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A sensational report claiming the United States bombed the Nord Stream pipelines has reignited the blame game over who attacked the $20 billion infrastructure project that channels Russian gas to Western Europe.
The White House on Wednesday reiterated its denial that the US orchestrated a series of explosions in September 2022. A spokesman described a report alleging that US Navy divers planted remote-controlled explosives in the pipeline as “totally false and complete fiction.”
Investigators from Sweden and Denmark have confirmed that explosives were found at blast sites in the Baltic Sea, but no nation or entity has been formally named as a suspect in the attack.
The explosions on September 26, 2022 caused significant damage to three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, which took 15 years to build.
For Russia, it appeared to be a huge blow to its energy-driven economy, as the damage would prevent billions of dollars worth of gas from flowing to Europe.
A report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh claims that the United States was responsible for the attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline. Navy divers allegedly planted the explosives in June, using NATO exercises as a cover. They were then remotely detonated in September, it is claimed. The White House and the CIA have strongly denied the report.
Russia has also been accused of carrying out the Nord Stream gas explosions. Explanations range from scuba divers to spy submarines to underwater drones, with a possible motive to cripple Europe’s winter power supplies.
For Europe, it exacerbated an energy crisis that was already out of control. Countries, including Germany, were heavily reliant on Russian energy imports, and ditching those supplies has proven challenging and costly.
Several countries were said to have grounds for action: Russia, Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Britain and the United States.
Western fingers have continued to point at Russia, and Moscow has accused the United States and Britain of sabotage.
The report released Wednesday by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh cites two key reasons the United States might have engineered an attack on the pipeline: in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to prevent the Kremlin from arming its energy supplies to Europe.
Hersh’s 5,000-word report, published in his substack blog, cites a single anonymous source with ‘with direct knowledge of operational planning’.
Vladimir Putin has accused the West of carrying out the attack. Russia initially pointed the finger at the UK, then alleged in February that the US was directly involved
President Joe Biden, who said he would ‘end’ Nord Stream if Russia invaded Ukraine. Senior US officials previously said it “appears” Russia was to blame for the attack.
The source revealed an elaborate, dangerous and top-secret mission involving US Navy divers planting C4 explosives in the pipeline that were detonated three months later by a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian surveillance plane. . Norway has also said that “these accusations are false.”
The plot, which is said to have been overseen by President Joe Biden, is not only elaborate and extremely technical. The international reaction if the United States is found to have carried out such an operation would be massive.
The CIA has also strongly denied any US involvement in the pipeline attacks.
Russia has been accused by several Western countries of the attack, described by some as an act of self-sabotage.
Officials in the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy have also blamed Russia for the Nord Stream bombing.
Theories for why the Kremlin would order such an operation against the infrastructure on which the Russian economy depends include stopping the flow of power to Europe as winter approaches.
Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine have also raised suspicions about Vladimir Putin.
Immediately afterwards, senior US officials, including Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, said it “seems” Russia was to blame. Members of the German government expressed similar suspicions.
Ukraine said the explosions were “a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression against [the European Union]’.
but a Washington Post report in December he said that officials in several countries were not convinced that Russia carried out the attacks.
A European official told the Post that “there is no evidence at this time that Russia was behind the sabotage,” and the report said the assessment echoed the views of 23 other diplomatic and intelligence officials in nine countries.
Russia has tried to blame various Western nations.
In October, just over a month after the incident, Russia’s Defense Ministry said British Army personnel launched the attack. A statement accused the UK military of ‘planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea’.
Britain said the Kremlin was “selling false claims of an epic scale” to “de-escalate its disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
This month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of being directly involved in the attacks.
He referenced a recent statement made by US Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, who at a recent Senate hearing praised the destruction of the pipeline. Lavrov described her words as a “confession”.
Unsurprisingly, Russia pounced on the latest claim of US involvement and demanded that the White House address the “facts” reported by Hersh.