by Joseph P. Farrell, Giza Death Star:

The story of that Russian submarine that was apparently deliberately scuttled by its crew – who are now being lionized in Russia by President Putin as having averted a global catastrophe – continues to get stranger and stranger. I have to admit that when the story first appeared, I had to fight the urge to blog about it immediately, because it seemed so strange. After all, within the time frame of the incident, Presidents Putin and Trump, and U.S. Vice President Pence, cancelled meetings, and we were told Mr. Putin scheduled a meeting with the Russian Defense Minister (General Shoigu), and one can only assume that the Trump-Pence cancellations were due to the same incident. The story – and the speculations – quickly grew, however, so tempted as I was to blog about it a few days ago when the story broke, I decided to wait.

What has now emerged are very few details, and a mountain of speculations, and I want to review them here, and to add my own high octane speculation to the mix. This review is by no means comprehensive, but does represent a good cross-section of the articles on the incident that everyone has been kind enough to send. A big thank you to all of you who did so.

The Planetary Catastrophe Story:

Russia’s version of the story was encapsulated by this Zero Hedge article, where we’re informed that the crew of the lost submarine managed to avert a planetary catastrophe:

Russian Sailors “Averted Planetary Catastrophe” During Nuclear Submarine Accident

As noted in the article, the Russian government is not saying exactly what the nature of that “planetary catastrophe” was, nor is it forthcoming about the mission the submarine was conducting. We’ll get back to that.

Shortly after this, the Russian government admitted that Defense Minister Shoigu had actually traveled to the far eastern base, and confirmed that the submarine experienced a catastrophic fire. Notably, the following article lists the names of the lost crew members, most of whom, it is to be noted, were officers and indeed captains.

Then more details emerged that indicate that the submarine was perhaps nuclear powered, and that it was a “spy submarine” with several high-ranking  Russian naval officers aboard,  and that the submarine was on some sort of secret mission, one speculation being that it was mapping the ocean floor around the Bering Strait:

The problem with this explanation of course is the apparent absurdity of the mission. As “B.” put it in an email to me, why would one send a sophisticated deep-sea spy submarine – full of high ranking naval officers no less – to conduct depth measurements which could easily have been conducted by any number of civilian vessels available to the Russians?

2. The “Internet Cable Cutting Mission” Hypothesis:

One speculation that quickly emerged in the alternative media (and even gained some minor play on the major media in radio talk shows), was that the real mission of the submarine was to cut internet cables:

Russian Sub That Caught Fire Possibly Sent to Cut Internet Cables

As the reader might have guessed, I have no difficulty with the idea that underwater internet cables have been carefully mapped by any number of nations (the usual suspects), including the Russians. That’s not my difficulty here. My difficulty is the idea that the mission of the submarine was to cut them, not map them. Cutting them would be construed as hostile action, and would call forth some sort of retaliatory response from the West. And as if that’s not enough, there was even

3. The “U.S.-Russian submarines in secret fire-fight” Theory:

Here the story turns murky:

First reports reaching DEBKAfile’s military sources say that a US submarine intercepted a Russian nuclear sub in American waters opposite Alaska. The Russian sub escorting the nuclear submarine responded with a Balkan 2000 torpedo and scuttled the US vessel. Urgent consultations in both the White House and the Kremlin were taking place on Tuesday night. US Vice President Mike Pence called off an appearance in  New Hampshire after being recalled to Washington for a conference called by President Donald Trump without explanation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled an engagement and headed for the Kremlin to confer with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chiefs, after learning that 14 submariners died in a fire that broke out on a nuclear-powered “experimental submarine in Russian waters.”

The problem here is the usual “anonymous sources” problem; we have no way of checking the assertion that some sort of firefight was involved between Russian and American vessels. However, there has been no news report of any damaged or lost U.S. naval vessels.  This may or may not be significant, since in the case of an actual firefight, it is conceivable that news of it might be deliberately suppressed precisely in order to avoid dangerous escalation of the incident.

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