RIA Novosti , Rossiyskaya Gazeta and other media circulated a tweet by the founder of the Megaupload and Mega file hosting services, Kim Schmitz (Kim Dotcom), who, citing an "anonymous whistleblower", spoke about "secret sabotage" by the United States around the world, including explosions on gas pipelines " Nord Stream, for which the Russian government still blames the Anglo-Saxons.
The source said he worked as a contractor at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland on the Advanced Underwater Seal Transportation Vehicle (ASDS) systems for covert operations. According to him, back in 2001 they had the opportunity to program various scenarios, including the organization of sabotage on pipelines, ”RIA Novosti writes.
In addition, the "source" argued that it was the US military who blew up the gas pipelines – after all, the US Navy planes "appeared over the Baltic Sea near the state of emergency on September 25 and 26 – on the eve and on the day of the explosions", which can be seen using the service flightradar.
This version has a few oddities. Firstly, the Dotcom “whistleblower” submits his words as confirmation of the version of the journalist Seymour Hersh, who for several months, also citing an “anonymous source”, has been spreading the version that the United States was involved in the explosions. However, Hersh claimed that the Boeing P-8 Poseidon of the Norwegian Navy took part in the operation. This is just one of the many mistakes in his "investigation": the investigators found that the P-8 mentioned by Hersh appeared in the area after the explosions (not before) and belonged to the US Air Force, not Norway. Thus, the versions of Dotcom and Hersh already contradict each other.
Secondly, it is unlikely that US Navy aircraft would have hit Flightradar while performing covert sabotage. This service collects data from the ADS-B system (Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast), which are transmitted unencrypted and therefore visible to anyone. However, American military aircraft can disable this system when performing covert operations – which they would certainly do if they were afraid of being discovered.
This is not the first time Kim Schmitz has been spreading a fake about US involvement in the bombings. Last year, he alleged that former British Prime Minister Liz Truss allegedly sent a message to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with the words "It's done" after the explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Then the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova drew attention to his tweets. However, The Insider exposed this version: at that moment, Truss's phone, hacked by "Russian agents", was in a locked safe in a secure government building (the British media wrote about this).
As for the identity of Dotcom itself, RIA Novosti "forgot" to mention that he is wanted at the request of the United States due to allegations of copyright infringement, money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud. He is currently suing the government of New Zealand, where he lives, to avoid extradition to the States. He was also arrested in Germany and Thailand for hacking, spying and selling stolen phone numbers.
Dotcom is known for his baseless claims and conspiracy theories: for example, he claimed that former President Barack Obama, who colluded with all of Hollywood, was behind his prosecution.
Dotcom is also known for promoting a pro-Russian agenda: for example, in September, he tweeted that the war in Ukraine was “provoked by the United States” and that the States are the main ones responsible for this war. Dotcom has been writing about the fact that the war in Ukraine is a “proxy war” of the United States since May. And in March, he complained about "censorship" in the United States due to the blocking of the pro-Kremlin channel RT.