Nord Stream Pipelines: Who Bombed Them?

A veteran American investigative journalist has claimed that the September 2022 bombing of the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a covert operation at the direction of the White House. President Joe Biden’s administration has denied the allegations and called the report “utterly false and complete fiction”.

Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has previously worked with The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine, published the findings of his investigation on Substack. The report claimed that US Navy divers, operating under cover of a mid-summer 2022 NATO exercise, planted remotely triggered bombs to destroy three of the four Nord Stream pipelines.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

A series of leaks were reported in the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in September 2022. This multi-billion dollar projects were to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. After an examination, both Sweden and Denmark, in whose jurisdiction the leaks happened, said the leaks took place because someone deliberately bombed the pipelines. However, they did not reveal who was responsible for the attack.

Ever since it became operational in 2011, Nord Stream, the first of the two pipelines, had been one of the major sources of energy supplies for not just Germany but also other countries in Europe. Once the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, it became the centre of tensions as Russia sought to use the pipeline to negotiate its interests by restricting supplies.

With Ukraine and the US asking European countries to reduce their dependence on Russian energy, this led to a difficult and uncertain economic outlook for the continent. The cost of living and energy rose dramatically. With Germany having decided to halt the Nord Stream 2 project two days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and following the bombing of the pipelines, virtually no gas from Russia to Europe now flows through this route.

According to the Hersh report, President Biden began holding meetings with a newly formed task force. The US feared that as long as Germany and much of Western Europe were dependent on the Nord Stream pipelines, they would be hesitant in providing aid and arms to Ukraine against a possible invasion by Russia.

The decision to sabotage the pipelines by President Biden came after “more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal”. To execute the mission successfully, the US sought help from Norway and in March 2022, a hand-picked team of CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) operatives flew to the country to discuss the operation with the Norwegian Secret Service and Navy. This is what Hersh has written.

The 1,224 km-long Nord Stream pipeline runs from Vyborg in northwest Russia to Lubmin in northeastern Germany. The company behind the project is Nord Stream AG, which was established in Switzerland in 2005 in partnership with Gazprom — “ a publicly traded Russian company producing enormous profits for shareholders which are dominated by oligarchs known to be in the thrall of (Russia’s President) Putin”, the report said.

Though most of the gas supplied by Nord Stream 1 went to Germany, a substantial quantity was also delivered to western and southern parts of Europe.

According to Hersh’s report, in the aftermath of the incident, “Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House—but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, 

NATO also released a statement after the incident and said the pipeline leaks were likely the “result of deliberate, reckless, and irresponsible acts of sabotage” and pledged a “united and determined response” to any attacks against their allies’ critical infrastructure.

With the energy supply from Russia at all-time low, European countries had been importing liquified natural gas, or LNG, from the US on a much bigger scale. LNG though is significantly more expensive than piped natural gas from Russia.  Apart from the US, Azerbaijan has also become a major supplier to these countries. In 2022, the gas supply from Azerbaijan to the EU reached 12 billion cubic metres.

Instead of finding a concrete solution for the Ukraine war, the U.S. is keen to fulfil its strategic interests. Nothing is morally right or wrong. And the media goes along with the official narrative – Russia did the hara-kiri! Why is there  no U.N. sponsored  investigation? Isn’t this an act of war? So it was for Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and a whole host other nations who faced the wrath of the U.S. for not dancing to their tune. Here, it is different because it is Europe and it is only cost of living, energy prices and climate change. Anyway, who cares if America wills it!

Reference:

US bombed Nord Stream gas pipelines, says top investigative journalist. What happened under the Baltic Sea last year? Alind Chauhan,www.indianexpress.com, 10 Feb 2023