Summary
Overview
In September 2022, the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe exploded in the Baltic Sea in what became the greatest act of sabotage on civilian infrastructure in history. This episode explores the controversial origins of the Nord Stream project, revealing how Germany's 'change through trade' philosophy with Russia created dangerous energy dependencies. The investigation uncovers how a group of Ukrainian military and intelligence officers, operating more like a startup than a traditional covert operation, devised an audacious plan to strike at Russia's economic lifeline by destroying the pipelines that Putin relied upon for funding his war machine.
The Explosion: A Historic Act of Sabotage
On September 26, 2022, seismologists detected what appeared to be a massive underwater earthquake in the Baltic Sea, but it was actually a series of explosions that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines. The blast was so powerful that its kinetic energy equaled the output of a large nuclear reactor, releasing 14% of the Baltic Sea's volume in gas and creating the largest man-made greenhouse gas release in history. The explosions sent shockwaves that triggered earthquake detection systems as far as the Arctic Circle, nearly a thousand miles away, and created gigantic vortexes on the ocean surface that continued for a week as gas escaped from the ruptured pipelines.
- Scientists initially detected what appeared to be an enormous undersea earthquake in the Baltic Sea, but it was actually an explosion that destroyed the $20 billion Nord Stream pipeline
- The explosion's kinetic energy in the first seconds equaled the terminal output of a large nuclear reactor
- Approximately 14 percent of the Baltic Sea was saturated with gas following the explosions
- Europe's early warning system for earthquakes was triggered all the way to the polar circles, almost a thousand miles to the north
- The gas vortexes at the surface continued for about a week as the enormous volume of gas escaped from the pipelines
" It was the largest ever recording man-made or human-made release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It was absolutely ginormous. "
" The explosion was so powerful that in the first seconds, the kinetic energy released was equal to the terminal output of a large nuclear reactor. "
Nord Stream: A Controversial Pipeline Built on 'Change Through Trade'
The Nord Stream pipeline project was conceived in 2004-2005 during German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's tenure as a way to bypass Eastern European transit countries and secure cheap Russian gas directly for Germany's industrial economy. The project embodied Germany's 'Wandel durch Handel' (change through trade) philosophy, which aimed to transform Russia into a more flexible, democratic partner through economic ties. Despite opposition from every American administration from George W. Bush onward and concerns from Britain and Eastern European nations, Angela Merkel proceeded with building both Nord Stream 1 and the even more controversial Nord Stream 2, which was completed in 2021 even after Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea.
- Nord Stream was conceived to circumvent Eastern Europe and channel gas directly from Siberian gas fields to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea
- Germany's 'Wandel durch Handel' (change through trade) philosophy aimed to avoid nuclear confrontation by binding Russia economically
- Every American administration from George W. Bush to Biden opposed Nord Stream, viewing it as creating dangerous geopolitical dependencies
- Nord Stream 1 opened in 2011 as a pan-European project with French and Dutch participation, despite later being blamed primarily on Germany
- Nord Stream 2 was completed in September 2021, just before Merkel left office, despite being built after Putin's 2014 invasion of Ukraine
" In any war game, Western war game and then later after the fall of the Iron Curtain we found out that the Soviet war games were exactly the same, in any scenario Germany becomes the stage of a nuclear confrontation in the Cold War... within up to two weeks, Germany, up to Bonn, which was then the capital of Germany, becomes kind of scorched earth, radioactive pile of ash. "
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