Colonel Ralph Bosshard (ret.): Seymour Hersh critics discredit themselves

Swiss retired Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Bosshard served in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE SMM) Special Monitoring Mission in 2014, where he served as Senior Planning Officer. Until 2017 he served as Special Military Advisor to the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the OSCE and the Swiss Ambassador in Kiev. From 2017 to 2020 he served as Operations Officer in the OSCE High-Level Planning Group planning a military peacekeeping operation in the South Caucasus. In the Schiller Institute online seminar on the Nord Stream sabotage revelations on February 23, 2023, he said the following:

«Good evening from Switzerland. The information about the sabotage of Nord Stream 2, or rather the responsibility for it, is now slowly seeping through the Swiss press. Of course we are currently faced with the choice of whether to believe the well-known journalist Seymour Hersh, who has already been mentioned several times, or the official statements of the White House. Whatever one thinks of Seymour Hersh, one can hardly call him a Russian agent of influence, or an agent of influence, or whatever one chooses to call it. I think those who tried to discredit him were more likely to discredit themselves. Hersh is undoubtedly a professional who is quite capable of verifying the truthfulness of the information given to him. On the other hand, the Biden administration has so far only denied his statements and their involvement in the sabotage, without providing alternative explanations for undisputed facts.

A plausibility check of Seymour Hersh's article can be made using the analysis we conducted on the information known immediately after the sabotage of these two pipelines off Bornholm. In fact, according to Mr. Hersh, professional divers from the armed forces were also at work, which of course doesn't surprise us. Furthermore, his article concurs with our findings that thorough preparation was required, that the installation of a large amount of explosives on the pipelines was necessary and required hours of arduous work in very difficult conditions. Furthermore, our suspicion that a small warship was used as part of a naval exercise was also confirmed by Mr. Hersh's article.

By the way, I think the choice of a minesweeper that Mr Hersh is talking about makes a lot of sense, because the presence of explosives, divers and a decompression chamber on such a ship is easy to explain. These ships are not as large as the spectacular destroyers and amphibious assault ships used in the BALTOPS exercise. The camouflaging of the preparations for the act of sabotage by means of an exercise does not surprise us either. All in all, Mr. Hersh's article seems to me quite credible, with all the consequences this statement can have for the credibility of official statements from the White House.

I see a certain lack of credibility above all in those press products that try to discredit any depiction that deviates from the official line from the outset as Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. On the contrary, today it can be assumed that the stories about Russian submarines, about torpedoes, about explosive charges planted during the construction of the pipelines and about maintenance robots involved in the sabotage were part of a campaign to cover up unpleasant facts and were thus part of a disinformation campaign. We should bear this in mind when reading articles in the western – especially the German-speaking – press in the near future.

However, the Nord Stream 2 sabotage is not the only aspect of the escalation that Helga Zepp-LaRouche just mentioned. Another is the attacks by Ukrainian drones on Engels and Dyagilevo air bases in western Russia, where Russian long-range aircraft are stationed, tasked with maintaining strategic deterrence. Not surprisingly, this has been interpreted as a direct attack on Russia's deterrent capability, even Russia's very existence as a state, and has now led to the nuclear arms control consequences announced the day before yesterday by President Putin. The question I am now asking is whether Ukraine is using US support for its own war against Russia, or is the United States using Ukrainian hatred of Russia for its own ends? In any case, it seems to me that the entire strategy of the Biden administration in Washington is slipping out of the hands.

In any case, the cooperative strategy that Russia's President Vladimir Putin had promised since 2001 finally came to an end in December 2021, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche just mentioned. The way I see it, the German government also bears some of the responsibility for this. The termination of cooperation and the suspension of the START III agreement is probably the penultimate step in the exit from arms control agreements in general. And I don't even want to think about the next step, which could initially set the Middle East on fire if, for example, it transpires that Russia is prepared to equip Iran with nuclear weapons if necessary, as the USA has agreed with several NATO countries within the framework of the do nuclear sharing.

Apparently, the Biden administration is currently putting its geopolitical ambitions ahead of the legitimate security interests of longtime partners and allies. This is also a cause for concern for me. It is the Biden administration that is currently splitting NATO and thus helping its archenemy Putin to achieve cheap success, and in my view that is not to be understood as an expression of a clever strategy. Such behavior should serve as a warning to other potential allies of the US and the West in general, and US support for Ukraine in the current war could have unplanned and unintended consequences relatively soon.

For now, it seems to me that the Russian government is reluctant to escalate the war in Ukraine, much less engage in direct conflict with the United States. That could force China to intervene. However, Norway, which openly and willingly supported the act of sabotage, is now heavily exposed and could of course become the target of the next Russian strike. That will not happen tomorrow or next weekend. I am sure that Russia will take its time with its reaction. The response will be well thought out, as the experience of the past few months and years I have spent in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) shows. I think it will be designed in such a way that there will be legitimate doubts about responsibility for further acts of sabotage. So, to use the words of the German-speaking press, there will also be occasion for further conspiracy theories in the near future. With this in mind: Thank you very much and I look forward to your comments.»

Colonel Ralph Bosshard (ret.): Seymour Hersh critics discredit themselves