The article “The Secret of the Cold Depths: Who’s Afraid of the Truth about the Nord Stream Explosions?” from Aftershock.News is a case study in state-aligned disinformation masquerading as journalistic inquiry. It blends the aesthetics of investigative concern with the rhetorical hallmarks of Kremlin-style influence operations, revealing more about its agenda than the Nord Stream incident it pretends to scrutinize.
First and foremost, the entire narrative rests on a foundation of strategic ambiguity. It makes repeated insinuations about a cover-up—by Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and by extension NATO—without offering any hard evidence. This is textbook argumentum ad speculum–implying something must be true because it could be, not because there’s proof. The piece substitutes legal frustration with epistemological certainty, a classic disinformation tactic that transforms bureaucratic opacity into a presumed conspiracy.
The article opens with false equivalence and loaded framing equating the closure of Sweden’s investigation with a refusal to seek the truth, ignoring procedural, legal, and jurisdictional reasons for Sweden’s actions. Then it accuses Western governments of deliberate obstruction, without acknowledging that Russia itself has denied transparency in numerous multilateral incidents (e.g., MH17, Skripal poisoning, Navalny). The double standard is a classic disinformation pattern: hold others to standards you categorically reject for yourself.
The rhetoric of moral outrage—”disappointing”, “unwillingness”, “refusal”—is performative. It does not emerge from a place of transparency or good-faith diplomacy. Instead, it weaponizes indignation as a rhetorical device to delegitimize Western institutions. That is cognitive manipulation, not critique.
The deployment of false authority via figures like “political scientist Andrei Manoylo” is another red flag. Manoylo is a known Kremlin-aligned analyst whose views are frequently used in Russian state propaganda to give an academic sheen to unverifiable claims. His assertion that data refusal proves a hidden agenda is not analysis; it is unsubstantiated conjecture disguised as insight.
The passage on economic impact is riddled with post hoc reasoning. It implies that the sabotage caused LNG volatility and EU energy disarray, which then supposedly justified Russia’s pivot eastward. In reality, the EU’s energy market dynamics were already in turmoil due to Russia’s war in Ukraine and its throttling of gas exports—long before the explosions. Blaming the West for the economic consequences of Russia’s own aggression is a stunning example of causal inversion and gaslighting.
By the time we reach the call for a UN investigation, the narrative makes a hard pivot into whataboutism and projection. The very government that invades its neighbors, kills political dissidents, and hides its own operations behind opaque state media calls for transparency. This isn’t irony. It’s an insult to logic.
The entire piece is a propaganda sandwich–> soft-appearing concern, meat of accusation, and a closing of diplomatic pseudo-reasonableness. It mimics critical journalism while hollowing out its core epistemic standards. No citations. No investigative depth. No accountability for Russia’s own obstructionism.
And let’s not ignore the meta-narrative. Aftershock.News is notorious for aggregating nationalist, conspiratorial, and anti-Western content under the guise of “independent analysis.” The website is a vector for gray propaganda that mixes truth, distortion, and omission in proportions designed to manufacture distrust. It exploits information asymmetry while feigning victimhood, a move common in Russian hybrid warfare as detailed in Jeffrey Bardin’s cognitive warfare doctrine.
The article is not journalism but an influence operation disguised as grievance-fueled commentary existing to pollute the information environment with suspicion, bias, and resentment. It is informational sleight of hand, gaslighting dressed in the robes of inquiry.
Bringing in Manoilo is not incidental but a method of laundering false epistemic legitimacy. In Russia’s disinformation apparatus, pseudo-academics like Manoilo function like human mouthpieces for strategic deception. He frames Russia as the eternal victim with a big and constant wah wah, the West as a monolithic aggressor, and any effort to investigate Russian activities as inherently corrupt. He speaks not to uncover but to occlude. His inclusion here is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand, a signal to loyal audiences that this story fits the “truth” as defined by the Kremlin’s victimhood complex.
The personality cult of Putin seeps into this frame as well. Manoilo’s sycophantic loyalty to the Russian president isn’t simply ideological—it’s narcissistic in tone and content. His public statements read like unhinged loyalty oaths dressed as analysis. There’s a fetishized masculinity in his projection of Putin as the geopolitical alpha-male, one who is endlessly victimized but also omnipotent. The result is a psychologically incoherent but emotionally potent worldview: Putin is always under attack, yet always one move ahead.
His narrative loop—hyper-masculine paranoia dressed as intellectualism—has strong fascist overtones mixing insecurity with grandiosity while thriving on imagined betrayal. And yes, it is virulently homophobic, because in the Kremlin’s information doctrine, queerness is used as both an insult and a perceived weakness. Manoilo’s rhetoric consistently deploys coded masculinity and sexualized nationalism as bludgeons in his narrative wars. His “dreams” of Putin are not just ideological—they are symbolic projections of a deeply warped, authoritarian masculinity built on control, dominance, and suppression.
The article is not just a lie. It is a symphony of narcissistic projection, state-sponsored delusion, and the theatrical gaslighting of reason itself. Strip away the pretense, and what you’re left with is a propaganda ritual where Putin is the god, the West is the demon, and clowns like Manoilo are the priests chanting nonsense in the temple of authoritarian myth.
If there’s one cold depth truly hiding a secret, it’s not the Baltic. It’s the bottomless trench of Kremlin doublethink.
