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Europe is starting to withdraw from Ukraine (MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
To understand the truth about the Nord Stream pipeline, one needs to master a certain form of “Kremlinology”. Everything about it is designed to obfuscate, every strand shrouded in prevarication and deceit.
From the start, the investigation was a textbook cover-up. The Swedish government rushed to secure evidence, citing their putative rights under international law, consciously boxing out any sort of independent, UN-backed inspection. Of course, after gathering all the evidence, the Swedish authorities studiously did exactly nothing, only to then belatedly admit that it actually had no legal right to monopolise the information in the first place.
The Germans, for their part, were also supremely uninterested in figuring out who pulled off the worst act of industrial sabotage in living memory against their country. In fact, over the course of a year-long non-investigation, we’ve mostly been treated to leaks and off-the-record statements indicating that nobody really wants to know who blew up the pipeline. The rationale here is bluntly obvious: it would be awfully inconvenient if Germany, and the West, learned the true answer.
Thus, the recent revelation that the true mastermind behind the ongoing deindustrialisation of Germany was none other than a Ukrainian by the name of “Volodymyr Z.” must have come as an unwelcome surprise. For not only is the idea that the authorities have suddenly cracked open the Nord Stream case not credible in the slightest, but the sloppy way in which the entire country of Ukraine is now being fingered is likely not an accident. Indeed, at the same time as the ghost of Nord Stream has risen from the grave, the German government announced its plans to halve its budget for Ukraine aid: whatever is already in the pipeline will be sent over, but no new grants of equipment are forthcoming. The German government is hunkering down for increased austerity, and so it is cutting Ukraine loose.
Germany, of course, is hardly alone. Even if there were enough money to go around, Europe is increasingly not just deindustrialising but demilitarising. Its stores of ammunition and vehicles are increasingly empty, and the idea of military rearmament — that is, creating entirely new military factories and supply chains — at a time when factories are closing down across the continent due to energy shortages and lack of funding is a non-starter. Neither France, the United Kingdom nor even the United States are in a position to maintain the flow of arms to Ukraine. This is a particular concern inside Washington DC, where planners are now trying to juggle the prospect of managing three theatres of war at the same time — in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Pacific — even though US military production is arguably insufficient to comfortably handle one.
And so, in an effort to save face in this impossible situation, Ukraine is now being held solely responsible for doing something it either did not do at all, or only did with the permission, knowledge, and/or support of the broader West. This speaks to the adolescent dynamic that now governs Western foreign policy in a multipolar world: when our impotence is revealed, find someone to blame.
The war in Ukraine, after all, was already supposed to be won, and Russia was supposed to be a rickety gas station incapable of matching the West either economically or militarily. Yet here we are: our own economies are deindustrialising, our military factories have proven completely incapable of handling the strain of a real conflict, and the Americans themselves are now openly admitting that the Russian military remains in a significantly stronger position. Meanwhile, Germany’s economic model is broken, and as its economy falls, it will drag many countries such as Sweden with it, given how dependent they are on exporting to German industrial firms.
10 years ago, during the 2014 Maidan protests, the realist John Mearsheimer caused a lot of controversy when he began warning that the collective West was leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and that our actions would lead to the destruction of the country. Well, here we are. At present, our only saving grace is the continuing offensive in Kursk — a bold offensive that will surely be remembered as a symptom of Ukraine’s increasing desperation.
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SubscribeIf the Ukraine war does one thing, it should be to encourage the west to re-militarise and re-industrialise (at least where military production is concerned). Russia is a “forever enemy”, and will need to be dealt with at some point, and other enemies will put their heads above the parapet at various stages.
They want you to support the Iran war next, and you will. Good man Martin
After that they want you to support the China war
Perhaps we could send Starmer over to Moscow or Beijing, to secure peace with honor, and peace in our time. I’m sure Putin or Xi would offer very generous terms. Or to Tehran – surely the Ayatollahs are reasonable men.
Does Starmer have one of those very pricey umbrellas that Chamberlain favored?
I’d support that plan provided we get a photo op with him holding the paper up, fluttering in the wind.
Neville Chamberlain still gets a lot of grief all these decades later for his agreement with Adolf Hitler, but it seems unjustified to me. He got nothing of value in the agreement but he gave up nothing of value either. And he did get information and a delay which was valuable for England to prepare for war.
What Neville Chamberlain did that was right, and that we should all emulate, is to talk with his enemy. We should talk with our enemies even more than our friends. Try to reach an agreement, even if it’s not worth the paper it is written on. Try to explore solutions. Because maybe, just maybe, one time it will work.
If all of that “Peace in our Time” guff was just an act, and he knew the German guy would tear up the agreement the instant it suited him, then Chamberlain deserves an Oscar! The consensus at the time was that Daladier knew he was buying nothing but a very little bit of time, but Chamberlain actually got conned.
Maybe, maybe not.
But it’s undeniable that Britain came within a whisker of losing the war in its early stages and that, if the war had come sooner, it would undoubtedly have lost it altogether.
So, whether he got conned or not, the little bit of time he bought was pretty important.
I don’t think that is “undeniable” at all. I think what is undeniable is that Chamberlain was a coward. Admittedly, Britain probably thought the French would exhibit both backbone and military competence, both of which failed to materialise.
At the Munich Conference that September, Neville Chamberlain seemed to have averted war by agreeing that Germany could occupy the Sudetenland, the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia – this became known as the Munich Agreement.
Yes, we should sold out other countries for what?
Reality was that by 1940 bombs were falling on London.
Hitler could had been stopped in 1938.
Czechs had powerful army and if UK and France stood firm, there was already puch organised against Hitler.
Obviously, time to act was even earlier when Hitler entered Rheinaland.
France and UK should had acted then.
There is no historical example when appeasing dictators worked.
It’s a petty point of pedantry, but Neville Chamberlain said “peace for our time”, not “peace in our time”. History remembers it the wrong way.
Ok, fair enough.
Yes, this Chamberlain “minime” is already talking about working with Xi.
Somehow this “human rights lawyer” has no problem with Chinese dictator.
But jails people in uk for posting comments on Facebook.
I’d prefer to deal with Iran by “non-war” means, and the only circumstance in which I’d advocate war with China is if they invade Taiwan. Russia is however in a different category.
Why is Russia a different category?
1) Russia is led by a warmongering tyrant. 2) Russia has (pretty much) always been led by warmongering tyrants. 3) The chances of Russia being led by somebody who isn’t a warmongering tyrant at any point in the next 100 years is somewhere between “negligible” and “nil”.
How does that make it different from Iran or even the US Neocons?
The people of Iran are actually quite liberal, and there is no guarantee the Mullahs will hang on to power long term. The Mullahs are actually acutely aware of this. Plus, Iran is a Shiite country surrounded by Sunni countries. There is plenty of dissention that can be sown in the Middle East using this as a lever. As to “US Neocons”, I would probably count myself in that group were it not for the fact that I am not American (although I appreciate that you intend the term as an insult). That being the case, I am not much worried about them, and the US is in any event a democracy.
I did not use Neocon as an insult but in reference to a core group of people who are always keen to use force. If you consider yourself a Neocon, then fine, but irrelevant.
Im not using Iran as a lever about anything except to refer to its complicity in using violence to achieve its ends. I’m sure the people of Iran are quite liberal. But it’s clear I’m not referring to them anymore than I regard Russians as totalitarian. But you haven’t been able to illustrate why Iran and the Neocons are different as a category from the “Russian threat”. Just look at the commonalities in how they operate.
It’s easy to throw in the word democracy as some sort of proof of America’s pure motives. But history can’t be rewritten, ignored, yes, but the truth is out there. The democracy you use as a catch-all does not exist. What you’re saying is that I’m a democracy so I must be right and have clean hands.
I am a Westerner. I venerate the Western ethos of liberalism (in a small “L” sense) and democracy. That does not mean that I think this is the only way of doing things, but it is the way I prefer. I appraise other countries by how well they sit within my world view. I remember when China was actually Communist in an old school sense, and they are not really that now. Plus, the Chinese are a historically civilised people. The Iranians are in some senses similar. They are historically civilised, but have had the misfortune of falling under the control of some radical religious types. Both China and Iran do need to be dealt with carefully, but there is hope for them. Russia, on the other hand, has never been a civilised country, and has never produced anything useful or desirable (beyond hydrocarbons and possibly the AK-47). There is no hope for Russia.
You just display your ignorance of Russia. But as a proud neocon you can’t help it. What else do you have but your ignorance?
Are all your comments completely empty like that ?
Of course you’re going to tell me that the Renaissance flowered in the Urals. When do you contend the Russians were a civilised people?
That’s a WASP jingo version of “western liberalism”. “Western values of freedom and democracy” were a plausible model in 1990. This model has since been wrecked by moral double standards, unilateral hybris and plain, bloody warmongering, and today is utterly delusional. Only deep state functionaries, beltway lobbyists, and copium-junkies are still clinging to it. It’s still Fukuyama’s pseudo-Hegelian narrative of “We are the Winner of World History”.
I will not comment on the abysmal horseshit you are mouthing off about Russian civilization.
Thanks for your contribution Vladimir. By the way, I object to the term WASP, because even though I am white and Anglo Saxon, I am an Atheist. That said, I am from a Protestant background (CofE on my father’s side, Lutheran on my mother’s side).
Apart from some of the greatest music, art, literature, and architecture.
Oh, rubbish. A good (but not great) composer, some halfway reasonable buildings (which will hopefully soon be visited by NATO supplied missiles) and some dreary authors. The most famous Russian author of my youth wrote about being in a gulag.
Here’s a list of the top 10 most world-renowned Russian composers, writers, and scientists, categorized by genre:
### **Composers**
1. **Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky** – Known for ballets like *”Swan Lake,” “The Nutcracker,”* and *”Sleeping Beauty.”*
2. **Sergei Rachmaninoff** – Renowned for his piano concertos and *Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.*
3. **Igor Stravinsky** – Famous for *”The Firebird,” “Petrushka,”* and *”The Rite of Spring.”*
4. **Dmitri Shostakovich** – Known for his symphonies, especially the *”Leningrad Symphony.”*
5. **Mikhail Glinka** – Often regarded as the father of Russian classical music; known for *”A Life for the Tsar.”*
6. **Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov** – Composer of *”Scheherazade” and “The Flight of the Bumblebee.”*
7. **Alexander Scriabin** – Known for his piano works and symphonies; pushed the boundaries of tonality.
8. **Sergei Prokofiev** – Famous for *”Peter and the Wolf” and “Romeo and Juliet.”*
9. **Modest Mussorgsky** – Renowned for *”Pictures at an Exhibition” and “Night on Bald Mountain.”*
10. **Alexander Borodin** – Composer of the opera *”Prince Igor” and the symphonic poem *”In the Steppes of Central Asia.”*
### **Writers**
1. **Leo Tolstoy** – Author of *”War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina.”*
2. **Fyodor Dostoevsky** – Known for *”Crime and Punishment,” “The Brothers Karamazov,”* and *”The Idiot.”*
3. **Alexander Pushkin** – Father of modern Russian literature; wrote *”Eugene Onegin” and “The Bronze Horseman.”*
4. **Anton Chekhov** – Playwright and short story writer, known for *”The Cherry Orchard” and “The Seagull.”*
5. **Nikolai Gogol** – Author of *”Dead Souls” and “The Overcoat.”*
6. **Mikhail Bulgakov** – Known for *”The Master and Margarita.”*
7. **Ivan Turgenev** – Wrote *”Fathers and Sons.”*
8. **Vladimir Nabokov** – Best known for *”Lolita.”*
9. **Boris Pasternak** – Author of *”Doctor Zhivago.”*
10. **Maxim Gorky** – Known for *”The Lower Depths” and “Mother.”*
### **Scientists**
1. **Dmitri Mendeleev** – Creator of the Periodic Table of Elements.
2. **Ivan Pavlov** – Nobel Prize-winning physiologist known for his work on classical conditioning.
3. **Mikhail Lomonosov** – Polymath who made significant contributions to chemistry, physics, and literature.
4. **Andrei Sakharov** – Nuclear physicist and human rights activist; known for his work on the Soviet hydrogen bomb.
5. **Sergei Korolev** – Chief engineer of the Soviet space program, key figure in the space race.
6. **Nikolai Vavilov** – Geneticist and botanist, known for his work on plant breeding and genetics.
7. **Alexander Popov** – Pioneer of radio communication.
8. **Lev Landau** – Nobel Prize-winning physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics.
9. **Konstantin Tsiolkovsky** – Rocket scientist and one of the founding fathers of astronautics.
10. **Igor Tamm** – Nobel Prize-winning physicist known for his work on nuclear fusion and plasma physics.
These figures are celebrated not only in Russia but around the world for their significant contributions to their respective fields.
Well done.
I like the fact that you mention a guy that worked on the Soviet hydrogen bomb. He certainly made the world a better place. As to the geneticist, I’m surprised that you didn’t mention Trofim Lysenko. He is far more representative of Russian scientists.
You just might be the ghost of Alf Garnett.
Lysenko originally believed he’d found the solution to famine and when the results weren’t repeatable he couldn’t admit his initial results were flawed. His failure to do so cost likely millions of lives.
Is he any different to the recent “lockdown” covid acolytes, or the “Climate Crisis” scientists
who have doctored any available evidence one way or another so much as to make the vast majority of it useless for anything close to actual rigorous scientific interrogation.
Look, I know that for whatever reason, you have a visceral hatred for the Russian people (is it focused on specifically Russian or all who were part of the USSR?), but your rants do seem to come across as in a similar vein as a certain ideaologist who advocated the total anhilation of several ethic groups that he held to be, shall be say “barbarian” or “uncivilised”, or incapable of becoming “civilised.”
No, some people on here dislike pro Russian scum who justifies genocide of Ukraine.
I am not fond of Russians (Katyn etc) but I wish they stopped invading and terrorising other countries.
If they want to be serfes in their own country is not my concern.
All pro Russian clowns on here still didn’t answer basic question:
Why Sweden and Finland joined NATO?
Solzhenetsyn? (sp)
This list doesn’t change the fact that Russian political system was always barbaric and Russia is the only state which still believes in genocidal imperialism.
Yes, but that 10% or 15% of the population.
I agree about music and literature.
Architecture and art, not really.
Martin point was about Russian political culture.
It was always barbaric since the day when Moscovy princes were tax collectors for the Tatars.
Anyone with even basic understanding of Russian history would know that.
To be fair, they produced great music and literature.
But that is 10% or 15% of population.
The rest are just spawn of Mongols and quite happy to be serfes.
Pro Russia clowns on here are either Russians (so they support Russia in criminal war) or Lenin useful idiots.
There is no logical reason why anyone of the West would wish Russia success in genocide of Ukraine (which they already tried in 1930s).
Let’s see if any of the Moscow clowns responds.
We are not a democracy. We are a representative republic.
A representive republic is a kind of democracy in the modern sense. Actually, the ancient Greeks and Romans who invented the distinction would have considered all (with a possible half exception for Switzerland) modern western democracies as republics and not democracies.
The two countries of which I hold citizenship are in fact Monarchies, not Republics.
The US largely wages war to defend democracy, eg WW2. Russia wages war to extinguish it and colonise and/or annex other countries.
Punksta, it’s hard to believe anyone thinks like that anymore. What do you mean by “largely”? It either does or it doesn’t,
Which is the last country that the US “colonised”?
Not sure if it was the last, but Hawaii comes to mind.
That is what I was thinking too. Hardly “recent”, is it?
Because without USA you would be speaking either Russian or German now.
Probably you do, Ivan.
So there are 33 morons on this forum who clearly have no understanding of Russian history.
Otherwise why downvotes?
You just presented basic facts of Russian history.
Whether it was tsarist, Communism or Putinism it was always the same genocidal Russian imperialism.
Why would you advocate war with China if they invade Taiwan? And what does this advocacy involve? Would you go and fight in that war?
Nah, Marty is a wheelchair general.
I was too young to ever face being drafted. The country of my current residence (Australia) last drafted troops in about 1972, from memory (for Vietnam), which was the year I turned 10. I did briefly consider a military career in my youth, but didn’t end up going down that path. Had that happened, it would probably have been in the country of my birth (UK). The conflicts which I would have been the “right age” for would have been the Falklands, or Gulf 1 (if I’d have hung around). I would have had no issue in fighting in either of those.
Australia, then. Far enough away from battlefield perils to hawkishly talk Europe into war from the couch. Ever thought about joining the Ukrainian foreign legion? Just don’t get caught by the Russians – it’s easy to invade Russia, but difficult to come out again alive.
My maternal grandfather (German) spent 7 years in a Russian POW camp in Siberia. His wife and children (including my mother) had the good sense to migrate westward (from what was then Tilsit in East Prussia to Wesel in Nordrhein-Westfalen) to avoid falling under the Russian yoke. I have heard the tales firsthand of Russian activities during that time, and I thus know about Russians….
So you hate Russians. Not a very rational point of view in terms of geopolitics.
He did say he is a Neocon
That’s your word, not mine, but to the extent that I understand its meaning, I accept that it probably applies to me. I confirm that the time I felt most closely aligned with Western political leadership is when Thatcher and Reagan were in power.
I fondly remember the days when the US Right all hated Russians.
I don’t “hate” every Russian in a personal sense, but I have an exceptionally low regard for them as a People.
Why is that?
Because they are barbarians.
My grandfather’s brother died in a Russian POW camp after Stalingrad. I’m not naive about Stalinism. But you allow family memories choking you from hate. That might be understandable psychologically, but does not qualify you for sound judgement.
You say you are not naive about Stalinism, but you seem to have some regard for Stalin’s spiritual grandson. The Russians are unlikely to invade Australia, so I am personally not going to have to meet them in battle. I hope that when they march into whatever town you live in, they will be nice to you (although history says they won’t be).
I understand by now that all your judgement (at least about Russia) does not come from facts, but from premediated conviction.
And, by the way, Russia never would want to govern the mess Germany is today, neither would they want to govern Poland ever again.
Why not? They seem happy to govern the mess Russia is today.
That’s so stupid. Anyone can talk like that from their armchair. Do you see how you nail your own coffin,
Russia will ALWAYS be a problem. The Americans should have nuked the place in ’46. It would have saved the world a lot of bother.
Spoken like a true neocon. How many innocent Russian people would you have been happy to annihilate?
My answer to that would probably have been similar to Truman’s answer before he nuked Japan. It would have been the lesser of two evils.
As things stand, I am an slightly overweight almost-62 year old, so I doubt my services would be required. Take 30 years of age off me, and the answer is an unequivocal “Yes”. I despised Communism in my youth and young manhood (still do, in fact), and I would have been happy enough to take on the opportunity to fight Communists. I guess now I am just another old guy realising that I have missed my pathway to Valhalla.
Or you’re a dreamer who was never tested.
Sometimes one is fortunate to live in peaceful times.
You may be an old guy Martin M but you never grew up!
Let me put it like this: in a choice between Chamberlain and Churchill, I’d pick the latter.
Martin M is a deranged racist thug. It’s no wonder he doesn’t give his full/real name.
Any normal human being would be utterly ashamed to express such deplorable hatemongering views.
Oh, so “P” is your actual full first name? Is it like the “S” in Harry S. Truman?
Yes Martin, just leave dear old Russia to its traditional values of rape and pillage and imperialism.
Those do indeed seem to be its traditional values.
100%. NONE of us citizens of humanity benefit from ANY of these conflicts. On the contrary, we all pay the price for them while the upper class amasses their wealth and entrench their position. Dividing people against each other is the oldest trick in the book.
Are you going to fight or let some others do it?
Other people’s children
Better than having them raped and murdered by occupying Russian troops.
To Martin M.
Martin, let us all stop the notions that are being bandied about of who blew up the Nordic pipelines. Lets look at some common sense. The Russians did not blow up the gas lines. Simply closing the flow of gas from them to whomever would have sufficed. Who was the gas being piped to, Germany. The largest Industrialised Nation in Europe. Why? The story about a Ukrainian crewed yacht planting mines is a Hans Kristian Anderson tale.
Which countries had Navel vessels on watch in the Area. All Navies have divers, therefor equipment to do the job.
The depth of the pipelines was 256ft.
Mick
Exactly.
Regan showed us how to deal with Russian vermin.
The only language they understand is force.
West needs to rearm and bring Russia to its knees.
It doesn’t mean that we should try to create democracy in Russia.
Just tell oligarchs to clear Putin out and leave Ukraine.
Then they can enjoy their wealth.
How they treat their Russian serfes is not the West business.
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. There is no blame to go around but rather reward. The Ukrainians are very happy to take responsibility for ending Nord Stream, symbolizing the economic connection between Russia and Germany. Poland was very happy to help, Czechia is happy it happened, I’m sure the Baltic states won’t shed any tears either.
Talking about blaming Ukraine tells us that you don’t understand the explicit goals of eastern Europe. Of course there may be political considerations for this or that individual to not take direct responsibility but as a collective eastern Europe is happy it happened and that is understandable. Russian aggression was ignored by West-Europe because of economic interests and this threatened the interests of East-Europe, the most simple explanation is correct. Of course the US has similar interest as the east but did not need to blow up the pipeline as the WSJ reporter explained.
Only that blowing up the pipeline was an act of war, no matter who did it, and should be addressed accordingly.
That’s the next step and of course this will cause a rift within Europe, among NATO members and overall it looks to weaken the west because of it. It’s also not impossible that this harms Ukrainian interests in the end. My point is that the basis is the diverging interests between west and east Europe which had already been a point of contention long before the annexation of Crimea. None of the eastern countries need to be goaded by the US to attack the revenue stream of Russia.
Who is it an “act of war” on? Better figure that out first.
On Germany, of course. Not that it’s government would care, but that’s part of the problem.
Germany and Russia.
Of course it was a f*****g act of war as the war was underway initiated by Russia.
Sure, Ukraine was ‘goaded’ into resisting recolonisation by the Russian barbarian.
I would study history of the last 20 years instead to listening to the BBC or CNN.
If you ever did, you’d know Russia colonised Ukraine about 200 years ago. And that in 1991 all of Ukraine elected to leave Russia.
And now Russia, smarting from losing its Soviet empire and wanting to build it back empire and engage in its perennial abuse of neighbours, and seeking to stamp out the emerging democracy so dangerously close to home, now seeks to recolonise Ukraine and eradicate the Ukrainian nation.
Ukraine has had several national elections since leaving the USSR. Both times they chose to elect a leader aligned closer to Moscow, he was overthrown with western support.
Some democracy.
He was impeached after he fled / deserted following mass protests after he abandonment of his manadate of closer ties with the democracries. ‘Overhrown’ by popualar will iow, so Yes, democratically. At the next election shortly l afterwards he declined to stand, knowing ferull well he had no chance, even his own allies having deserted him.
You weren’t really paying attention to the events leading up to 2014 weren’t you? ‘Western support’, how did that look like, exactly, when for months long, tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands defying security services, getting shot at. How does ‘western support’ look like in that, exactly?
You know nothing about this part of Europe.
Yanukovych run on a ticket of closer ties with EU.
Then when pressured by Putin he betrayed his voters.
He lives in Russia. He is traitor.
Disregarding this part, what is Russia able to offer Ukraine apart from genocide, poverty and violence?
Russia has no friends because no one wants to be friends with always drunk, syphilitic old w***e who smashes up neighbourhood while claiming supposed great glories of the past.
All you pro Russian clowns on here and elsewhere.
Can you tell us why Sweden and Finland joined NATO?
Is it because Russia is such friendly and peaceful neighbour?
This is disappointing, conspiratorial, jejune bunkum, accompanied by a lot of assertion and no evidence! It is amazing that despite the existence of UnHerd and a huge variety of other channels, that many anti-establishment, “post liberal'” people on both or Left and Right – and indeed in between – often seem to treat (or pretend to) “The West” as some kind of politically co-ordinated coherent whole. This is contrary to every bit of evidence of recent history, whether this be US-EU trade tensions, internal tensions within the EU (Poland, Hungary), Brexit, the Greek financial crisis and many other issues. The Warsaw Pact it is not. (But that is what “they” want you to think!). Perhaps there might have been at least a single leak by know, if the destruction of the pipeline had been caused by the US. Then there is a kind of grossly distorted way looking at the world through a blindfold with a couple of holes in it, which ridiculously attributes all or most of the world’s sins on liberal-democratic states alone, (or at least states which proclaim liberal ideology). Perhaps we might have imbued almost omnipotent powers on the CIA in the 1960s, but certainly not today. And then we have this kind of strange conspiratorial attitude that Ukraine is simply a western puppet state, instead of the complex post Soviet state that it is, despite this with an increasing not decreasing level of national identity and pride.
The messy truth is that people in the West, again both on the Left and Right, often wish to improve and remake the world in their own image. This is often reflected in state policy, albeit in diluted and modified form. This universalizing instinct probably originally derives from Christian Western Christian civilization. Of course this often conflicts with brute material realities, but it exists nonetheless. (However critical I might be of “woke” policies within the West, I don’t actually want Russia to conquer Ukraine or indeed China to conquer a successful democratic state in Taiwan, and in general I’d rather have fewer militaristic, theocratic or totalitarian powers in the world). But this instinct can exist awkwardly alongside the Realpolitik and power play that all states exhibit, but has done so for centuries. Louis the 14th was both a devout Catholic who destroyed the Protestant community in France, while also supporting Protestant powers against his arch-enemies, the Hapsburgs
“The West” may have made many policy errors vis a vis Ukraine, though the independent Baltic States and Poland have plenty of reason to be wary of Russia, having been dismembered or completely conquered by that imperialist country in their history, and to become members of “expansionist NATO”. But it certainly didn’t “goad Russia into a war’ – which should be obvious when we consider the general pacifistic attitudes and parochial, if understandable, complacency of most western populations, plus as the author himself says, the lack of preparedness for exactly such a war. This is not exactly the same as National Socialist Germany’s military build up in the post 1933 period! Where are the warmongers?
The overall position of Western governments has actually been pretty consistent, which is that they will provide funding and weapons to Ukraine to resist this all-out invasion (with much delay, horse trading and prevarication along the way), while going out of their way not to get involved in a shooting war with Russian forces. (Niall Ferguson has rather persuasively argued that if you basically take many potential military measures off the table, an endlessly tell your adversaries that that’s what you’re doing you are indeed quite likely to lose). Much of the German population by the way is not exactly delighted about having to pay the lion share of these huge bills; some people should get out of their echo chambers a bit more! Oh, and in case we forget there was a previous Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014!
On the substance of the issue, I don’t know who blew up the Nordstream pipelines, but it would seem that Ukraine might have quite a reasonable motivation to do so. It reduced revenues to Vladimir Putin for a start. And correspondingly increased them via the use of trans-Ukrainian pipelines from which that country still receives major revenues. And at the time the rather pro-Russian German government was certainly not a staunch supporter of Ukraine. And it didn’t require a highly sophisticated military; it required divers and some limpet minds.
Yes, there is such a huge genre of movies in which the west and certainly the US is it’s own bad guy, it seemingly imprints a near certainty that the US is always to blame.
A country that has a finger in every pie should not complain about that.
It’s not so much complaining from the US side, I’m bemoaning the easy way people say for example, well, the US couped Ukraine, bla bla, like that. I wonder how. Hot tea for the tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands on the Meidan square, months long rioting against the security forces, getting shot at.
But eh, that’s just the CIA doing a coup. Because in the movies, the CIA can do everything.
Besides the unlogic of overthrowing an agreement the ink of which had just dried and the infamous leaked Nuland “F*** the EU” phone call, which showed Washington hell-bent to have Yatseniuk instead of Klichko as new opposition leader, there is researched evidence for that:
Ivan Katchanovski has meticulously analyzed the video material of the decisive days, convincingly showing that the sharpshooters worked from Hotel Ukraina, which was under Maidan control, to shoot at both sides: at the Berkut police and the protestors, which gave the Pravy Sektor radicals the excuse to take over the show and storm the Rada.
Since 2017 (Italian TV research), we have also primary witness evidence of three Georgians who said: “We did it!”, who could be subpoenaed in a trial if there had ever been an intention to have an independent one. They bluntly said to have been engaged by another Georgian for a scheme with Ukrainian arms dealer Serhiy Pashinsky being involved and being instructed at the location by an US sharpshooter (also known by name) of 101 Airborne.
The result being a government with participation of right-wing extremists (Svoboda Party, which had affiliations not to populist German AfD, but to outright Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party), which anyone in his right mind could have known in advance to deterministically going to split the country. So it’s legit to assume this didn’t happen by error, but by intention.
I could add a lot of more detail, and you might read Jacques Baud for a start, but I know, “bad conspiracy theorist”, “Putin-Understander”, etc., blah, blah.
So this ain’t just another suspicion-only trope about almighty CIA, but a coherent, well-substantiated picture. Which points to another aspect: that Western judgment mainly is not based on facts, but on systematic avoidance of facts. That’s the reason everyone is crying “Russian propaganda” every time western self-image is disturbed. It’s all governed by the premediated conviction that the West is good and Russia is evil.
Edit: masked the evil word.
Wow.. no shortage of highly relevant information in your contribution.. I’ve always felt it (armed only with limited information) but it’s good to have the blow by blow account for sure.
Oh I’m sure there was US involvement. As I’m sure there was Russian involvement. It’s simply not the case that Ukraine was one sidedly pulled from an intrinsic Russian course, to a western course, simply by having a few operatives. There’s probably a huge list of Russian operatives. Russian involvement in Ukraine was plentiful, massive even, but despite that, here we are. A few snipers doesn’t make a coup, if even happened what you think happened. If the sum of Ukraine would have wanted a Russian course, it would have had it. It was a lot of critical mass that did not want a Russian course,
The alternative is Putin having his way. Including subjugating Ukraine, along with it’s people, and clearly, they’re not having that.
“A few snipers doesn’t make a coup”
Put into the right place at the right time with the right context, they make exactly that.
Then whats the alternative? Putin having its way? You can wish the cold war away, which is back, since Putin had settled, but that doesn’t make it disappear. You can close your eyes for the fact that this is the ninth conflict/war Russia has had since the fall of the wall for consolidation of the soviet empire. We’re in for a rough ride these decades, looking how precisely the demographic collapse will impact Russia and what effect it has. But this war was always going to happen. The only alternative was for Ukraine to not (be able) to defend. And nobody in the west would have had confidence in that Ukraine was able to.
Regarding the snipers, who knows? Somebody describing a story doesn’t make facts. Who really knows? It sounds equally convenient. I suppose it’s possible, that this tipped the scale in what was what you can call a popular uprising. You’re not telling me that that guy also has written in his book how all those tens of thousands of people were there constantly.
Look at how Putin had it’s operations in Ukraine. You deem those to be part of the ‘natural ecosystem’, but if the west interferes, it’s suddenly Faustian? What if Putin will not stop before hes back in the baltics? Carpatians? If so, then a war in Ukraine is preferrable (tepid) to a war in Romania (hot).
Like for example, a few doses of dioxine or novichok?
No, they don’t. By the time they were there, the fate was long since sealed, it only put an end to it. If CIA was involved, it must have worked with Yanukovich, because it was his actions that ultimately led to this.
As we see in the US, it was not just Trump was nearly assassinated on coordinated live stream. It is that in the failure the media had no interest in the facts. And simply won’t talk about it. And who was in power in the US in 2024 and 2024…
Seems a comment of mine doesn’t show up here because I quoted a four-letter word.
It wasn’t “D**k”, as in “D**k Cheney”, was it? I fell foul of that a few days ago.
Besides the unlogic of overthrowing an agreement the ink of which had just dried and the infamous leaked Nuland “f*** the EU” phone call, which showed Washington hell-bent to have Yatseniuk instead of Klichko as new opposition leader, there is researched evidence for that:
Ivan Katchanovski has meticulously analyzed the video material of the decisive days, convincingly showing that the sharpshooters worked from Hotel Ukraina, which was under Maidan control, to shoot at both sides: at the Berkut police and the protestors, which gave the Pravy Sektor radicals the excuse to take over the show and storm the Rada.
Since 2017 (Italian TV research), we have also primary witness evidence of three Georgians who said: “We did it!”, who could be subpoenaed in a trial if there had ever been an intention to have an independent one. They bluntly said to have been engaged by another Georgian for a scheme with Ukrainian arms dealer Serhiy Pashinsky being involved and being instructed at the location by an US sharpshooter (also known by name) of 101 Airborne.
The result being a government with participation of right-wing extremists (Svoboda Party, which had affiliations not to populist German AfD, but to outright Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party), which anyone in his right mind could have known in advance to deterministically going to split the country. So it’s legit to assume this didn’t happen by error, but by intention.
I could add a lot of more detail, and you might read Jacques Baud for a start, but I know, “bad conspiracy theorist”, “Putin-Understander”, etc., blah, blah.
So this ain’t just another suspicion-only trope about almighty CIA, but a coherent, well-substantiated picture. Which points to another aspect: that Western judgment mainly is not based on facts, but on systematic avoidance of facts. That’s the reason everyone is crying “Russian propaganda” every time western self-image is disturbed. It’s all governed by the premediated conviction that the West is good and Russia is evil.
Ok, I’m going to give this comment one other try, masking out the bad word and adding this introductory paragaph to make it not a simple double-post:
Besides the unlogic of overthrowing an agreement the ink of which had just dried and the infamous leaked Nuland “xxxx the EU” phone call, which showed Washington hell-bent to have Yatseniuk instead of Klichko as new opposition leader, there is researched evidence for that:
Ivan Katchanovski has meticulously analyzed the video material of the decisive days, convincingly showing that the sharpshooters worked from Hotel Ukraina, which was under Maidan control, to shoot at both sides: at the Berkut police and the protestors, which gave the Pravy Sektor radicals the excuse to take over the show and storm the Rada.
Since 2017 (Italian TV research), we have also primary witness evidence of three Georgians who said: “We did it!”, who could be subpoenaed in a trial if there had ever been an intention to have an independent one. They bluntly said to have been engaged by another Georgian for a scheme with Ukrainian arms dealer Serhiy Pashinsky being involved and being instructed at the location by an US sharpshooter (also known by name) of 101 Airborne.
The result being a government with participation of right-wing extremists (Svoboda Party, which had affiliations not to populist German AfD, but to outright Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party), which anyone in his right mind could have known in advance to deterministically going to split the country. So it’s legit to assume this didn’t happen by error, but by intention.
I could add a lot of more detail, and you might read Jacques Baud for a start, but I know, “bad conspiracy theorist”, “Putin-Understander”, etc., blah, blah.
So this ain’t just another suspicion-only trope about almighty CIA, but a coherent, well-substantiated picture. Which points to another aspect: that Western judgment mainly is not based on facts, but on systematic avoidance of facts. That’s the reason everyone is crying “Russian propaganda” every time western self-image is disturbed. It’s all governed by the premediated conviction that the West is good and Russia is evil.
So now this post is tripled. Sorry for that, I hope to get acquainted how comments work on UnHerd.
That’s not how it’s done silly! No, you’ve got to throw billions at opposition groups, in this case the N¤z¡ types and Western sycophants. Such people exist in every country.. your “hot tea’ remark is juvenile.
But the US is always to blame, or almost always.. before that other Colonial powers were nearly always to blame.. there’s no getting away from it. Facts are facts..
Excellent comment. I, too, am tired of know-it-all grand-conspiracy theorists, whatever stripe.
No one thought the war in Ukraine was already supposed to have been won by Ukraine. The West seemed surprised when Mr. Z. didn’t just take up an offer to be whisked out of the country as the government fell at the very beginning of the invasion.
‘The West’ is controlled by NATO and has been since 1948. NATO is directed from the US State Department and has been since 1948. See George Keenan’s ‘Plausible Deniability’ paper issued after the CIA’s subversion of the Italian general election in 1948 and Kissinger and others’ continuation of Keenan’s policy up until the present time – now extended to Britain and the USA itself since the Brexit vote and Trump victory.
Cart … horse. Nato was created by the democracies (to defend against perennial Russian imperialism).
Hoo-ray, fire brigade has arrived!! 😀
“And it didn’t require a highly sophisticated military; it required divers and some limpet minds.”
I think you’re underestimating the military capability required to sabotage something in 70 metres of water. It’s no mean feat. You don’t just strap a scuba tank on.
No, but it is within range of technical divers breathing helium mix.
Do you even need to dive? Wouldn’t a fairly simple depth charge do the job?
I think someone might have spotted the naval ship liberally scattering them, not to mention wonder where it went afterwards in the giant gas bubble.
Rarely do I disagree with every one of several points made by a clearly thoughtful contributor but you are a rare exception.. I wouldn’t know where to start..
As you’re very thorough, if deluded, perhaps you would give us your ample views on the killing of 6.25 million Muslims by Christian (?) USUK in the last 25 years.. add in Vietnamese and go back another 10 years and it’s 8.25 million.
I’m reasonably well versed in the various ‘wars’ but I’d be intrigued at your insight into these..
I take the NYT for similar reasons btw.
Thank you for unlacing the UnHerd herd of conspiracy theorists.
I think the author means well, but there are holes in the story you can sail a supercarrier battlegroup through.
Nobody in the west thought Ukraine could defend itself, even with some hastily shipped handheld anti tank missiles.
So the premise that the west pushed Ukraine towards a war it would be fighting in longer than a few weeks is idiotic. It still plays into the Putin narrative that somehow the west made this war, instead of resilience of the Ukrainian people against a yet again Russian occupation and of course Putins desire for defendable buffers (and acquiring Ukraine with everything that comes with that), and his fear for a political alternative to himself just on the border in a state that is so related to the Russian people. Something they seemingly rather fight against than accept.
I agree the narrative about nord stream stinks, but that doesn’t allow for fantasy stories about the west pushing this war
UnHerd Reader is obviously a coward and/or ashamed of their own views as s(he)/it doesn’t comment with their real name.
If you say so. A coward that is ashamed, well that is brutish, I will have to cry myself to sleep now.
UnHeard Reader does do rather a lot of posting though.
“Nobody in the west thought Ukraine could defend itself, even with some hastily shipped handheld anti tank missiles” ..the 8 years spent building up Ukraine’s massive army, supplying $bns in modern weapons to it, and spending a lot of time, effort and money trIning the Ukraine military was to achieve exactly what then, do you suppose???
Ukraine was invaded, does the author think that they should have just surrendered?
Logic isn’t married to journalism, these days, alas.
They should have abided by the Minsk2 accord.. the usual arrangement for avoiding war is to…
A. Stop massacring the other side ie ethnic Russians in the Donbas) and
B. Negotiate and ABIDE BY a peace deal, ie the Minsk2 accord..
When you don’t do either, then yes, you invite a military incursion (Donbas) and a massive show of strength (Kiev) so the other side can stop the slaughter!
What they should have done is not given up their nukes.
Russia signed Budapest memorandum to guarantee territorial integrity of Ukraine in 1994.
Did they respect it? No.
Ukraine, tragically too close to Russia and too far from God, could have settled the issue of the Eastern provinces many times. Ukraine could have taken firm steps to be neutral between Russia and NATO. Instead the West had turned Ukraine into a financial laundry and also ignored its own commitment to stop encroaching Russia.
I am tired of people repeating Russian lies about Donbas and Luhansk.
There was Ukrainian independence referendum in 1991.
Both regions voted over 83% to be part of Ukraine.
Even Crimea voted 54% for it.
So sorry but no part of Ukraine wanted to be part of Russia.
Just because Russia is still genocidal imperial power does not mean that other nations should accept Russian claims.
Pro Russian clowns should tell us why Sweden and Finland joined NATO.
“The fact that Ukraine was goaded into a war it could not win — mainly because the West vastly overestimated its own ability to fight a real war over the long haul”.
Wow counterfactual! Ukraine was invaded by Russia. Ukraine did not start a war. Russia was not forced to invade another country – no country is ever forced to invade another country – least of all by the country they invade having attempted to step up its defences.
The so called “realist” argument is based on the idea that Russia rightfully has control over Eastern Europe and so if Ukraine increases its defences or makes alliances with other countries, Russia must invade as a response to this affront despite not being under any threat itself.
If that is your view of realism, please imagine your next door neighbour takes the same realist view of your house, so that if you install a new door lock or burglar alarm they will have the right to invade your home. In fact it will be your fault. No wait, it’s the fault of the burglar alarm company. Definitely not your neighbours, they had no choice.
And the USA wasn’t forced to carry out the illegal “quarantine” of Cuba in 1962…but it believed there was an existential threat and acted accordingly…
It had to do that. The Soviets were putting nuclear missiles there.
I don’t understand the down votes here. The west did very little (i.e. nothing) when Russia invaded Chechnya, Georgia, even Crimea. The fact that Ukraine resisted the invasion seemed to surprise most western analysts. To describe resistance to an invasion as “goaded into war” speaks to a very warped narrative at best, perhaps even downright lies.
..did it also surprise NATO that had been build up Ukrainian weapons and troops and training them over an 8 year period? Try not to be so naive!
Presumably NATO was smart enough to realise that it was all but certain that Russia would embark on a war of aggression at some point.
“No country is ever forced to invade another country” ..really? So the massacre of ethnic Russians in their thousands in the Donbas over an 8 year period isn’t a legitimate reason?
There are millions of Americans now living in Mexico.. if Russia orchestrated a coup, and installed an anti American government in Mexico which then proceeded to massacre Americans there the US wouldn’t invade? No? Not even if the massacres went on unabated for 8 long years, with the US begging Mexico to stop and to adhere to a peace agreement entered into in good faith with the EU as guarantors? The US would have just rolled over and let its people be massacred? Really? I don’t think so!
What massacres and what 8 years? Where are you taking this bullshit from? Have you been in Donbass since 2014 — or even before it? How did Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Bakhmut and many others look before 2022 and how do they look now? How many people were killed in what was armed conflict, artificially created by Russia, in 2020 and 2021 and how many in 2022 and 2023? You must be an absolute moron, even if you believed in nonsense that Donbass people were subjugated, to think that coming, razing their cities to the ground and killing tens of thousands, is the supposed “liberation”. And Ukrainian people are not “Russia’s people”, that’s an imperialistic statement that would sicken even vast majority of Donbass people.
This isn’t journalism, that’s delusionalism, the equivalent of the Wuhan lab leak “theory”.
Sure, Ukraine was ‘goaded’ into not wanting to be recolonised by a nazilike Russia,
Please stop.. you’re making us sick..
The only people making us sick are pro Russian clowns like you.
Go back to reading Main Kampf your grandad got for refuelling U-boats.
You are making us sick, vatnik.
How does Kyeyune know the “investigation was a textbook cover-up”? And if he knows all about the cover-up, he must know what has been covered up, so will he share with us just how the Nordstream sabotage went down? Why is Pancevski’s reporting “not credible in the slightest”? And if it is not credible in the slightest then why even entertain the excuse that if Ukraine was involved, it was only with the “permission……of the broader West”?
Somehow, for Kyeyune, it all involves Western deindustrialization, disarmament, cowardice and duplicity, with even worse duplicity yet to come.
Ukraine may very well be a patsy of the West in this war, but these wild and flimsy accusations do not make that case. They are, to borrow a phrase, not credible in the slightest.
The mere fact that this article quotes the Kremlin man and Jew-basher John Mearsheimer with respect tells you all that you need to know.
John Mearsheer IS A JEW you silly boy! You remark gives idiocy a bad name!
The mastermind behind the deindustrialization of Germany is none other than Net Zero, elimination of nuclear power, and other inane policies of this ilk
The word “mastermind” implies a person, not a policy.
Mearsheim, the “realist”. What an arrogant joke. Just proclaim yourself to be a realist and that everyone else is an idealist, and suddenly you are all-knowing.
.
Modern Western elites are never responsible for the consequences of their mistakes.
Which elites are?
It was obvious from the beginning that Ukraine, or at least some Ukrainians acting without the stated permission of their government, blew up Nordstream.
Germany is only now able to say it out loud. Committing an act of international sabotage to keep the Germans from going back to dependency on Russian gas was the main motive, and no one on the pro-Ukraine coalition would dare to point the finger at the obvious culprit when maintaining a united NATO front was essential.
Good man Derek, always follow the party line. what ever you do, never think for yourself
We have always been at war with Eurasia
Which party line do you think I am following? Thinking for myself got me to that conclusion.
The Ukrainians didn’t blow up the pipeline, and NO, it wasn’t the Russians either
Oh, really? Who was it then?
D Walsh follows a particular party line.
Go on, D Walsh. Be brave. Name them.
This isn’t going to be one of those “Bill Gates and George Soros” things, is it?
You’re getting warm…
It was the Germans all along
Opposite point of the compass.
Biden promised to stop it and voila. Story, end of.
Biden is the moist likely one, with the help of the other mentioned. Will we ever know??? Hersh might find out.
…and the Polish foreign minister congratulated the US on a job well done! Why I wonder?
America, with British divers.
I heard, norvegian.
Certainly be very helpful, Ingbert 🙂
Lets throw the Israelis in there – then we can get the Hamas people involved.
Until we fight East Asia. Then we’ve always been at war with East Asia.
> We have always been at war with Eurasia
When it comes to criticisms of modern Eurasia, ie China most readers of Unherd follow that exact pattern although when Xi turns up in Europe in 2015 nobody batted an eyelid.
It was obvious from the beginning that this was another United States scheme, while countries like Sweden and especially Poland were jubilant about it (Tusk sounded off in that direction just recently). Official Germany would never say anything loud that would compromise USA, even if the damage done would justify instantly throwing out their troops and cutting off diplomatic relations. Scholz stood beside Biden on the podium when Biden said on behalf of a Nordstream shutdown: “We have the means to do it”.
Germany has a borderline-demented horror clown as health minister, an eco-stalinist charlatan as Minister for Economic Affairs, a brain-dead talking doll as Foreign Secretary and a suspected finance criminal as chancellor. So it’s entirely plausible to add high treason to his list of suspicious facts.
The alternative to “dependency on Russian gas”, by the way, now is dependency on US LNG for the fivefold price. Germany should put its Navy to good use to supervise and protect repairing and recommissioning of Nordstream, while the bill is sent to Washington.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
The US would have used sanctions to shut down Nordstream. I don’t doubt the US, Sweden and Poland were happy about the outcome, but they were not the primary actors.
I don’t see why I shouldn’t trust Hersh on behalf of this. He has pointed out that even in the US services many people were appalled by the idea to pull that one off on Germany. But these ain’t normal times anymore: crisis comes not by accident today, but by design, since after forty years of neoliberalism, western-centric global elites are under no democratic control whatsoever.
As a Yank, I wouldn’t be at all surprised that the cabal that’s actually running the US behind Sock Puppet Joe authored the Nordstream sabotage.
While I am skeptical of Hersh’s account, I am confident that the US was directly involved in the sabotage. Motive, means, and opportunity: the US had all of them, together with overt statements by Biden and others opposing Nord Stream 1 and asserting that Nord Stream 2 would never come online.
Germany has a navy?
Unbelievable, isn’t it? Shouldn’t make itself that much invisible.
Dear god, the lunacy of people.
The closing lines of the Bridge Over the River Kwai comes to mind. In fact the movie is much more profound than may be widely known.
I am going to have to google these German politicians! They sound like a real rogues gallery!
Not much better are the British and American
The Canadian prime minister is a sock puppet for WEF.
However the current UK prime minister, 2Tier Starmer has shown his hand in a remarkably short space of time as the country(s) has lapsed into anarcho-tyranny.
The definition of anarcho- tyranny is: A stage of governmental dysfunction in which the state is anarchically hopeless at coping with large matters but ruthlessly tyrannical in the enforcement of small ones.
Actual criminals are being let out to free up space. Twenty -four hour courts lock up people who are being charged for mean tweets in defiance of the ECHR articles 9 & 10. Yes rioting & looting are bad, and should be punished, but mean tweets, and calling the police nasty names…..
There are still no charges laid against the men who attacked police at the Manchester Airport on July 23, & still no charges (or raid) against the men carrying machetes who were told to return them to the mosque.
He could have almost been talking about OURS!
And how about it was Putin? He wanted Gazprom to cut the gas to Germany in response to their stance, but just shutting them off would mean huge claims.
Parading before the facts, dicey. Obvious eh?
How about it was Gazprom? Putin wanted to cut the gas off to Germany, but didn’t want to pay the huge resulting claims. Problem fixed
Russia was already restricting the gas supply before the attack took place, they claimed it was down to necessary maintenance issues at their end.
Everyone had a good motive for the sabotage – both sides in this conflict and their supporting allies. That there was seeming incuriousity after the event perhaps suggests that all sides breathed a sigh of relief that the problem of Nordstream was taken care of, regardless of whodunnit.
Biden promised it would happen. Which means his handlers told him it would happen. And let’s not forget the Biden press conference weeks before the invasion where gave a soft answer about the invasion. My bet is if fact based history was written we would find out that if Putin had simply taken east Ukraine to secure the Russian interests this would have been settled in months. His failed attack on Kiev was unscripted. It still was nearly settled in months but the money from the war machine got our “elites” too excited.
But isn’t there a pipeline running through Ukraine that Ukraine keeps open? Where does this Russian oil end up?
Interesting analysis, but it seems overblown to me.
“Overblown”! Ha ha ha! Love it!
Yes, that it was ‘discovered’ that a Ukrainian was responsible at about the same time as Germany decided to cut Ukraine loose, seems a lot more than coincidence.
Our political elites are the most incompetent I have ever seen. Waging wars and not investing in the military our industrial complex is naïve.
They are not incompetent. They gain power and money from supporting propaganda.
Exactly and much of the aid money stolen and proceeds of sold weapons makes it back to American politicians who then vote to continue the war.
Misguided sanctimonious sanctions caused the energy crisis and increased Russia’s revenues. An own goal.
So you advocate guided sanctimonious sanctions?
Does it really matter who blew it up? It should never have been built in the first place. Even Brussels was telling Germany, “This is madness”.
“Even Brussels”?? That’s a good one! 😀
I think Matt Woodsmith’s point is that Germany should never have “done a deal with the Devil” by buying Russian gas.
In both the article and comments, the liberal use of claims about motives, perpetrators and victims being ‘obvious’ is strikingly silly. No events in international power games are obvious!
Good piece. That Joe Biden, signally in relation to the Nordstream bombing, turned out to be an unreformed mid–century McCarthyist style liberal imperialist was deeply disappointing. As for the Nazis, we always knew who they were, but they were ‘our Nazis’.
They couldn’t even come up with an original name for the Ukrainian guy. “Volodymyr Z.” come on.
All said on the end is true, just was not allowed to be said. Ukraine corrupt, full of nazis, since 2014 bombing daily Donbas with thousands of dead, …
Yes a few thousand nazis in a population of 44 million. Whereas 70% of Russia’s 140 million support the de facto nazi Putin.
The deaths in Donbas were a result of Russia’s covert invasion from 2014.
OMG you’re going from bad to worse! You’re no longer worthy of a response I’m afraid.. too biased, too naive, too juvenile. Enjoy your little cocoon..
The rationale here is bluntly obvious: it would be awfully inconvenient if Germany, and the West, learned the true answer.
I doubt ‘the true answer’ is a mystery to anyone and to believe that Ukraine is the answer is to suspend all logic and reason.
Today we have two kinds (at least) of truth:
1. The truth the dogs in the street know supported with lots of evidence and qui bono. Apparently this is also termed “malinformation” ie stuff that true but unhelpful to the powerful.
2. The truth that those in power admit is the truth.. this is very rare…
…mostly those in power tell lie after lie knowing that if said often enough more and more gullible people will believe it… of course such lies are peppered with snippets of truthoids to carry it off!
Germany scam of the investigation is designed to push the German real agenda: to let Putin have Ukraine, and squeeze Poland, in exchange for Russian gas.
And the “opposition” parties are pushing this agenda even harder. There is a lot of talk about AfD but the rightful heiress of Erich Honecker, Sahra Wagenknecht, yes until 1989 she was a member of communist party, and her party has openly anti NATO and pro Putin stand.
When Germany self inflicted deindustrialization gets to the point of public unrest, the message will be: our only option for survival is Russian gas.
Is that the “German real agenda”? Sounds like something Molotov and Ribbentrop would come up with.
Really? mmm
Exactly. Nordstream was economic Ribentrop-Molotov pact.
So Russia could supply gas to Germany but blackmail Poland and Baltic States.
But German politicians keep mouthing off about European values and EU solidarity.
Just look at Germany political landscape.
Majority supports either neoNazis or commies.
The article mentions the West is deindustrialising and demilitarising, what is actually happening is the Elites are choosing to do this, they don’t have to. Those of us will have to live with the consequences have no say in the matter.
Don’t you have a vote?
Citizens across nearly all of the West are having their votes stolen by unlawful non-citizens who get to vote, or whose demographics are used to dilute the citizen’s voice.
….and don’t forget the dogs, cats and dead people who vote.
If it’s as easy as that to plant a limpet mine at 80 m it gives pause for thought about all that seabed infrastructure life depends on – interconnectors, gas, data. Parallels with MAD.
Truth seeking is an irrelevant pursuit. People do not want to know the truth if it tends to invalidate their bigotry. Here is a case where the facts are hidden, and everyone is speculating. So you are free to pick a side that reinforces your prejudices. But even where the facts are well established and well known, people pick a side that is not supported by facts and proceed to rationalise their stance with casuistry. Take the case of the Palestinians. It is well known that the zionists are terrorists with a documented preference for Nazis. Yet there is no lack of popular and elite support for these terrorists in the West! The terrorists are idolised, and their victims demonised. Is there an explanation for such perversities?
Ukraine or not, Western Europe is on path to economic self-destruction and cultural surrender.
Thanks for speaking up clearly!
“From the start, the investigation was a textbook cover-up.”
I can easily imagine that:
“Okay, guys, that’s the plan. Who will take over the press management and the cover-up stories?”
“The media love Ms. X, she can take over that area. Mr. Y’s team has also come up with good stories before, they provide the content we feed to the press and allies.”
“Good, make sure they believe it! Olaf knows, but we’ve got him by the balls and he’s keeping quiet. Oh, by the way: the boss wants to put Vlad on the ejector seat in case we have to get rid of him! No, the Kievan Vlad, not the Muscovite! Set the story to that!”
This article is a great case study in the decades-long illusion of a ‘free press’ in which the citizenry is ‘kept informed’ by ‘the news’. Great illustration of how facts and truths are ‘discovered’ but only when the time is editorially right. Ironically the chaotic internet is now a kind of free press but Western publics of my boomer generation have spent their lives in cosy, seductive and tendentious ‘legacy media’ delusions about anything and everything beyond their actual direct lived experience. Yes ‘The News’ and ‘Current Affairs’ is biased; how could it not be, given its inevitable editorial selectivity. (Some murders warrant weeks of agonising and outrage while others never get a mention – some stories ‘trend’ and others fail to ‘capture the public imagination’ etc etc.) https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining
Excellent but very sad its true article BTW. Thanks but (and I do not mean this sarcastically) tell us something we don’t already know. Shocking really how they keep getting away with it
But where are all those lickspittles who were determined that it was Putin and dismissed any one who suggested differently as Russian stooges?
The truth is far worse than Malcom Kyeyune posits. The US State Department organised the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014 after an election that all of the worlds’ election observers – including those from the US – concluded had been conducted fairly. So much for ‘democracy’. So much for the Liberal West ‘saving’ Ukraine. It’s destroyed it with its 2014 overthrow of Ukrainian democracy.
And the present Kursk offensive is the very opposite of a ‘saving grace’ because it has failed completely in its strategic aim of diverting Russian forces from their present successful offensive to control the entire Donetsk and Donbas regions. The Russian military commanders have not taken the Kursk bait. As a result, the nationalist Russian dictatorship is now set to achieve its biggest military victory of the war and the Liberal West its worst defeat. That’s the truth. A lot of people don’t want to admit it, particularly those in the Liberal Western media and military. It’s still the truth.
Well done on producing the requisite Kremlin drivel. Someone needs to defend Russia’s traditional values like imperialism. The Ukrainians of course want to be recolonised by Russia – their mass demonstrations weren’t objecting to coming back under Moscow’s control, they were saying they wanted more of it.
Well, why wouldn’t they want to be closer to Moscow? Russia is such a wonderful country, and Putin is such a benevolent guy.
Your anti Russian bias is kind of showing a bit too strongly.. so strongly in fact you are blithely ignoring all the salient facts.. Sure, objectivity is hard but you gotta try so you don’t come across as a closed minded one trick pony.
Yanukovych was a Russian stooge, who wanted to turn Ukraine away from Europe, and into the arms of the Evil Empire. Don’t believe me? Where does he live now?
Rather odd then that he won a free and fair election don’t you think? Would the insurrection have succeeded without N¤z¡ tactics and the nefarious involvement of the CIA and Nuland’s US State Dept.? be honest now!
Maybe the Ukrainians didn’t know he was a Russian stooge when they voted for him.
Sort of like not knowing Biden was President in name only, and that all of the charges against Trump were fabricated.
He won a “free and fair” election by promising to move Ukraine towards Western Europe and eventual EU membership. Then, after he won, he changed his mind! It’s called opportunism and it bewildering to
Me you clearly haven’t heard of it.
The Ukrainians on the whole didn’t like it. They didn’t need US encouragement not to like it or Victoria Nuland’s promptings.
No-one in that part of Europe wants to be in the Russian sphere of influence. Can anyone seriously blame them.
BTW, what are the sign of this industrialisation that supposed to be taking place as distinct from the effects of a recession?
not true either. The EU treaty had limped along for several years,since 2007, punctuated by EC and EP missions concerned about the corruption they were finding.
Along with two million refugees from the Donbass forced out by the shelling. Yanukovich was torn between two incompatible trade treaties. The EU’s TAA, half of which is about reducing Ukraine’s agriculture, and Russia’s,which at least offered cut price gas. A Russian stooge? You must work for the global disinformation network. Even Wikipedia is more informative.
We all know this but no harm in summing it up in a succinct piece.