Putin Recognizes Donbass Republics, Sends Russian Military to 'Denazify' Ukraine

Ben said:
It's clearly fake. I don't think he's actually going to call them Satan-worshippers, or claim that the Nazis won WW2. Pretty good fake speech though!

Tomorrow I am hoping for a pretty spectacular real one.
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To be fair Ben he has spoken previously about NAZI ideology still being alive and well in the west as well as he or Lavrov saying WWII never ended - and I also remember him once before using the word satanic, so this was quite a clever take on something that at this exasperated stage Putin might well say - and who would blame him (indeed we would thank him, hence me falling momentarily for this as you say pretty good fake speech). Whilst enjoying it I did however wonder (the VO sounds too smooth for a live translation plus the gravely tone is most unlike the normal cultured and unassuming translators we hear)... of course the use of the BS word should have been enough along with the sarcastic but overly loose 'admittance' that he runs a slave state of his own thank you... simply not Putin no matter how riled he gets... so a wishful thinking danger alert yet again! Thanks Niall.
 
So we've covered means and motive. Lastly, there's contextual evidence. Is there historical precedent for the US blowing up Russian gas pipelines?

Apparently there is, according to the memoirs of Thomas Reed, Secretary of the US Air Force (1976-77) and member of the US National Security Council, whose book At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War was published in 2004.

The Washington Post covered it here (also in 2004):

Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets

In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.

Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time, describes the episode in "At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War," to be published next month by Ballantine Books. Reed writes that the pipeline explosion was just one example of "cold-eyed economic warfare" against the Soviet Union that the CIA carried out under Director William J. Casey during the final years of the Cold War.

At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it.

"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes.

"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.

"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," he writes. "Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the entire operation."

Reed said he obtained CIA approval to publish details about the operation. The CIA learned of the full extent of the KGB's pursuit of Western technology in an intelligence operation known as the Farewell Dossier. Portions of the operation have been disclosed earlier, including in a 1996 paper in Studies in Intelligence, a CIA journal. The paper was written by Gus W. Weiss, an expert on technology and intelligence who was instrumental in devising the plan to send the flawed materials and served with Reed on the National Security Council. Weiss died Nov. 25 at 72.

According to the Weiss article and Reed's book, the Soviet authorities in 1970 set up a new KGB section, known as Directorate T, to plumb Western research and development for badly needed technology. Directorate T's operating arm to steal the technology was known as Line X. Its spies were often sprinkled throughout Soviet delegations to the United States; on one visit to a Boeing plant, "a Soviet guest applied adhesive to his shoes to obtain metal samples," Weiss recalled in his article.

Then, at a July 1981 economic summit in Ottawa, President Francois Mitterrand of France told Reagan that French intelligence had obtained the services of an agent they dubbed "Farewell," Col. Vladimir Vetrov, a 53-year-old engineer who was assigned to evaluate the intelligence collected by Directorate T.

Vetrov, who Weiss recalled had provided his services for ideological reasons, photographed and supplied 4,000 documents on the program. The documents revealed the names of more than 200 Line X officers around the world and showed how the Soviets were carrying out a broad-based effort to steal Western technology.

"Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterrand's sensitive revelations and was grateful for his offer to make the material available to the U.S. administration," Reed writes. The Farewell Dossier arrived at the CIA in August 1981. "It immediately caused a storm," Reed says in the book. "The files were incredibly explicit. They set forth the extent of Soviet penetration into U.S. and other Western laboratories, factories and government agencies."

"Reading the material caused my worst nightmares to come true," Weiss recalled. The documents showed the Soviets had stolen valuable data on radar, computers, machine tools and semiconductors, he wrote. "Our science was supporting their national defense."

The Farewell Dossier included a shopping list of future Soviet priorities. In January 1982, Weiss said he proposed to Casey a program to slip the Soviets technology that would work for a while, then fail. Reed said the CIA "would add 'extra ingredients' to the software and hardware on the KGB's shopping list."

"Reagan received the plan enthusiastically," Reed writes. "Casey was given a go." According to Weiss, "American industry helped in the preparation of items to be 'marketed' to Line X." Some details about the flawed technology were reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology in 1986 and in a 1995 book by Peter Schweizer, "Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy that Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union."

The sabotage of the gas pipeline has not been previously disclosed, and at the time was a closely guarded secret. When the pipeline exploded, Reed writes, the first reports caused concern in the U.S. military and at the White House. "NORAD feared a missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based," he said, referring to North American Air Defense Command. "Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device." However, satellites did not pick up any telltale signs of a nuclear explosion.

"Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis," he added, "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry."

The role that Reagan and the United States played in the collapse of the Soviet Union is still a matter of intense debate. Some argue that U.S. policy was the key factor -- Reagan's military buildup; the Strategic Defense Initiative, Reagan's proposed missile defense system; confronting the Soviets in regional conflicts; and rapid advances in U.S. high technology. But others say that internal Soviet factors were more important, including economic decline and President Mikhail Gorbachev's revolutionary policies of glasnost and perestroika.

Reed, who served in the National Security Council from January 1982 to June 1983, said the United States and its NATO allies later "rolled up the entire Line X collection network, both in the U.S. and overseas." Weiss said "the heart of Soviet technology collection crumbled and would not recover."

However, Vetrov's espionage was discovered by the KGB, and he was executed in 1983.
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Summary of this insider's claim: in 1982 the US government sabotaged a major trans-Siberian gas pipeline via a primitive 'cyber-attack', using 'trojan' software they covertly 'gifted' to the Russians. Reed claims that this caused their gas regulation system to go haywire, resulting in massive over-pressurization that caused "the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."

Because this software was also used in early Soviet computer systems regulating other critical infrastructure, Reed further claims that this set off a chain reaction that ultimately sunk the USSR's industry, economy, and - 10 years later - its very socio-political system.

To my knowledge, neither side has ever 'confirmed or denied' that this 'major pipeline sabotage in 1982' took place.

In the brief Wikipedia entry on this book, the following counter-claim is included:

Another point of criticism of the sabotage allegations is that, according to Prof. V. D. Zakhmatov, an explosion safety expert who has overseen the safety measures on many of the Soviet oil and gas pipelines built in the 1980s, at the described timeframe Soviet Union simply didn't practice digital control of its pipeline system. Most of the control was manual, and whatever automation was used utilized the analog control systems, most of which worked through pneumatics.
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So this scenario may have been fantasy back then.

But if so, then it's 40-year-old American fantasy that this week became reality.
 
Poland:
Niall said:
It crossed my mind that Sikorski may have been engaging in 'clever' deflection: he points to the US, whereas it might actually have been done using Polish special forces (as Helmer speculates here)... which are really just 'workaround agents' of the US... thus providing some 'plausible political distance' between Washington and the crime.
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Plausible political distance would be a plus. Why fight directly, when one has willing proxies ready to go?

I argued against the idea of Poland only yesterday, but Helmer might be very right. But with so many participant it is difficult to keep it all closed, as we see now with the statements from politicians eager to score political points from their misdeeds. Some excerpt from the article:

By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

The military operation on Monday night which fired munitions to blow holes in the Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor, near Bornholm Island, was executed by the Polish Navy and special forces.

It was aided by the Danish and Swedish military; planned and coordinated with US intelligence and technical support; and approved by the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The operation is a repeat of the Bornholm Bash operation of April 2021, which attempted to sabotage Russian vessels laying the gas pipes, but ended in ignominious retreat by the Polish forces. That was a direct attack on Russia. This time the attack is targeting the Germans, especially the business and union lobby and the East German voters, with a scheme to blame Moscow for the troubles they already have — and their troubles to come with winter.

Morawiecki is bluffing. “It is a very strange coincidence,” he has announced, “that on the same day that the Baltic Gas Pipeline opens, someone is most likely committing an act of sabotage. This shows what means the Russians can resort to in order to destabilize Europe. They are to blame for the very high gas prices”. The truth bubbling up from the seabed at Bornholm is the opposite of what Morawiecki says.
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That coincidence Morawiecki comments on, is too much, really too much.
But the political value to Morawiecki, already running for the Polish election in eleven months’ time, is his government’s claim to have solved all of Poland’s needs for gas and electricity through the winter — when he knows that won’t come true.

Inaugurating the 21-year old Baltic Pipe project from the Norwegian and Danish gas networks, Morawiecki announced: “This gas pipeline is the end of the era of dependence on Russian gas. It is also a gas pipeline of security, sovereignty and freedom not only for Polish, but in the future, also for others…[Opposition Civic Platform leader Donald] Tusk’s government preferred Russian gas. They wanted to conclude a deal with the Russians even by 2045…thanks to the Baltic Pipe, extraction from Polish deposits, LNG supply from the USA and Qatar, as well as interconnection with its neighbours, Poland is now secured in terms of gas supplies.”
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Poland is secured, but if the prices are higher due to the sabotage, who will pay? And if that line goes?
Civic Platform’s former defence and foreign minister Radek Sikorski also celebrated the Bornholm Blow-up. “As we say in Polish, a small thing, but so much joy”. “Thank you USA,” Sikorski added, diverting the credit for the operation, away from domestic rival Morawiecki to President Joseph Biden; he had publicly threatened to sabotage the line in February. Biden’s ambassador in Warsaw is also backing Sikorski’s Civic Platform party to replace Morawiecki next year.

The attack not only escalates the Polish election campaign. It also continues the Morawiecki government’s plan to attack Germany, first by reviving the reparations claim for the invasion and occupation of 1939-45; and second, by targeting alleged German complicity, corruption, and appeasement in the Russian scheme to rule Europe at Poland’s expense. .

“The appeasement policy towards Putin”, announced PISM, the official government think tank in Warsaw in June, “is part of an American attempt to free itself from its obligations of maintaining peace in Europe. The bargain is that Americans will allow Putin to finish building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in exchange for Putin’s commitment not use it to blackmail Eastern Europe. Sounds convincing? Sounds like something you heard before? It’s not without reason that Winston Churchill commented on the American decision-making process: ‘Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.’ However, by pursuing such a policy now, the Biden administration takes even more responsibility for the security of Europe, including Ukraine, which is the stake for subsequent American mistakes.”

“Where does this place Poland? Almost 18 years ago the Federal Republic of Germany, our European ally, decided to prioritize its own business interests with Putin’s Russia over solidarity and cooperation with allies in Central Europe. It was a wrong decision to make and all Polish governments – regardless of political differences – communicated this clearly and forcefully to Berlin. But since Putin succeeded in corrupting the German elite and already decided to pay the price of infamy, ignoring the Polish objections was the only strategy Germany was left with.”

The explosions at Bornholm are the new Polish strike for war in Europe against Chancellor Olaf Scholz. So far the Chancellery in Berlin is silent, tellingly.
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Russia will not be able to participate in the discoveries.
The causes of the incident will be clarified as a result of the investigation.” The European sanctions regime blocked company officials from investigating at the site.
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And introducing an older article Helmer writes:
This is what the government in Warsaw arranged at Bornholm a year and five months ago. At that time Morawiecki was prime minister; the German chancellor was Angela Merkel. The official Warsaw innuendo in Merkel’s direction was more restrained than it is now against Scholz.
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Let us see how Germany reacts, and NATO and the one to be framed.
 
youlik said:
I want to share something personal again.
As Cass said: all there is is lessons. Here I am getting lessons that are very difficult and do not have unambiguous answers for me at the moment. Now it seems to me that it would be easier for me to sit in an embrace with a machine gun in a trench under some artillery shelling. Of course, I haven't tried it, but it seems so to me.
The fact is that my son ran away from a possible mobilization. He has been in Tbilisi, Georgia, for a day now. We talked to him many times, I tried to help him look at everything that was happening as broadly as possible, but the media environment in which he was was clearer and more convincing. With all this, I am not some kind of "hawk" and I would not want him, me or anyone else to be at war, but the situation is such that it becomes possible and in a certain sense necessary. But run?!!!
I try my best not to condemn him, the motives of his actions are clear to me. Here is such a "parsley".
I would like to write a lot, but I think I'll wrap up otherwise I'll write all day and still not finish something. I'm not a "so-so" writer.
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I want to sincerely thank everyone who responded to my message. In this regard, I would like to make a few comments.
I will refuse the offer to open a branch in swamp for two reasons. The first is that I do not feel the ability to write, the second is that, using an artistic term - in large strokes, almost everything has already been said by me and those who have written on this topic. The rest is details and nuances, there are a lot of them and I need to understand them myself.
I can't help but note the unusual feeling I had when I read the posts addressed to me. It was very similar to the one that appeared many times when reading the Cash Register sessions. I have never been able to understand how some people feel some kind of ephemeral "energy" for me, different from light, sound, taste, smell, etc. In this sense, I'm dumb as a log, but this very feeling, amazing to me and having no words to describe, gives me hope that not everything is lost with me. Special thanks for that.
In this message
Possibility of Being said:
Hi youlik, that's not a "parsley" (silly story, yes?) at all, and it's normal to feel frustrated, sad, confused and even desperate under such circumstances. I guess your son is of age if he fears mobilisation, and can decide for himself. He is not the only one from what I see, there is clearly a wave of men leaving the country for the same reason. But as Lavrov said during his latest UN press conference when this issue was brought up, Russia, unlike Ukraine, hasn't closed her borders and people have the right to go abroad. Still, it hurts and is disappointing when our children choose differently from what we would wish but as you said, all is is lessons - for him and for you. Perhaps you need to learn to support him in his own choice, or despite of his choice. Perhaps. You will know better when the dust settles a bit. And as iamthatis suggested, feel free to share as much as you want in your own thread. The Swamp board is not tracked by bots, one has to be a register member to see it, so there is a bit more privacy there. Take care!
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almost everything that I have is listed. It is full, succinct, concise, which I can't do. There is only one thing to add, this is "self-examination", which is absorbing me so far. Where did I make a mistake, what I didn't finish? After all, I tried, I didn't let it go by itself and hoped for a different reaction from my son. And, hand on heart, there were some grounds for my hopes, but what happened happened. It is in this sense that I wrote about "parsley", by the way, it was translated correctly. I was the stupid one in this situation. Stupid and arrogant.
There is one small consolation. What the son did is not cowardice, it is a position almost identical to what is described here.
BHelmet said:
In 1970 I was 20 and I was drafted (conscripted) to go fight in Viet Nam. I had my mental reasons not to go: a stupid pointless war of imperialism. But I also could feel in my guts that I would die if I went: either physically or spiritually. I had a strong sense that war is just plain wrong. Yes, the viet nam war was different from this. I get that. But in the end it is still war and also, in a sense, nobody ever really wins. Everyone has their soul journey to follow. Who are we to judge?

I did not actually “run”. I refused to go. I took a stand. I somehow confronted the situation head on. But perhaps Even running can be taking a stand. Everyone here in USA “honors” our veterans who went and fought. (In a stupid pointless immoral war that only benefited the psychopaths who urged it on. And a war that ruined countless lives). There are never any parades for the people who said “hell no” to the insanity. (Kind of like refusing the injections?)
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To my regret, my son and some of his peers do not see anything in the current events except the struggle for the interests of "obese cattle from rublevka". (This is a quote from E. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group.) They can't/don't want to look beyond this.
I want to finish with a quote too. The blogger Yuriy Podolyaka, who is quite popular now, closes his daily reviews of events on the Ukrainian fronts with the phrase: That's all I have on this topic for now. In Russian, this arrangement of words sounds funny, I don't know how in English.
We're all going to have an important day tomorrow.


Я хочу от души поблагодарить всех отреагировавших на мое сообщение. В связи с этим хотелось бы сделать несколько замечаний.
От предложения открыть ветку в свамп я откажусь по двум причинам. Первое это то, что я не чувствую способности писать, второе это то, что, используя художественный термин- крупными мазками, уже практически все сказано и мной и теми кто написал по этой теме. Остальное детали и нюансы, их много и разбираться в них надо мне самому.
Не могу не отметить необычное чувство, возникшее у меня, когда я читал посты обращенные ко мне. Оно было очень похоже на то, которое много раз возникало при прочтении сессий Касс. Я никогда не мог понять как некоторые люди чувствуют какую то эфемерную для меня "энергетику", отличную от света, звука, вкуса, запаха и т.д. В этом смысле я туп как бревно, но вот это самое чувство, удивительное для меня и не имеющее слов для описания, дает мне надежду, что не все со мной потеряно. За это отдельное спасибо.
В этом сообщении
перечислено практически все, что присутствует у меня. Полно, емко, лаконично, что у меня не получается. Добавить нужно только одно, это "самокопание", которое меня пока поглощает. Где я ошибся, что я не доделал? Я ведь старался, не отпускал на самотек и надеялся на другую реакция сына. И, положа руку на сердце, некоторые основания для моих надежд были, но случилось то, что случилось. Именно в этом смысле я и написал про "петрушку", кстати перевели ее правильно. Глупым в этой ситуации оказался я. Глупым и самонадеянным.
Существует одно, небольшое утешение. То, что сделал сын, это не трусость, это позиция почти идентичная тому, что описано здесь.
К моему сожалению мой сын и некоторые его сверстники не видят в происходящих событиях ничего кроме борьбы за интересы "ожиревших скотов с рублевки". (Это цитата Е. Пригожина, основателя группы Вагнера.) Шире этого они посмотреть не могут/не хотят.
Закончить я хочу тоже цитатой. Довольно популярный сейчас блогер Юрий Подоляка закнчивает свои ежедневные обзоры событий на украинских фронтах фразой: На этом у меня по этой теме на пока все. По русски такая расстановка слов звучит забавно, не знаю как по английски.
Завтра у нас у всех будет важный день.
 
thorbiorn said:
The turnaround at Berlingske, even if it might have been just for one hour, but that they had the audacity to quote Russian sources saying Denmark is completely controlled by US Intelligence, which could be backed up by single instances in their own archive, and the remark in Jyllands-Posten from yesterday regarding the statement of Sikorsky, "Thank you USA", with the paraphrase of the analysis from the Brigadier General, "Regardless of whether it has a basis in truth or not." plus the state media, DR having reduced the concern to infrastructure and climate, shows to me that this case could be turning. Some players are uncertain how to proceed.
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The newspaper Berlingske, though a Danish newspaper, hasn't been owned by Danes since year 2000, when it was sold to a Norwegian group, later to be sold to an English corporation which in 2015 got sold to a Belgium Media corporation, De Persgroep. This media concern is owned by the van Thillo family whose patriarch is Christian van Thillo:
In 1989 he became Group Managing Director of De Persgroep, and in 1990 Chief Executive – General Manager of Aurex NV. His subsequent position was CEO of De Persgroep NV. Alongside he was a member of the Regency Committee, of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB). Christian Van Thillo is a member of the Belgian business club Cercle de Lorraine.
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In other words he is well connected with the European elite. This is even more evident when one looks at the business club mentioned above, Cercle de Lorraine, where one finds many titled members from the old European aristocracy:

Notable members[edit]​

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It is likely that some of these members of the European elite is seeing that they are being stabbed in the back by the US elite. Many of them with interests in large European businesses stand to loose big time. Something that started earlier by increasing interest rates in the US, making the US dollar much more attractive, creating a flow to the US dollar and effectively devaluing the other currencies. With a stronger dollar, the US can buy up European businesses on the cheap. Something which Niall pointed out.
Niall said:
It's all that and more.

If you observe what's been happening in the UK recently, especially since 'Brexit', US and US-controlled corporations are buying up major British interests for cheap. I expect this is what will happen on an increasing scale in Germany too, where its capital/industry will have no choice but to 'look west' for business, energy, security, and handouts.

The way the WEF's "You will own nothing" scheme is starting to look in practice is: "you 'Western allies' of ours outside US borders, you will own about half of what you used to own in order for us Americans to maintain our standards of living, until the bitter end."

I suppose you could say we've 'entered the final stage of (American) capitalism': the imperial center is devouring its 'near-abroad'.

Here's what's currently happening in the currency markets:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575279513537335297
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So that this big Danish newspaper, which always has towed the line and promoted the elite agenda, suddenly veered slightly away from the common narrative and citing Russian sources, could signal infighting in the elite circles, causing them to went through their own controlled media. Interesting to be a 'fly' on the wall at their meetings these days.

Interesting times for sure.
 
Revolucionar said:
Thanks, but there's no translation. Can you find that part in the video and confirm that's what he said?
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There are no words about Europeans in this video, but I assure you that the best friend of Europeans is Putin.

I found such an appeal to the citizens of the West dated March 16.

regnum.ru

Путин обратился к простым гражданам западных стран: вам лгут о России

Западные элиты, обвиняя Россию во всех бедах, обманывают своих граждан, заявил 16 марта президент РФ Владимир Путин.
regnum.ru regnum.ru

Addressing ordinary citizens of Western countries, the president said:

“Now they are persistently trying to convince you that all your difficulties are the result of some hostile actions of Russia. That from your own wallet you have to pay for the fight against the mythical Russian threat. It's all a lie!"

The President noted that the current problems of millions of people living in Western countries are the result of many years of actions by the ruling elites in these states - this is true.

“Their mistakes, myopia and ambition. These elites are not thinking about how to improve the lives of their citizens, they are obsessed with their own vested interests and windfall profits.”
 
Niall said:
Apparently there is, according to the memoirs of Thomas Reed, Secretary of the US Air Force (1976-77) and member of the US National Security Council, whose book At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War was published in 2004.
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Might it refer to this in the chapter THE FAREWELL DOSSIER
During the fall of 1981, one of my NSC associates, Dr. Gus Weiss, was cleared to read the material. He devised a remarkable plan: “Why not help the Soviets with their shopping? Now that we know what they want, we can help them get it.” There would be just one catch: the CIA would add “extra ingredients” to the software and hardware on the KGB’s shopping list. Weiss presented the plan to Casey in December 1981 and Casey took it to the President in January 1982. Notably absent from their meeting were any of the White House’s strong believers in
détente.

Reagan received the plan enthusiastically; Casey was given a “go.” There are no written memoranda reflecting that meeting, or for that matter, the whole project, for many in the intelligence community were concerned about the security of the new, computerized, internal NSC communication system.

Within a few months the shipments began. The Weiss project targeted the Soviet military-industrial needs as set forth in the Farewell dossier. “Improved”—that is to say, erratic—computer chips were designed to pass quality acceptance tests before entry into Soviet service. Only later would they sporadically fail, frazzling the nerves of harried users. Pseudosoftware disrupted factory output. Flawed but convincing ideas on stealth, attack aircraft, and space defense made their way into Soviet ministries.

The production and transportation of oil and gas was at the top of the Soviet wish list. A new trans-Siberian pipeline was to deliver natural gas from the Urengoi gas fields in Siberia across Kazakhstan, Russia, and Eastern Europe, into the hard currency markets of the West. To automate the operation of valves, compressors, and storage facilities in such an immense undertaking, the Soviets needed sophisticated control systems. They bought early model computers on the open market, but when Russian pipeline authorities approached the U.S. for the necessary software, they were turned down. Undaunted, the Soviets looked elsewhere; a KGB operative was sent to penetrate a Canadian software supplier in an attempt to steal the needed codes. U.S. Intelligence, tipped by Farewell,responded and—in cooperation with some outraged Canadians—“improved” the software before sending it on.

Once in the Soviet Union, computers and software, working together, ran the pipeline beautifully—for a while. But that tranquility was deceptive. Buried in the stolen Canadian goods—the software operating this whole new pipeline system—was a Trojan horse. 57 In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds.

The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space. At the White House, we received warning from our infrared satellites of some bizarre event out in the middle of Soviet nowhere. NORAD feared a missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based. Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device. The Air Force chief of intelligence rated it at three kilotons, but he was puzzled by the silence of the Vela satellites. They had detected no electromagnetic pulse, characteristic of nuclear detonations. Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis, Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry. It took him another twenty years to tell me why.

The Farewell countermeasures campaign was cold-eyed economic warfare, put in place to inflict a price on the Soviet Union for corrupting the lofty ideals of détente. While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy. Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet technical leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the entire operation. [Pages 297-299 of a 399 version]
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One would need more for context, but that is a beginning.
 
Aeneas said:
So that this big Danish newspaper, which always has towed the line and promoted the elite agenda, suddenly veered slightly away from the common narrative and citing Russian sources, could signal infighting in the elite circles, causing them to went through their own controlled media. Interesting to be a 'fly' on the wall at their meetings these days.

Interesting times for sure.
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That could be, Italy might get a new more conservative PM, Sweden got one recently, and there is to be an election in Denmark before too long, I don't think, the paper wishes to continue with the current center-left PM and Government. Besides, when the money is less, the left and center-left will tend to take from those that have.

I don't know how tight the communication is within such a media cooperation, one would have to check their other papers to see. But since DK is close to the action, the others might call them up and have their take on it. At any rate the country is in a bind. John Helmer, suggest cooperation, between US-PL-DK-SE but how much did they contribute and how many will be in the know? The cooperation may be as slight as to allow a military manoeuvre in an area, but then there is the issue with Sweden that remains unexplained, as they are not part of NATO officially.
 
Michael B-C said:
To be fair Ben he has spoken previously about NAZI ideology still being alive and well in the west as well as he or Lavrov saying WWII never ended - and I also remember him once before using the word satanic, so this was quite a clever take on something that at this exasperated stage Putin might well say - and who would blame him (indeed we would thank him, hence me falling momentarily for this as you say pretty good fake speech). Whilst enjoying it I did however wonder (the VO sounds too smooth for a live translation plus the gravely tone is most unlike the normal cultured and unassuming translators we hear)... of course the use of the BS word should have been enough along with the sarcastic but overly loose 'admittance' that he runs a slave state of his own thank you... simply not Putin no matter how riled he gets... so a wishful thinking danger alert yet again! Thanks Niall.
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I felt it too. There was a feeling of 'finally, telling it like it is!' I would have been behind him with every word of this speech. Perhaps it would be wise for me to observe these kind of feelings closely. There's obviously frustration and emotional investment tied up in this, probably for many of us. I think that is justified, but it could also be an inlet for attack or manipulation.

But of course Putin has a way of telling it like it is while maintaining self control, dignity and somehow even diplomatic respect for the monsters he is up against. It really takes someone with a degree of self mastery and iron will to have a chance at pulling all this off. All the while carrying a burden of responsibility, knowledge and awareness of things which he simply cannot yet reveal.

As the C's said - "He's not perfect but he's the best your planet has in such a position at this time"
 
Folks,
let`s not forget the turbine for the Nord Stream 1 hasn`t been fixed yet and there is no known date when it will actually be completed. So in this light the last wave of attacks on pipes seems like an insurance policy of sorts that even if all goes well and the turbine is repaired and makes it back where it needs to be, the gas still won`flow.

Speculating out loud...if there was a way of keeping half of the Europian countries in a turmoil, blocking direct link from Russia to Germany (Ukraine has been accused of stealing gas before) and inserting Poland and Ukraine in the talks that would be it. Latest Polish claims about war reparations removes all doubts about how the talks would look like. Are they being encouraged? Most likely.
Also keeping demand and prices high won`t hurt the distributors either.
 
Niall said:
Summary of this insider's claim: in 1982 the US government sabotaged a major trans-Siberian gas pipeline via a primitive 'cyber-attack', using 'trojan' software they covertly 'gifted' to the Russians. Reed claims that this caused their gas regulation system to go haywire, resulting in massive over-pressurization that caused "the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."

Because this software was also used in early Soviet computer systems regulating other critical infrastructure, Reed further claims that this set off a chain reaction that ultimately sunk the USSR's industry, economy, and - 10 years later - its very socio-political system.

To my knowledge, neither side has ever 'confirmed or denied' that this 'major pipeline sabotage in 1982' took place.
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Maybe there is something to this story. I was working a decade ago on that SCADA system for GAZPROM and I remember that (the majority of?) the pipeline control stations were completely disconnected from any kind of intranet. When a software update was needed, my colleague just took a USB pen drive and got transported via helicopter to manually install it. There was always some armed personnel present. On the other hand, stations were running Microsoft Windows, and they were using HP servers (most probably with Intel processors). One could think about how good were relations between Germans, Russians, and Poles then. And now the media are telling us that we should be enemies, and a lot of people are buying this BS :umm:
 
Ben said:
It's clearly fake. I don't think he's actually going to call them Satan-worshippers, or claim that the Nazis won WW2. Pretty good fake speech though!
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Michael B-C said:
To be fair Ben he has spoken previously about NAZI ideology still being alive and well in the west as well as he or Lavrov saying WWII never ended - and I also remember him once before using the word satanic, so this was quite a clever take on something that at this exasperated stage Putin might well say - and who would blame him (indeed we would thank him, hence me falling momentarily for this as you say pretty good fake speech). Whilst enjoying it I did however wonder (the VO sounds too smooth for a live translation plus the gravely tone is most unlike the normal cultured and unassuming translators we hear)... of course the use of the BS word should have been enough along with the sarcastic but overly loose 'admittance' that he runs a slave state of his own thank you... simply not Putin no matter how riled he gets... so a wishful thinking danger alert yet again! Thanks Niall.
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Ben said:
I felt it too. There was a feeling of 'finally, telling it like it is!' I would have been behind him with every word of this speech. Perhaps it would be wise for me to observe these kind of feelings closely. There's obviously frustration and emotional investment tied up in this, probably for many of us. I think that is justified, but it could also be an inlet for attack or manipulation.

But of course Putin has a way of telling it like it is while maintaining self control, dignity and somehow even diplomatic respect for the monsters he is up against. It really takes someone with a degree of self mastery and iron will to have a chance at pulling all this off. All the while carrying a burden of responsibility, knowledge and awareness of things which he simply cannot yet reveal.

As the C's said - "He's not perfect but he's the best your planet has in such a position at this time"
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Yes it is a good fake. I’m pretty certain that what Putin thinks comes pretty close to that fake speech (minus some points in there he wouldn't think). He would never say it openly like that though. But I think there is a good chance that he will become even more direct in future real statements/speeches.

Edit: I listened to the fake speech again and adapted what I wrote above accordingly.
 
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