Sun24 Press

Episode 5: Springtime of 2022

The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline is one of the most consequential acts of sabotage in modern history, yet it remains unsolved.

The reports we have heard about it are usually either biased, superficial, or deflective.

This is the fifth podcast episode about the Nord Stream affair, the result of in-depth research from many sociopolitical angles. The podcast covers a timeline stretching from several months before the explosions to the events that followed on September 26, 2022.

Contents:
Every year, the insurer check the pipelines (→ 0:41)
A funny Le Monde article (→ 01:14)
Russia proposed to re-open NordStream 2 (→ 02:49)
Movements on the other side of the world (→ 04:11)
An interesting month June is about to begin (→ 05:05)
UK's nuclear warheads (→ 06:30)
The tube inspection (→ 07:42)
The JEF organisation (→ 09:40)
Russia lowers its gas flows (→ 12:11)
Russian checks from Kaliningrad (→ 13:09)
We see a pattern that Russia protects its pipeline (→ 14:09)

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Episode 5

NordStream Refilled - Springtime of 2022

00:00

Here information about the JEF organisation:
jefnations.org
forcesnews.com/operations/...

Previous
Episode 4 - March & April of 2022

Next
Episode 6 - Summer of 2022

Transcript 

NordStream Refilled, The Sun 24 Press Podcast, Episode 5.

(Music) 

Martin: Usually there's a lot of planes and helicopters that are going along with it. So it was more than just one boat arriving in Norway, there was certainly a larger fleet docking there in Tromsø.

Mortymer: In May, sanctions were biting harder. The sanctions against Russia this time included the insurance industry, but that meant that they couldn't be providing services, including companies which were servicing Nord Stream pipelines. Every year, Nord Stream is doing reinsurance. They check the pipelines from inside, from outside, and if the insurers see that everything is okay, they extend the insurance. Typically, these international infrastructure projects are insured, and they have two important clauses. One of it is that if you self-suboptize your project, then you don't get any insurance. So, self-sabotage is an exclusion clause. Similar to the war clause, in a case of war, the payments will not be made. There is one funny article from 9th of May 2021 from French newspapers published under the name How to Sabotage a Pipeline. 

Martin: So, we see already here that it's not limited to the UK, Anglo-American, US exit that had problems with the supply of inexpensive gas and energy from Russia, but even a French newspaper supported blowing up literally the pipeline as early as May 2021. 

Mortymer: On 11th of May, Britain pledged military help to Sweden and Finland if they are attacked. It was significant because neither Sweden nor Finland were part of the NATO yet. They felt a bit threatened about the developments in Ukraine. They were aspiring NATO countries, and they were very carefully looking at the implications for their own security. We can turn to Poland, where Polish government decided with its allies that the pipeline falls under sanction regime, and therefore it cannot be used for delivering gas. The situation in Ukraine was that there are two pipelines. One of them got under force majeure, which means that there are some external circumstances which prohibit it from functioning. So only one functioning pipeline through Ukraine was left operational. It was still delivering. On 12th of May 2022, it was reported that there will be maybe some renegotiation about Nord Stream 2. This complex situation has led Russian side to propose that Germany and allies should reopen Nord Stream 2, and that it is the right time to renegotiate the security clearance for that pipeline.

Martin: So in mid-May of 2022, there was this G7 summit in Germany in a rather unusual place in the north of Germany, Weissenhaus, I think, a place that is rather unique and unknown for hosting G7 meetings. The home district of our economics minister at that time, Robert Habeck, was nearby in the north of Germany in this region. A few days later, the NATO summit followed in Berlin, and I think the UK was engaging again, once again, in reminding their partners all ties and any ties with Russia need to be stopped.

Mortymer: Indeed, the UK foreign secretary Liz Truss attended the G7 and NATO foreign ministers meeting in Germany. She used both meetings to galvanize the work with allies. She was urging allies to go farther and faster. At home, Tom Tugendhat, Tory MP, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was saying that Germany built the first Nord Stream pipeline to solve their energy needs, and they bet on Russian gas to fire the Berlin boilers, but now it is a good time to stop that. 

Martin: Now, there was, however, some movements on the literally other side of the world, because Germany and Qatar, they signed an agreement to deepen their energy partnership and ties. That was arranged rather quickly. A few days later, Schultz personally flies to Qatar and secures that Qatar would deliver a large amount of energy supplies. 

Mortymer: The weekend of 24th on Saturday and 25th of September, just one day before Nord Stream was blown up, Schultz flew personally to Qatar and signed an agreement for deliveries for Germany. 

Martin: Maybe it's also important to mention that only four days after signing an agreement between Germany and Qatar for more energy deliveries, Boris Johnson himself travels personally to Qatar and engages in high-level negotiations there as well. Now, a really interesting month is about to begin, June of 2022. It starts with a really important exercise, a military exercise or drill. It starts on June 5th until June 17th. This exercise is a yearly military-navy exercise involving 45 carriers and ships from 14 different nations. A few days before, Germany first decides to purchase a number of P-8 Poseidon planes. These are Boeing planes that have great capacity and capabilities to detect submarines and underwater activities. Germany purchases them and on June 5th, a really important exercise begins to be conducted in the Baltic Sea, a yearly exercise, the Baltops exercise. 

Mortymer: The exercise is taking place near Bornholm, close to the Swedish land. Baltops is the biggest naval operation or biggest naval exercise in the Baltic Sea. It tests interoperability between the navies and allies. This year, on request from Sweden and Finland, because they were becoming a part of the NATO, the United States Navy has actually increased its presence in order to keep the area a little bit more secure, to show the presence, to show that they really care about the NATO alliance. 

Martin: On June 10th, there was a strange incident involving atomic warhead transport that happened in the UK. Traveling through the city of Glasgow, people saw trucks that were carrying apparently warheads that were destined for UK submarines, as far as I understood. Is that correct? 

Mortymer: Yes, the UK has tried on submarines for UK's protection. They are basically renting them from the United States, maintaining and managing their operational readiness. Usually, these events about deadly cargoes are not announced officially. They happen in secrecy. On July 11th, Russia shuts down the Nord Stream pipeline, Nord Stream 1, for repairs and maintenance. This maintenance is checking the internal integrity and external issues through camera, and they could discover if there were planted some explosives. So, if the perpetrator was studying how to destroy the pipeline, and most likely they did, they would know about this one, because the information about the planned maintenance was announced on Nord Stream 1 webpage. That maintenance took 10 days, and it also included so-called pigging. Running this kind of very thick tube-like robot inside, and this robot cleans the pipeline from inside, and also through sensors checks if there are any dents or problems with the pipeline. And since the pipeline is over 1000 km long, it takes this 8-10 days. But no issues were reported, so we could consider that explosives were not in place at this point yet.

Martin: The way I understood is that the pipeline themselves are made out of two tubes each. A robot cleaning or inspecting the pipeline from the inside may miss some of what was going on outside, on the outer shell that's surrounding the two tubes. Isn't it that way? 

Mortymer: Well, yes and no. The pigging device has its own sensor, they also check the magnetic anomalies, and they can compare the data from the previous data. This delta could show that there is some issues. The inspection also often includes the external visual checks, meaning that there is a boat which goes along the route, looking at it with the camera. They take pictures and they take videos how the pipeline looks from outside. 

Martin: Maybe it's time right now that we start looking at a transatlantic forum and certain other organizations that are involved. In particular, there were strange meetings, one of them involving an organization called JEF. Can you explain what that really is and what kind of a role it plays in the entire saga? 

(Music)

Mortymer: Sure, I guess that JEF will be a surprise for a lot of people. It's this group of ten North European countries which are led by the UK, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. They are called together as a Joint Expeditionary Force. The official purpose of the force is to be able to react quickly with any situation, and especially under British leadership, to improve NATO's reaction time to deter Russia. So it is not a subgroup of NATO, but they work hand in hand with them. They are kind of independent, but they are not. They are intended as a pool of high readiness adaptable forces. They are designed to enhance the UK's ability to respond rapidly anywhere in the world, and especially in the area of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. They cooperate mainly with NATO. 

Martin: Can they carry out independent operations? And if there's a threat related to themselves or their member states, could they invoke this famous Article 5 at NATO? 

Mortymer: They actually theoretically can, and they can work under the threshold of NATO's Article 5. This small group of the nations, established in 2014, Germany has something similar, by the way, they became very important for the UK's defence. Because after Brexit, the UK lost its military and political influence and tried to leverage this JEF and shape it for their own security needs. So in order to answer your question, yes, they can work independently. One British officer described the JEF as an organization that can act while NATO is thinking. So they could launch an operation alone, one member or more, or a few of them outside of the NATO framework. 

Martin: And there was a meeting, a JEF meeting on June 15th, is that correct? So that's pretty much still while BALTOPS was ongoing. The last days, two days later, BALTOPS would be ending the military exercise in the Baltic Sea. 

Mortymer: Yes, defence ministers of member states took tabletop exercise and they practiced how they would respond in a crisis situation where NATO is still thinking and they are acting. At the same time of these important military meetings, Russia lowered gas flows to Europe by 30-40%. The reason for it was that they were fixing one of the turbines which was sent to Canada. They warned that another turbine should soon also go to check-up and maintenance as well. Siemens subsidiary or their branch in Canada was taking care of the maintenance, but the return of the turbine was difficult because the sanction against cooperation with Russia basically prevented the return of the turbines. 

Martin: Now this was, as I understood, related to Nord Stream 1, correct? 

Mortymer: Yes, Nord Stream 2 still didn't have the security clearance and has not been delivering any gas. 

Martin: It was the first major reduction of gas supply from the Russian side. Mid-June, at the end of the BALTOPS exercise, that Russia reduced the gas flow by itself on its own through Nord Stream 1 by 40%. 

Mortymer: On June 17th, Russian corvette was seen in the Danish waters. It caused protests by Denmark. They didn't explain why they went in there. It happened at night. We should assume that they went to check there something very important. About 200 km from this place where this incident happened is Russian enclave Kaliningrad. It hosts an array of different radars. Some of them are so sensitive that they can very easily detect small ships. Even such small ships as supposedly a Ukrainian team used to bomb two pipelines...

Martin: On a family yacht.

Mortymer: Called Andromeda. This intrusion in June 17th has not been the first one. Already on June 11th, Russian fighters went to look at the same area. Before that, on April 29th, another Russian plane violated Danish waters. The last is from September 1st. So we could see a pattern that Russia is trying to protect their pipelines. This is hinting that surface approach by small or bigger boat is less likely than subsurface approach. 

Martin: As far as I understood, they have capabilities to detect objects on the surface that are as small as 1 square meter. Is that right? 

Mortymer: They can very easily detect any object which is between 1 to 10 square meters. Especially if they are standing on one spot for a longer period, they would definitely raise suspicions and Russia would immediately send some plane to look at what is happening. 

Martin: And that at a range of up to 300, 400, 500 kilometers, correct? 

Mortymer: For example, if you look at the Nibu-M radar, it could look at a distance of 300 or up to 600 kilometers depending conditions. 

Martin: So now BALTOPS is almost over. It's way after June 17th, activities were still piling up. There was more to come.

(Music)

Speaker:
Mortymer - NordStream expert investigator
Martin - Investigative lead at Sun24 Press

Organization and realization:
Sun24 Press

NordStream Refilled

Episode 5

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