New US intelligence claim that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea 2022, according to the New York Times (NYT).

In an interview in Swedish television (SVT) Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksij Reznikov deny any Ukrainian operation in the Baltic Sea. "It has nothing to do with us. However……it would be a compliment to our special forces, but it was not us" The Minister of Defense smirks while commenting this. His lack of Congruence might raise concerns even though the interview does not Cluster of signs nor the Context of the oneliner that made him smirk.

Since early days of television broadcasting we have seen smirks in interviews. One of the the most famous smirks of a most infamous man, Kim Philby when he was interviewed by BBC in the fifties about him as a Russian spy. He explained his innocence while being an alleged spy. Many years after Philby´s defection to the Soviet Union, he gives a seminar to East German spies on how to succeed at espionage.

Another wellknowned smirk of an alleged spy, was also in British television in 2011. A BBC interview with Katia Zatuliveter. She was former British MP's aide accused of being an honey trap spy. Katia was Persona Non grata, but won her appeal against deportation from the UK. In the interview she had a smirked talking about how brilliant it would be to write a diary in order to build a cover as well as claiming she never ever met a Russian spy.

What made Philby to smirk, or Anna, or Oleksij? We might never know. The psychologist and body language expert calls the smirk Duping delight a micro expression a person will display "the pleasure we get over having someone else in our control and being able to manipulate them".

Micro expressions or not, smirks at interviews are sending dubious signals. When humans are shown ambiguous facial emotion, we tend to assume that the expression has negative meaning. And once we start hesitating on the verbal content we tend to trust our instincts of interpret non verbal cues.

So far it is all anonymous information from New York Times, and we know false flag operations are common, and we know that since Russia started the war a year ago many false flag operations has taken place as well as disinformation operations. However the unintended smirk of a politician might blur our impression of the interview. And it gives me a gut feeling..is there something more to come?