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Did Ukraine blow up Nord Stream pipelines? | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Did Ukraine blow up the Nord Stream pipelines?

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everyone. And have you seen the latest news on Nord Stream 1, 2? It has been months since that pipeline, those pipelines were destroyed, were sabotaged, and we haven't had any information on who's behind it. Been big questions. Why would the Russians blow up their own pipelines? I've been skeptical, and the investigations that the Europeans have been engaged in, no evidence whatsoever. There was this piece by Seymour Hersh that I looked into pretty closely, one anonymous source claiming the Americans and the Norwegians were behind it. That turned out to be not standing up on its facts on a whole bunch of pieces of ostensible evidence brought in the piece. But now we have a New York Times piece that's come out with direct sourcing from US senior officials, including intelligence officials, claim that there is evidence that a Ukrainian organization was behind the explosion.

Now, I want to say, first of all, that was my view over the last few months, is if anyone was likely behind it would probably be Ukraine. And the question is, would they have the capacity? Because the interest was certainly highest. They are the ones that desperately want to ensure that the Russians don't continue to have leverage to potentially drive a wedge around European support and get that gas flowing again from Russia into Germany and into Europe.

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Nord Stream explosion mystery: We need proof, says Estonia's PM Kaja Kallas | GZERO World

Nord Stream explosion mystery: We need proof, says Estonia's PM Kaja Kallas

Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines? We still don't know, and that's a pretty troubling thought given it's the single biggest attack outside of Ukraine during the war. Multiple investigations determined the September 2022 explosions of Nord Stream 1 and 2 were sabotaged, and the west immediately blamed the Russians. But months after the attack, there's still no evidence of Russian involvement and the explosions are still an international unsolved mystery.

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Ian Bremmer: The West is united on Russian energy, the rest of the world is not | GZERO Media

Ian Bremmer: The West is united on Russian energy, the rest of the world is not

With talk at this year’s Munich Security Conference from most of the world’s most powerful countries about decoupling from Russian energy, it can be easy to forget that most of the world’s population has other priorities.

“What we're seeing is that a majority of the world's economic strength and certainly military strength really wants to put Russia back in a box, but a majority of the world's population does not. And that is because of what's happened with the pandemic. It's what happened with climate change”, said Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer during a Global Stage livestream conversation hosted by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft.

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Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines? | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines?

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Quick Take to kick off your week, and I want to talk about Nord Stream one and two. These are the pipelines, the gas pipelines that the Germans had wanted and the Russians had built, multi-billion dollar pipelines to bring gas from Russia into Germany and Europe. The United States had been very critical of these pipelines for years. The Trump administration particularly vocal about it, and only shut down after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and then sabotaged, blown up.

So who did it? It's a big question. And the presumption immediately after the explosions back in September that came from the West and Ukraine was that it was the Russians. And there was no evidence, but you're blaming the Russians for everything since they invaded Ukraine and they're committing all these war crimes. But this one always struck me, Nord Stream, as not having enormous credibility, trying to figure out why would the Russians blow up their own multi-billion-dollar pipelines?

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What a Mysterious Pipeline Attack Says About European Unity | GZERO World

What a mysterious pipeline attack says about European unity

When segments of the Nord Stream gas pipeline linking Russia to Europe mysteriously exploded last September, all eyes were on Moscow, Ian Bremmer tells GZERO World.

But proving a wide held suspicion that Russia was responsible has been a much harder task for European nations.

That's in part due to a long European history of reluctance to share intelligence among member nations.

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Taiwan’s Secret Shield Against Chinese Invasion: Its Semiconductor Industry | GZERO World

Taiwan's secret shield against Chinese invasion: its semiconductor industry

The Biden administration has recently doubled down on its efforts to delay China's push to dominate future areas of tech by squeezing the supply of semiconductors Beijing gets from Taiwan.

Why? Because those tiny chips are "the greatest defense we have against Taiwan being invaded," New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.

For Sanger, it's about time the US made such a move. America, he points out, was becoming as dependent on Taiwanese-made semiconductors as Europe was on Russian oil and natural gas before Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine.

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The logo of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project is seen at a rolling plant in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

What We're Watching: Russian gas pipeline problems, China's economic slump, the other mobilization

Did someone blow up the Nord Stream pipelines?

The operator of the two Nord Stream gas pipelines, which run from Russia to Western Europe under the Baltic Sea, reported “unprecedented” leaks and massive pressure drops on Tuesday, stoking fears of foul play. Nord Stream was not actually carrying gas to Europe at the time — the EU froze approvals for the new Nord Stream 2 line after Russia invaded Ukraine, and Russia halted existing flows through Nord Stream 1 in August, blaming Western sanctions. But the incident comes as Europe bundles up for winter with substantially reduced shipments of Russian gas. Seismologists recorded explosions in the area on Monday, and European officials have suggested sabotage, but so far there is no hard evidence. Russian officials, for their part, lamented the incident’s impact on “energy security,” while some pro-government outlets have suggestedAmerican sabotage. If it were deliberate, who’d benefit most from blowing up a non-operational pipeline? Apart from the geopolitical intrigue, there are environmental concerns too — the line is now leaking gargantuan amounts of methane, churning up the sea off the Danish island of Bornholm.

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Europe Supports Ukraine Despite Energy Crisis: EU's Von der Leyen | Europe In :60 | GZERO Media

Europe supports Ukraine despite energy crisis: EU’s von der Leyen

Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.

What were the main points of the commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State of Europe speech?

Well, the first point was obviously support for Ukraine in different forms. And she highlighted in particular the need to get Ukraine full access to the European internal market, thus facilitating the long-term development of the Ukrainian economy. The second item that she dealt with quite a lot was, of course, the energy crisis in order to bear and handle the winter as the Russians are cutting the gas.

Second question: what's going to happen in Sweden after the recent election?

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