news
Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
-
To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
-
To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
-
To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
-
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
-
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
-
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
-
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
-
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
-
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
-
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
-
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
-
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
view the rest of the comments
I don't have the time to translate the entire thing, but here's the gist of it (all transliterations of Ukrainian names spelled as in the article):
The article blames the attack exclusively on a team of 14 Ukrainian operatives (some of them with strong CIA links), led by Roman Tscherwinsky, who is currently under house arrest in the Ukraine due to botching the extradition of a Russian defector. Another named suspect is former head of Ukrainian military intelligence Wassyl Burba. The highest ranking Ukrainian guy who is at least partially blamed is former general Walerij Saluschny.
The article admits that the CIA and Swedish and Dutch intelligence knew about the plans, but states that they were against it and warned Germany. The German intelligence agency BND is said to have not taken the warning seriously, and to not have informed other security organs in Germany (which is politically expedient, the BND can fuck up as much as they want to and never faces actual consequences for anything). Selenskij is also let off the hook and supposedly opposed the plan.
Financing of the operation was apparently done by one unnamed Ukrainian entrepreneur who donated 300,000 €, additional costs supposedly covered by the operatives themselves, who are said to have worked pro bono.
All government officials who are still in active duty and are blamed in the article are Polish, the accusations are about not extraditing a suspect living in Poland at the time and instead warning him to enable his escape to Ukraine (this is also politically expedient, as it allows Germany to put pressure on Poland).
The technical part exclusively backs up the earlier chartered sailboat stories. I've always had my doubts about the technical side of the operation, given that a water depth of 80m is deep-sea diving and idk if 40 minutes for the ascend are enough time for decompression - from what little i know about deep sea diving, at that water depth a decompression chamber would be necessary, but that's just me talking as a layperson. I also have no idea how feasible it is to unload the needed explosives (which were supposedly hidden in fake oxygen bottles) without a crane, using just manual labor and the foldable diving platform on a mid-sized sailboat. The type of explosive isn't specified, btw. Apparently it took the team several days and multiple dives on each day to place all the charges.
The political spin is "well yes this is serious and diplomatically dicy, but it could be argued that German critical infrastructure was a legitimate military target, so this wasn't terrorism. Oh, and Nordstream 2 was mostly financed by Russia anyway."
All in all this version of events would work well as an ass-covering for most factions involved. Whether the CIA actually opposed this plot or not is something we'll only find out 30 years from now when they declassify the files.
TY for your write-up.
Whatever the actual Events, i find it curious that Spiegel comes out with this now. People basically forgot it happened like.. a week after the bombings we're reported first? I doubt anyone cares now. Are they Testing the Waters for a Change in course after the elections next year? Or is it just a favor to some ukrainian operative, fishing for a Promotion?
Or it could just be a measure to garner even more support. I think i already saw some opinion piece headlines saying the bombings we're good actually.