But even the whole debate about how to solve the Nord Stream mystery (or thriller) — which reminiscent of a James Bond film, with all its military and technical details — perhaps draws too much attention away from the underlying field of interest. Storytelling, and especially the construction of a crime thriller, is very much about directing sympathy (preferably towards the real culprit and away from the false leads, so that the reader doesn’t get to the solution for as long as possible). Another very important point is to draw attention to the irrelevant aspects and away from the crucial information and analyses. As seen above, the extensive and detailed “yacht story” could serve to divert attention away from a completely different action, in which professional military actors used warships or submarines, for example, to plant the explosives.

And perhaps even the war, with all its horror and violence, is not the main story at all, but its tragedy, dynamism and violence only conceal the “hidden story”, the underlying structure of economic and financial interests and the geopolitical tug-of-war over energy markets and infrastructure.

Some geopolitical analysts argue that the Nord Stream blast and even the war in Ukraine and the preceding change of power in 2014 only served to displace Russia as a gas and oil supplier and to enable US and British companies and investors to take over the European energy market. In other words, the thesis is that the end of Russia’s role as the main energy supplier for Germany and Europe is not the result of the war in Ukraine, but rather its cause; or in other words: “It’s the energy market, stupid!”.

Of course, you could also look at the story in this [materialist] way. I generally have the impression that these realities and cold economic interests are often obscured by stories of cultural struggle (open society vs. traditional family/man-woman images) and political stories (democracies vs. autocracies) in order to keep the public busy with emotional discussions and distract them from what is really going on: a ruthless game of chess for money, power and, above all, resources.