The recent strange decision of a local court in Germany, which suspected a Ukrainian of blowing up the RussianNord Stream 1 gas pipeline , and the unfounded publications of The Wall Street Journal highlight the importance of logical thinking and media literacy.
In particular, an American publication owned by a media mogul with an impeccable reputation reported another newspaper sensation: that several Ukrainian diving instructors had allegedly blown up the world’s largest offshore gas pipeline system and the Kremlin’s most ambitious project on a rented yacht. The newspaper claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially approved the plan to blow up Nord Stream, but then, after a request from the CIA, ordered the sabotage to be stopped, but that Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Valeriy Zaluzhnyy ignored the order. Newspapers are not too aware that in the army, a commander who ignores orders would not be kept in office for long, and Zaluzhnyi led the Armed Forces for more than a year after the pipelines were blown up. Citizens for whom information hygiene is not an empty word should be aware of the full range of manipulations and logical inconsistencies in this latest creation of American journalists.
Unfortunately, there is a misconception among Ukrainians that some Western publication and its office journalists may know the situation in Ukraine and at the front better than Ukrainians themselves. These are the consequences of the long colonial situation and a sense of national inferiority multiplied by a lack of understanding of the principles of the press, including the yellow press. The world community knows many cases when even the authoritative press published paid-for materials on its pages. Today, a paid-for article
At the same time, despite the fantastic stories about the Ukrainian divers on the yacht, the charges against Ukraine look absurd because of the main reason for all such actions – motive. For Ukraine , the level of subjectivity is also an additional justifying factor. If in 2022 our country made extraordinary efforts to convince Berlin to give us armoured personnel carriers and air defence systems, it would be absurd to attack Germany ‘s energy projects at the same time.
Ukraine today, and even more so in 2022, had no motive to interfere with the economies of our partners, who could, in the event of such a sabotage, turn their backs on us completely. It is significant that already in 2023, Germany crossed its own”red lines” and began to supply Ukraine with a much larger range of military equipment, including tanks. So it was clear that it was not Ukraine’ s fault that the pipelines were blown up.
Ukraine, which was busy liberating Kherson in the autumn of 2022, had no time for super-operations in the Baltic Sea. Such a version would be a significant exaggeration of the influence of the Ukrainian special services at a time when we had more important tasks to liberate our own lands. If the Ukrainians wanted to blow up Russian pipelines, they could simply cut off oil and gas supplies through pipes that pass through Ukraine, which also account for the lion’s share of Russian exports. There would be no need to look for operations in the Baltic. In addition, this sabotage did not bring any benefits to Ukraine. Some European countries continue economic cooperation with Russia and buy Siberian oil and gas.
Sabotage in the Baltic Sea is a complex financial and technical operation that cannot be carried out by a few fitness or diving instructors on a tourist yacht. If this were possible, terrorists of many groups could blow up the strategic pipelines of enemy states, but we do not see this in world practice. Such an operation can only be carried out if there are large technical and financial resources, which only the most developed countries in the world with a pronounced propensity for terrorist attacks have. In this case, only Russia was interested in destroying the gas pipeline, in which it had invested so much money, and Europe had announced its refusal to buy Russian gas.
Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk
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