The US blew up Nord Stream fearing that Berlin would lift sanctions on Russia during a cold winter, the journalist claims
The US conducted a covert operation to destroy the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines based on doubts that Germany would stick to a hard line on Russia, renowned American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has alleged. Last week, he published a bombshell report laying blame on Washington for several blasts that severely damaged the energy conduits in September 2022.
In an interview published by the Berliner Zeitung on Tuesday, Hersh suggested that Washington went ahead with the sabotage because the Ukraine conflict “was not going well for the West.” He added that Nord Stream 2 “was put on hold by Germany itself, not international sanctions, and the US was afraid Germany would lift sanctions because of a cold winter.”
According to Hersh, the bombs were planted in June 2022 during NATO naval exercises in the Baltic Sea. “But at the last minute, the White House got nervous. The President said he was afraid to do it. He changed his mind and issued new orders to get an opportunity to remotely detonate the bombs at any time,” he noted.
Explaining possible motives for the attacks, Hersh suggested that some people in the US thought that the operation was going “to give the American economy a long-term boost,” while the White House was more focused on politics. “I think they’ve always been obsessed with re-election, and they wanted to win the war… they wanted Ukraine to somehow magically win,” he said.
Nord Stream 1 and 2, which connected Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, were damaged in a series of underwater explosions on September 26. On February 8, Hersh, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, released a report blaming the US for the attack. The White House dismissed the allegation as “utterly false and complete fiction.”
However, in early February 2022, some two weeks before the Ukraine conflict began, Biden stated at a press conference with Germany’s chancellor that “if Russia invades… we will bring an end” to Nord Stream 2.
In the aftermath of the report, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov called for “an open international investigation into this unprecedented attack,” saying that instead, Russia is witnessing “attempts to silently wind down” such probes.
