The Times report began:CIA "officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains" but we're supposed to believe this isn't a smokescreen after the CIA was credibly accused of orchestrating it https://t.co/6cAgYvXvG6
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 8, 2023
New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months.
U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.
"The brazen attack on the natural gas pipelines, which link Russia to Western Europe, fueled public speculation about who was to blame, from Moscow to Kyiv and London to Washington, and it has remained one of the most consequential unsolved mysteries of Russia’s year-old war in Ukraine," the Times said, going on to give itself -- and the deep state 'leakers' -- plausible deniability by adding:U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations. The review of newly collected intelligence suggests they were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation.
U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains. They have said that there are no firm conclusions about it, leaving open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services.
But award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh laid out how the operation was indeed carried out by the U.S. and allies under the guise of a scheduled military training exercise.
"Over the next several meetings, the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. 'This is not kiddie stuff,' the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, 'It’s an act of war,'" he wrote, adding that "the Russians have superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea," through which the pipelines traveled.
Also, the Russians know that the story from the Times was planted.
“I wonder who allows such leaks, filling the media scene with them?” asked Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova this week. “The answer is: those who do not want to conduct an investigation in the legal field and are going to divert the attention of the audience from the facts in every possible way.” Sources include: SeymourHersh.Substack.com NYTimes.comDebunking McGill's "dirty dozen" hit piece: Flawed sources, pharma ties, and biased reporting
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