]

[M: Furthest west in Baltic Sea, and furthest from Russian enclave of Kaliningrad]

Note the situation in the Black sea:

CONCLUSSION:

"The proof is in the pudding"

The attack on the Blue Stream, Turk Stream pipelines is impossible.

Both run through EEZs of Russia and Turkey,

and do not pass any Exclusive Economic Zone of a 3rd state!

[MRT: someone very high has studied legal vulnerabilities of undersea infrastructure i Exclusive Economic zones of 3rd party states -

051 - Rishi Sunak´s 2017 report about vulnerability of subsea internet cables]

II. Attempts To 'Renormalize' Relations With Russia were curbed

25 Feb 2022 - UK: PM call with NATO leaders:

The Prime Minister added that the world must make certain President Putin would fail in this act of aggression. Ukraine was showing strong resistance. He added that there could be no normalisation of relations with Russia after this act.

4 March 2022 - Putin wants ‘normalization’ of global relations, saying there is ‘no need’ for sanctions on Russia

“There is no need to escalate the situation, impose restrictions. We fulfil all obligations,” he said. “If someone does not want to cooperate with us within the framework of single cooperation, and by doing so harms themselves, they will, of course, harm us, too.”

19 March 2022 - Britain's Boris Johnson Warns Against Attempts To 'Renormalize' Relations With Russia

19 March 2022 - UK warns against postwar reset with Putin — as it happened

5 May 2022 - A strange message to Boris Johnson and V. Zelenski appeared o Twitter.

12 May 2022 - UK PM Johnson says return to normal relations ‘very difficult’ for Russia’s Putin

Asked during an interview on LBC Radio whether Putin could be welcomed back on the global stage if he were to repent, Johnson said: “Repentance is going to be very difficult for Vladimir Putin now ... nothing is impossible, I suppose, but I just cannot see for the life of me how we can renormalize relations with Putin now.”

12 May 2022 - Russian sanctions prohibit Gazprom from using Yamal-Europe for gas transit via Poland

Russian sanctions imposed on a number of foreign energy companies prohibit Gazprom from using the gas pipeline owned by EuRoPol GAZ (a joint venture between Gazprom and the Polish PGNiG, which owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline) to pump Russian gas through Poland, the Russian holding’s spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov said on Thursday.

"A ban has been established on transactions and payments in favor of persons under sanctions, in particular, for Gazprom, this means a ban on the use of a gas pipeline owned by EuRoPol GAZ to transport Russian gas through Poland," he said.

The Polish side repeatedly violated the rights of Gazprom as a shareholder of EuRoPol GAZ, and in late April added the Russian company to the sanctions list, blocking the ability to exercise rights to shares and other securities of the joint venture and receive dividends, Kupriyanov said.

Earlier, the Russian government blacklisted 31 companies from Germany, France and other European countries, as well as from Singapore and the USA. In particular, the list includes former European subsidiaries of Gazprom, traders, operators of underground gas storage facilities (UGS), as well as a joint venture between Gazprom and the Polish PGNiG, which owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline - EuRoPol GAZ.

19 May 2022 - West must not normalise relations with Putin again, says Boris Johnson

The west must not make the mistake of “normalising” relations with Vladimir Putin again after the invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson has said, as he warned that allowing Russia to win would herald intimidation from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

8 June 2022 Angela Merkel in the interview:

"But it wasn't an easy decision. "The thesis at the time was that once Nord Stream 2 is operational, Putin will stop supplying gas through Ukraine or even attack it." The West ensured that gas was routed through Ukraine anyway, and she continued to receive transit fees. Merkel pointed out that Russia then attacked Ukraine on February 24, when gas was not yet routed through Nord Stream 2 . "In this sense, gas was not a weapon," Merkel said."

17 June 2022 - Putin Says Russia-Ukraine Relations Will Normalize after ‘Special Military Operation’

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday at the St Petersburg Economic Forum that Russia anticipates restoring relations with Ukraine after the "special military operation" in that country concludes.

During a question-and-answer session with Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Putin said: "sooner or later, the situation will return to normal".

18 June 2022 - Merkel defends Nord Stream 2 decision
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her decisions to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. "I didn't believe in change through trade, but in connection through trade, with the second largest nuclear power in the world," Merkel told the editorial network Germany.
But it wasn't an easy decision. "The thesis at the time was that once Nord Stream 2 is operational, Putin will stop supplying gas through Ukraine or even attack it." The West ensured that gas was still routed through Ukraine and that they continued to receive transit fees.
Merkel pointed out that Russia then attacked Ukraine on February 24, when gas was not yet flowing through Nord Stream 2. "In this sense, gas was not a weapon," Merkel said.
Liquid gas was too expensive for the German economy
Merkel also justified the procedure at the time with economic considerations. "At the time, the German economy opted for pipeline gas transport from Russia because it was economically cheaper than liquid gas from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and later also from the USA," she explained.

They were willing to use taxpayers' money to support the construction of two terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Germany. "But until the last day of my tenure, no company built an LNG terminal in Germany because there was no importer who would have booked long-term capacities in advance because of the high price."

26 July 2022 - German ex-chancellor Schroeder in Moscow, Putin meeting possible

3 August 2022 - Gerhard Schröder confirms meeting with Putin again

3 August 2022 - Zelenskiy Finds Actions Of Former German Chancellor 'Disgusting'

Peskov said that Putin told Schroeder that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was ready to be used. He also claimed that Russian gas supplies have fallen to around 30 million cubic meters per day from 167 million cubic meters after Poland sanctioned the Yamal-Europe pipeline and Ukraine stopped flows via one of the routes.

19 August 2022 - Reopen Nord Stream 2 to ease our energy crisis, senior German politician urges

A senior figure within one of Germany's ruling parties has said the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia should be reopened, in a sign of an emerging rift over energy supplies as winter approaches...

5 September 2022 - Russia switches off Europe’s main gas pipeline until sanctions are lifted
Russia’s gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will not resume in full until the “collective west” lifts sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has said.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, on Monday acknowledged that certain political factions in the bloc wanted the EU to drop its support for Ukraine, push Kyiv into a ceasefire and abandon sanctions against Russia to ease economic pressure on European countries. He said those views were “not representative” of the position adopted by member states.

[M: German-Russian relations in terms of NordStream are connected to Schröder negotiations. See above.]

5 Sept 2022 - Russian Gas Cut-Off Scuppers German Plan to Bolster Reserves

Germany is unlikely to meet its target for filling natural gas storage sites to 95% by the start of November following the latest Russian supply cut, according to people familiar with the matter.

23 Nov 2022 - Boris Johnson Causes A Stir With Claims About Europe’s Initial Response To Russian Aggression

The former PM, who has tried to make his support for Ukraine one of the lasting legacies of his premiership, went a step further in a new broadcast interview with CNN Portugal.

Speaking on Monday, he said Germany, France and Italy all had very different responses compared to him when Russia was closing in on its European neighbour at the end of February.

23 Nov 2022 - “After all my anxieties...I pay tribute to the way the EU has acted. They have been united. The sanctions were tough.”

[M: Perhaps he has orchestrated the mission to cancel Nordstream?]

23 Nov 2022 - BBC - Ukraine war: How Germany ended reliance on Russian gas

III. Other pipelines

The claim here is that politically it was not possible to target directly other pipelines as well, on the top of the vulnerability of EEZ above.

Attacking Yamal-Europe would alleviate Belorussia and/or Poland.
Yamal was stopped by sanctions imposed by Poland.
Attacking Brotherhood, Soyuz, Progress Ukrainian pipeline network would weaken Ukraine, the UK ally. Ukraine stopped flows through one pipeline going through their territory.
Attacking TurkStream and BlueStream would alleviate Turkey.
Power of Siberia is a Russian pipeline to China which is unreachable.
The NordStream 1,2 are the only pipelines incorporated in Switzerland. Russia has 51 majority share in NS1 and full ownership of NS2.
It is the only pipeline which could be attacked and not cause war as it is not fully owned by Russian state.

IV. Nordstream II got legal out of bankruptcy protection extension

8 September 2022 - Swiss court gives Nord Stream 2 more time to avoid insolvency.

In May, the court granted a provisional moratorium against bankruptcy proceedings for the first time, which was valid until September 10. This period has now been extended by another four months.

10 Sept 2022 - Nord Stream 2 gas link operator wins further stay of bankruptcy: court

On May 11, Switzerland-based Nord Stream 2 AG was awarded a provisional stay of bankruptcy until Sept. 10 2022, according to a notice in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce.
In a new notice dated Sept. 8, a court in Zug awarded a four-month extension of the stay of bankruptcy from Sept. 10 until Jan. 10, 2023.
There have been calls from within Germany in recent weeks to allow Nord Stream 2 to begin operations after flows through the first Nord Stream system were curtailed and then halted altogether, with gas prices having surged to new records as a result.

[M: It is possible that there was no other option to stop legally the Nordstream 2 after this Swiss court decision. It is possible that the final decision was made after the court stated the extension.]

CONCLUSION/SUMMARY:
The UK was effected the least by having smallest reliance to Russian hydrocarbons yet the UK was most vocal about any positive diplomatic solution into the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Only Nordstream pipelines could be taken down because they are located outside the state borders or given states. Nordstream is in Exclusive Economic zones (EEZ) of Denmark and Sweden.

There is a possibility that pipelines to Turkey were targeted as well but there is very little information about it. Russia seemed to stop planning attack in Black Sea on 22/09, several days before the 26/09 event.

There is a possibility that Germany was discussing with Russia secretly about ending sanctions for sake of its economy. .

Notes:

More about the how UK lobbied against the Nordstream projects post

More about the German-USA deal about Nordstream 2 in this post

More about devastating effect of sanctions on European economy here.
More about sanctions and Russian contra action in this post here.