The USN did it, 100%.
That part of the Baltic is practically like the Chesapeake Bay. It’s a transparent NATO aquarium. USN warships and helos spent all summer conducting underwater UUV / ROV drone “mine detection and demolition” drills. You have seen all the news stories.
If anybody else tried to explode 4 simultaneous pipeline bombs, in pairs, 20 KM apart, (NS1 and NS2), the USN would know ALL about it.
A medium-size fish cannot swim in and out of the Baltic (15m controlling depth) without being recorded on audio, video, hydro/pressure etc.
Russia has bare transit rights [during peacetime] from Kaliningrad and St. Pete, but that is it. Every Russian ship going in and out of the Baltic is virtually escorted front and rear. The Western Baltic is a small lake surrounded by NATO nations, plus NATO-cooperating Sweden and Finland.
The USN did it. Period.
I take no joy in saying that, as a long-ago frogman who locked in and out of submerged nuclear submarines, rode in mini-subs (SDVS), trained with every conceivable kind of underwater demolition, (too long to list), and dived with air bottles, mixed gas, and pure oxygen (for no bubbles). IOW, I know whereof I speak.
To believe otherwise than the USN did is like believing the Russians snuck up the Thames River in a mini mystery sub to blow up 4 key British infrastructure sites, at the same time, and got away undetected.
(I will allow that the USN may have “sheep-dipped” some Poles in on the operation, to keep them quiet forever, but it was a USN operation.)
Worse than stupid for Brandon to brag about it beforehand, and to do it at all.
Thanks for the great explanation, Travis.
Hell yes it was the USN.
I have to agree. Moreover, the USN is pretty much the premier outfit for performing sophisticated underwater tasks from submarine lockouts. The Russians have been scrambling to develop a similar capability, but even as recent as the “Kursk” disaster they were reliant on Western divers to perform the recovery.
Yeah, you could probably do this with ROV’s and surface ships, but that would attract a lot of attention.
I agree, and I suspect done to choke off a supply of money to Russia and make Germany/EU dependent on the US in one fell swoop. Dirty business.
Then its also a war on Germany. An "in-your-face" provocation and message to Germany - "you WILL NOT have any independence or deals Russia apart from us."
“I take no joy in saying that, as a long-ago frogman who locked in and out of submerged nuclear submarines, rode in mini-subs (SDVS), trained with every conceivable kind of underwater demolition, (too long to list), and dived with air bottles, mixed gas, and pure oxygen (for no bubbles). IOW, I know whereof I speak.“
Dang dude…
You deserve our thanks for your reporting based on both very deep experience and political insight. I am glad I don’t have to rely on the corporate media, including Fox. The pipeline sabotage is only a part of a global conflict in which both Russia and the US have sinned. There are new reports of Russian nuclear bombers at Olenya air base in the Russian part of the Scandinavian peninsula. Scary.