In mid-February 2023, large Telegram channels distributed a comment by Ursuly von der Lyain about the fact that explosions on Russian gas pipelines could be an American sabotage. We checked if she made such a statement.
On February 16, more than a hundred Telegram channels quoted the head of the European Commission Ursulu von der Layen, who is alleged, said: “The version of US involvement in gas pipelines [North Stream” and “North Stream 2”] It seems to us absurd. For all the years of America’s existence, not a single fact of violation of international law or actions outside the framework of international law has been established and confirmed. An impeccable reputation of the American state allows us not to consider this version. ” Among the largest channels that brought this quote were Colonelcassad (841,000 subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), "Dmitry Vasilet"(550 000),"Russian format"(315 000),"⚡️🇷🇺 Summarians of the militia of Novorossiya Z.O.V. (DPR, LPR, Ukraine, war)"(289 000),"Mriya"(153,000),"Old Square"(118 000),"Cyber front z 🇷🇺"(116 000),"War History of Weapons"(106 000) and"Denacification UA"(94,000). Users also shared the statement of the head of the European Commission Facebook*, Twitter, "VKontakte","Zena" YouTube, Livejournal and others Platforms.
On September 26, 2022, near the Danish Island of Bornholm on the Severnaya Stream underwater gas pipelines (functioned since 2011) and Nord Stream 2 (completed at the end of 2021 but not commissioned), several explosions occurred, due to which three of the four threads were disabled. Representatives of the Denmark authorities, as well as Sweden and Poland, located near the place of the incident, the very next day described The incident as a sabotage, and local police and experts began an investigation, publicly not calling possible suspects. September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused In explosions on the "northern stream" of the "Anglo -Saxons". October 10 Prime Minister of Sweden Magdalena Andersson She saidthat the Swedish police will not share with representatives of Russia or Gazprom the preliminary data of the investigation that caused indignation The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and other officials.
At the time of publication of this analysis, the results of the investigation, which are conducted by representatives of European countries, were not published. At the end of December 2022, The Washington Post publication with reference to sources in diplomatic circles reported: There were no clear evidence that Russia was organized by the sabotage itself, so such accusations (and they began to put forward almost immediately after the explosions) before the end of the investigation would be hasty. In early February 2023, a similar assessment I voiced General Prosecutor of Germany Peter Frank. On February 21, the US ambassador in Moscow was called by Lynn Tracy to the Russian Foreign Ministry, where they demanded that the American side “give explanations” about the incident and “do not interfere with an objective investigation to establish the perpetrators.”
February 8, 2023 American journalist Seymour Hersh Published In its blog on the Substack platform, the material under the heading “How did America destroy the Nord Stream gas pipeline?” In his text, Hersh claims that the US authorities and special services organized sabotage in cooperation with Norwegian colleagues, laying explosives under the cover of the exercises of NATO countries in the summer of 2022. Although the author - Laureate numerous journalistic prizes (including in 1970 the most prestigious - Pulitzer), in recent years he published articles clearly of conspiracy thermal content with a lot of inconsistencies (the most famous - The fact that before his murder in 2011, Osama Ben Laden allegedly spent five years captive at the Pakistani army by agreement with the US authorities). Numerous mistakes Found And in the text about explosions on the Northern Stream, but its main problem is that all the statements of Hersha are based on the words of one (!) Anonymous source, supposedly "directly familiar with the course of operation planning."
Nevertheless, for the approval of Hersh in his statements They began to rely Russian officials and pro -government media, as well as the authorities of some other countries (for example, China). In turn, the White House shortly after the publication on the journalist blog He called it The content of the text is “completely false”, and the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs described it as “nonsense”.
We were not able to find any comments on the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Lyayen regarding the conclusions of Hersh. They are not on Official website European Commission (there, in particular, the transcript of the officials of the official are published), nor in verified account On Twitter, which it uses quite actively. In general, in this social network, von der Layen wrote about explosions on the Northern Streams twice: September 27, the next day, told About negotiations with the Prime Minister of Denmark, called the incident a sabotage and called for an investigation, and on October 3 Published Twit similar in content after a conversation with the head of the Cabinet of Ministers of Norway.
A quote about the “impeccable reputation of the American state”, which was actively distributed by Internet users, first appeared not at all in the speech of von der Lyain, her comments for the media or publication on social networks. The earliest mention of this phrase can be found in the Telegram channel “But my Yandex Kid” (18,800 subscribers), where the corresponding post was Placed February 15 at 21:00 Moscow time. In larger channels, the quote began to appear in the early morning of the next day.
Permanent readers “verified” (unlike, for example, from Colonelcassad bloggers and Dmitry Vasilz) already know that the authors of the channel “But my Yandex Kid” are the creators of the most viral satirical news of recent months. Although the project is not as famous as, for example, Panorama (probably, therefore, some of its publications take seriously), posts regularly appear in large blogs under the guise of real news. “Verified” sorted out, in particular, invented by the authors of the channel “But my Yandex Kid” quotes of prime ministers Estonia And Poland. However, you can find out that the publications of the canal are satirical in nature, simply by reading the description of the blog: “A parody, satire on political reality. Only proven fakes. "
*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Photo on the cover: European Parliament Via Wikimedia Commons
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