Latest editorial
In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard a leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen, September 28, 2022
[Swedish Coast Guard via AP]
RUMOURS are swirling over who was involved in the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, after Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Germany should “keep quiet” over the fate of a project that Poland always opposed.
Posting on X on Saturday, Mr Tusk wrote: “To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2, the only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet,” apparently in response to claims by a former head of German intelligence agency BND, August Hanning, that the spectacular act of sabotage must have had Polish support.
The September 2022 explosions destroyed the pipeline, which was built to supply Germany with Russian natural gas. The explosions released an estimated 478,000 tonnes of methane gas into the atmosphere and displaced an estimated 250,000 tonnes of seabed sediment, much of it toxic because the pipelines pass by a chemical munitions dump site near the Danish island of Bornholm.
In Washington, the willingness to accept an open war with Russia is growing — at Europe’s expense. While Nato states are being drawn into confrontation, Europe risks becoming the battlefield of a potential world war, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
MARK HAZELDEN criticises the Western narrative that the incident was an escalation of Russia’s confrontation with the West, given that Belarus, a Russian ally, warned Poland of off-course drones, and the drones were unarmed, cheap wooden decoys
