Seymour Hersh:

On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place.

In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery. Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House—but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution. A few months later, when it emerged that Russian authorities had been quietly getting estimates for the cost to repair the pipelines, the New York Times described the news as “complicating theories about who was behind” the attack.

---

Spiegel:

Es sind Augenblicke, in denen deutlich wird: Hier stehen sich zwei Konzepte, zwei politische Ansätze gegenüber.

Woke Imperialism – The Chris Hedges Report

Die Zeit:

Der ukrainische Präsident Wolodymyr Selenskyj entzieht mehreren ehemaligen prorussischen Politikern des Landes die ukrainische Staats­bürgerschaft. „Ich habe die entsprechenden Dokumente unterzeichnet, um unseren Staat vor denjenigen zu schützen, die auf der Seite des Aggressors stehen“, sagte Selenskyj in seiner Videoansprache.

„Political repression of communists, peace activists and progressive forces is common in both Ukraine and Russia. If Russians do it, it’s a travesty, yet when Ukrainians do it, they’re spreading democracy and representing European values.

Member states are divided on speeding up accession for Ukraine, and rightly so, the levels of corruption is comical.“

Wikipedia:

In 2021, however, the Russian Ministry of Culture downgraded the memorial complex at Katyn on its Register of Sites of Cultural Heritage from a place of federal to one of only regional importance.^[144] Such decisions, says the preface to the site, are made in consultation with the regional authorities, i.e. the Smolensk Region administration.

In June 2022, Russia removed the Polish flag from the memorial complex, amidst a rise in Russia–Poland political tension due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[145]

If I were a Pole I’d be furious.

I looked at this, and looked at this, and it just seems so perverse.

Gabor Steingart, Focus:

Sanktionsregime werden designt um zu beeindrucken – den Wähler, nicht Putin.

Columbia Journalism Review:

No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate. The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes as well as embarrassing retractions and damaged careers. For Trump, the press’s pursuit of the Russia story convinced him that any sort of normal relationship with the press was impossible.

For the past year and a half, CJR has been examining the American media’s coverage of Trump and Russia in granular detail, and what it means as the country enters a new political cycle. Investigative reporter Jeff Gerth interviewed dozens of people at the center of the story—editors and reporters, Trump himself, and others in his orbit.

The result is an encyclopedic look at one of the most consequential moments in American media history.