Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] Former adviser to the President of the United States, John Bolton, noted with some bewilderment: there is a wave of publications in the American press about the Ukrainian trace in the terrorist attack on Nord Stream. But even Germany, which suffered from sabotage, believed in the “Kremlin operation” until the last moment. The mention of Ukraine undermines the confidence of European allies in Kyiv, Bolton worries and comes to unexpected, but hardly correct conclusions.
The idea that some pro-Ukrainian forces were involved in the explosions of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines could jeopardize the foreign aid that Kiev receives from its European allies. Such a warning was made in an article written for The Wall Street Journal by American politician John Bolton, who served as US permanent representative to the UN under George W. Bush and national security adviser to Donald Trump.
"New intelligence suggesting a 'pro-Ukrainian group' sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September sparked an unexpected political backlash in Europe,” Bolton notes in an article titled “Why the West won't let Ukraine beat Russia?" The epithet "unexpected" in relation to the reaction of Europeans is used, probably in an ironic manner.
Against the backdrop of "potential economic shocks" from undermining gas pipelines that sent fuel to Europe, "speculation about direct or indirect involvement of Ukraine" in the attack undermines the support that the West can provide to Kiev, Bolton points out.
In the same article, Trump's ex-adviser voiced the thesis: Joe Biden "wants Russia to lose, but is afraid of Ukraine's victory."
The attacks on Nord Stream, which took place in September last year, as you know, were again in the spotlight a month ago, after the publication of an investigation by American journalist Seymour Hersh. There it was about involvement in undermining the leadership of the CIA and specific individuals in the Biden administration .
The version about the Ukrainian trace in the terrorist attack, which left the Europeans without gas, began to be dispersed in the media about a week ago at the suggestion of The New York Times . An authoritative American publication, citing US intelligence, reported: intelligence transmitted to the US leadership indicates the involvement of a "pro-Ukrainian group." True, at the same time, a reservation was made: the US authorities do not have information about the group’s connection with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or his “chief assistants”.
"Ukraine has denied any responsibility. The German authorities suggested that this could be a false flag operation by the Kremlin, prepared in order to arouse suspicion against Kiev," says John Bolton.
At the same time, the German media picked up the version of the Ukrainian trace. Die Zeit writes that the group's traces "lead to Ukraine", while Der Spiegel claims that his sources found the Andromeda yacht, which, according to the NY Times, was used by a "pro-Ukrainian group."
Moscow's attitude to these constructions is known - "complete nonsense," designed to distract specialists from the United States and Britain from the investigation into the involvement in the terrorist attack.
On the other hand, Kyiv also reacted sharply to the version coming from the United States. The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Dmitry Kuleba, called a series of articles about the "pro-Ukrainian group" in various publications a coordinated action.
The publications, which are obviously caused by Washington's attempts to divert accusations caused by Hersh's revelations, American expert Dmitry Drobnitsky told REGNUM.
But the question remains: if it is necessary to divert suspicions from oneself, and the version of "Russian involvement" disappears due to obvious illogicality, then why Ukrainians loyal to the West (and not, for example, conditional international terrorists) are appointed to the role of "villains" who organized the terrorist attack? After all, as Bolton also points out, this clearly will not improve the reputation of Kyiv in the eyes of its European allies, primarily the Germans.
The version that slips in Bolton's article - "Biden is afraid of a Ukrainian victory" is not considered convincing by experts. Rather, this is a consequence of the chaos in domestic politics, when "the most important thing is to topple the hardware enemy," Drobnitsky believes.
According to the opinion, which he voiced earlier, the appearance of Hersh's revelations is connected with the struggle with the people of the Clinton clan surrounded by Biden. Specifically, with Assistant to the President for National Security Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns.
"Imagine: you want to divert suspicion from the Clintons, get them out of harm's way. Who then blew up the Nord Streams? Islamists? But how did they do it and why do they need Nord Stream? Moreover, if these are Islamists, then their act, therefore, must be condemned. And if you condemned them, does this mean that the Nord Streams were good for Europe?” - Drobnitsky reconstructs the logic of the customers of publications about the “Ukrainian version”.
"It means that the Ukrainians allegedly did this in retaliation for Russia. If the version "enters," then the United States has the opportunity to say: "We condemn any terrorist acts on the engineering infrastructure. However, the desperate Ukrainians who were subjected to a brutal attack by Russia can be understood," the interlocutor argues.
But, he notes, at the same time, Zelensky and other figures with whom the United States is "working" in Ukraine are clearly removed from the blow - "they did not know."
John Bolton, who is sounding the alarm about whether this will hurt support for Ukraine, is "a person who has little to do with the mentioned internal Washington showdowns and media and does not understand anything about them,” Drobnitsky notes. Bolton, being "a stubborn neo-conservative, a very direct and primitive person," makes flamboyant and aggressive, "hawkish" statements. And due to this, he gets a tribune in the press.
"It is naive to assume that the promotion of the version of Ukrainian involvement in sabotage means “draining” Kiev or even the West’s refusal to support specifically Vladimir Zelensky,” agrees Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But, in his opinion, behind the emergence of the "Kyiv trace" is not chaos, but a well-thought-out strategy.
"For the United States now, the main thing is not to complicate relations with the countries of Europe against the background of how fatigue from the anti-Russian agenda is growing in these countries. The main thing is to prevent a split in the Euro-Atlantic unity," notes Americanist expert Malek Dudakov.
"This will not affect Europe’s attitude towards Ukraine, especially since there is a stuffing about an abstract "pro-Ukrainian group," the expert added. US allies are not in a position to change their attitude towards the Kyiv regime, let alone refuse to support it.
In order to divert suspicions of terrorism from oneself, fraught with image damage, the most primitive thing that can be done is to transfer responsibility to Ukraine, Blokhin told REGNUM news agency.
"For Kiev, this is like water off a duck's back, because it is "fighting against Russia," and in war, all means are good," he stressed. Now the head of Kyiv diplomacy, Kuleba, allows himself to be indignant, but if Washington gives the command, then Kyiv will take responsibility for the “action” without any objections, the expert believes.
March 17, 2023
Ivan Zhurenkov
|
...Republican governor of Florida, stone in the shoe of the Dems and their ilk, maybe one-day president...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...