Nord Stream/Sabotage

 "Explosion,  “Terrorism”"
Nord Stream/Sabotage (Sabotage,  Covert action,  Low-intensity warfare)

Date	26 September 2022
Perpetrators	US deep state?, NATO?, Ukraine?
Blamed on	Unknown
Exposed by	John Helmer, Seymour Hersh
Description	Destruction of Europe's energy supply, under different circumstances it would be considered a declaration of war.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were sabotaged by large explosions on the 26 September 2022. These happened in an area that the USS Kearsarge was crossing shortly before and in which US military helicopters had been circling in early September. The Polish navy in 2021 had interfered and endangered the pipe laying vessels in the same location.

Since the United States strongly opposed the construction of Nord Stream 1 up to a point and clearly made huge efforts to prevent NS 2 to be constructed, in addition, since it has the capability and history using of covert warfare/sabotage, it is also the most obvious culprit. John Helmer in the immediate aftermath pointed to different NATO countries with US support. Seymour Hersh published a report that put the blame widely on the US. A Joint German-Dutch investigation, which may well be a misdirection effort, concluded the CIA knew of a similar plan by Ukraine 3 months before the pipeline was blown up, but allegedly warned them to not execute but put it on "hold".

Background

A spokesperson for Gazprom said on 10 October 2022 that the underwater drone (used as a mine destroyer) discovered in 2015 near the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, belonged to NATO.

Beginning around 2010 the EU began to push a radical change in rules for pricing natural gas. Prior to that point most gas prices were set in fixed long-term contracts for pipeline delivery. The largest supplier, Russia’s Gazprom, provided gas to the EU, most especially to Germany, in long-term contracts pegged to the price of oil. Until the last several years almost no gas was imported by LNG ships. With a change in US laws to allow export of LNG from the huge shale gas production in 2016 US gas producers began a major expansion of LNG export terminal construction. The terminals take an average of 3 to 5 years to build. At the same time Poland, the Netherlands and other EU countries began to build LNG import terminals to receive the LNG from abroad.

In November 2015, the Swedish Armed Forces cleared a "munitions object" found in close proximity to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline (line 2). The location of the object was in the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) approximately 120 km away from the island of Gotland.

National Review, on 22nd February 2022, published an article by Jim Geraghty with the headline: "Nice New Pipeline You’ve Got There. Shame If Something Happened to It". The article concludes with:

“A lot of Germans are invested — politically and economically — in closer ties with Russia, and may be eager to restore the previous status quo as soon as it is politically palatable. Of course, if something happened to make the Nord Stream 2 pipeline unusable, it is a different story. Hey, what is Andreas Malm doing these days? Where are those eco-radicals when we really need them?”
Jim Geraghty (22 February 2022) 

According to reports that were made public shortly thereafter, the NYT writes: "The C.I.A. issued a vague warning in June to a number of European nations, including Germany, that the two Nord Stream gas pipelines that carry natural gas from Russia could be targeted in forthcoming attacks,".

Military exercise

In June 2022, the U.S. Navy held an exercise off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark. In support of the BALTOPS 2022 exercise, the U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios. Experimentation was conducted , with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring all under the direction of U.S. 6th Fleet Task Force 68. This exercise may have provided enough disturbance and sound cover to approach the pipeline undetected - the Baltic sea being constantly monitored "enabled by a broad array of national platforms, including coastal radars, maritime patrol aircraft (both manned and unmanned), surface warships with their air defense radars and sonar arrays, submarines, acoustic and magnetic anomaly sensors, and coastal patrol craft".

Concerns

A tweet by Polish politician Radosław Sikorski, thanking the United States right away. He later deletes the tweet and gets accused to have served Russian propaganda with it.

Russian media warned of a military threat to the pipelines in April 2021, after a significant number of civilian ships and warships (mostly Polish), as well as submarines, made dangerous maneuvers around the pipeline construction vessel Fortuna. Polish military aircraft flew around and over the construction site.

Peskov points to American culpability:

“There is a party or a party that, in the absence of the functioning of these gas pipelines, is able to sell more LNG at a higher price. This side is well known, it is the United States, [...] there are also countries that have the military-technological capabilities to carry out such sabotage”
Dmitry Peskov (03 October 2022) 

On 30th September, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the incident: "offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come" - while on his first visit in office to Europe at the beginning of 2021, he called for the Nord Stream 2 project to be stopped.

Another pipeline from Norway to Poland, the Baltic Pipe, had a ceremony to mark the opening the next day.

CIA support for environmental groups

In a 2024 parliamentary investigation in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Thomas Krüger, chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, reported that according to two witnesses, representatives of US intelligence services campaigned with environmental associations for the prevention of Nord Stream 2 and offered their support. "A representative of the intelligence services also met with a witness directly on the spot and justified his engagement, among other things, with US American interests," Krüger said. According to AfD group member Michael Meister, the head of the Baltic Sea Foundation testified at the same meeting that an employee of the US Department of Energy approached him and asked what he would do about the construction of the pipeline. "I wonder if it was actually an employee of the US Department of Energy or was it more of an agent of the CIA or NSA foreign intelligence services".

CIA and EU foreknowledge

In June 2023, a Die Zeit, ARD and NOS report by current affairs program Nieuwsuur revealed the US Central Intelligence Agency warned Ukraine not to blow up the pipeline. The Americans did so after they had received an alarming report from the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service or MIVD. That agency had heard about Ukrainian plans for an upcoming attack from a source in Ukraine. The report mentioned that "The planned sabotage in June was cancelled three months before it did go through, but in September the pipeline was still blown up. The scenario was nearly identical to that exposed by the MIVD three months earlier." Dutch media reported that - according to insiders - the Dutch Minister Defence Kasja Ollogren, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Foreign Affairs, were informed by the MIVD and subsequent CIA briefings.

“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream.

The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop.

Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”
Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal,  Ben Meindertsma,  NOS (12 June 2023) 

Early reactions

Thierry Meyssan writes that Poland and its Central European allies, members of the Three Seas Initiative (modeled on the Intermarium concept) will now take the economic lead at the expense of western Europe (France, Netherlands, Germany).

Journalist and foreign correspondent John Helmer writes:

“The military operation on Monday night which fired munitions to blow holes in the Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor, near Bornholm Island, was executed by the Polish Navy and special forces.

It was aided by the Danish and Swedish military; planned and coordinated with US intelligence and technical support; and approved by the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The operation is a repeat of the Bornholm Bash operation of April 2021, which attempted to sabotage Russian vessels laying the gas pipes, but ended in ignominious retreat by the Polish forces. That was a direct attack on Russia. This time the attack is targeting the Germans, especially the business and union lobby and the East German voters, with a scheme to blame Moscow for the troubles they already have — and their troubles to come with winter.

Morawiecki is bluffing. “It is a very strange coincidence,” he has announced, “that on the same day that the Baltic Gas Pipeline opens, someone is most likely committing an act of sabotage. This shows what means the Russians can resort to in order to destabilize Europe. They are to blame for the very high gas prices”. The truth bubbling up from the seabed at Bornholm is the opposite of what Morawiecki says.”
John Helmer (27 September 2022) 

An auto translated Telegram post by Vladimir Dzhabarov from 27th September.

Alex Christoforou points out that usually there is an understanding among great powers, that if one were to blow up the other one's infrastructure, it would inevitably draw in a response. So as to not end up in a situation where everything gets destroyed, certain things were in the past agreed to be off-limits. But since the US is not a coherent government anymore in his argument, US state officials are now giving statements that are not unified, which leads him to believe that this was not coordinated with every branch that would otherwise be involved in the decision process; the decision process that would lead to the final order to use covert action.

Alexander Mercouris says that after a while (following investigation) it will be blamed on Russia, but he sees no reason why they should have caused the damage, since Russia could have just cut the gas-flow (which they did in the past) and are now missing this instrument for leverage in negotiations.

On 3rd October, former CIA director John Brennan warns that Russia will target other pipelines.

Pepe Escobar reports that his sources tell him that there were secret negotiations to solve the issue of deliveries between Germany and Russia. Escobar also points to a remark by Dmitry Peskov, who in his choice of words was hinting at this.

The German think tank German-Foreign-Policy while not mentioning "secret negotiations", mentions to the so-called Japan-solution, in which Japan takes part in the US sanctions regime, but excludes the natural gas sector from that completely. They also point out that there was push back within the governing coalition against the blocking of North Stream 2 (besides the AFD, most notably Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) wanted to get NS2 opened), and popular protest was forming on the streets of Germany.

"Investigation"

Denmark and Sweden will not cooperate with Germany, the most affected state, in it's investigation. German press finds interview partners that say Russia possibly had mined it's pipelines during construction; all investigative findings from the German side are under strictest secrecy.

In mid-November the Swedish investigation made public statements that it found explosive traces at the Nord Stream pipeline.

A comment by Robbie Martin.

Report by Seymour Hersh

In February 2023 Seymour Hersh published an article that put the blame squarely on the United States with minor help from Norway. Philip Giraldi commented on it:

"I have known Sy Hersh for a number of years and spent time together with him and other former CIA colleagues helping to confirm details of some of his earlier exposes on US government abuses and outright lies in its somewhat not completely credible role as “guardian” of national security. Hersh is a meticulous investigator who never, in my experience, accepted uncorroborated claims in support of his narratives. I have some understanding of who his sources in the intelligence agencies and Department of Defense might be in this case and it should be accepted that what he has written is completely verifiable and derived from individuals who were actual participants in the activities described. That is not to say that there will not be failures to recall accurately certainly details including aspects of the possible Norwegian involvement, something critics are already pointing to, but the main thrust of “whodunit” and “how” is pretty definitively demonstrated."

John Helmer is critical of the article and points to his own information (published the day after the bombing) and Dmitry Peskov, who said that: "some points could be challenged and some points need proof"; also Russian officials spoke of British involvement earlier.

Blaming

United States

On 27 September 2022, Gonzalo Lira blamed the US government for sabotaging the pipelines, echoing a NATO general who said:

"Our purpose is to keep the Russians out, keep the Americans in, and keep the Germans down”.

Britain

In late October 2022, the Russian Defence Ministry accused the British Navy to have been involved in the sabotage of the pipelines; which the UK Ministry of Defence denied the same day.

On 1 November 2022, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked in a Telegram post:

Britain 'directed Nord Stream sabotage'

“To be honest, I don’t care who got this information and how. I’m interested in London’s answer to the following question: Did Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain send a message to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately after the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up with the words ‘It’s done’?”

Maria Zakharova suggested that “millions of people around the world” were waiting for answers concerning the Nord Stream sabotage, “and what role the Anglo-Saxons played in this terrorist attack.”

Zhakarova’s Telegram post comes amidst claims that Truss allegedly sent the text to Blinken through her unsecured iPhone, prompting internet figure Kim Dotcom to tweet “iCloud admin access rocks,” adding “it’s not just the Five Eyes that have backdoor admin access to all Big Tech database,” although not elaborating what he knows of the matter.

Various press, including the British edition of the Daily Mail, also said that Truss’s phone was hacked and the exchange with Blinken leaked. Other analysts have connected the event to UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s sudden and unannounced visit to the United States, citing a Telegraph article that claims a defence source said the in-person meeting was related to compromised communication systems between the UK and US.

Whatever the veracity of these claims may or may not be, President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russian intelligence agents are in possession of data indicating British military specialists “were directing and coordinating the attack,” according to various press, including Anadolu and AFP.

Russia

On 28th September, the German Bild publishes an article with the headline: "Western Security Agencies Suspect - Putin had Nord Stream mined during construction" (the paper historically publishing what special interests wants society to believe, or be concerned with).

Tweeting on 6 October 2022, Jonathan Cook wrote:

"The Nord Stream blasts were an act of international vandalism on an almost unimaginable scale, overshadowing even 9/11. And yet the media response has been decidedly muted, apart from some barely credible finger-pointing at Russia."

Ukraine

In early March 2023 the NYT started to link Ukraine (a "Pro-Ukrainian Group") to the explosion, citing "U.S. officials". An effort apparently necessary, after asking the world at large to simply believe that Russia (who could close transit at any point) has destroyed it's own infrastructure, did not fly.

"Nobody"

The Swedish and Danish investigations were closed without identifying perpetrators in February 2024.

Forged report

Full article: Forged 2022 Rand report

At the same time as the sabotage, there circulated an alleged leaked research report from the deep state think tank Rand, outlying a US strategy to weaken Germany. From the language used, the report is an obvious forgery, and may well have been circulated in an attempt to discredit independent media not doing sufficient due diligence. Rand issued press release stating it was a fake document.

Divers

In resulting discussions in the aftermath the question was raised if divers could operate in the turbulent waters of the Baltic Sea, a German website with a focus on explosive demolition writes:

The damage is located in a water depth of about 70 meters. Professional and combat divers can also work at such depths in the Baltic Sea to place the previously discussed cutting charges or, even simpler, concentrated explosive charges in the form of mines.

Cover up and censorship

The Wikipedia page was entitled "2022 Nord Stream gas leaks".

Censorship by omission extends down from Guardian editors to its reporters and columnists. In discussing the likely agency behind the 6 June 2023 demolition of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, star Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland pointed towards Russia:

"And there is the pattern of behaviour, the record of past crimes. Russia has scarcely restrained itself from targeting Ukraine’s civil infrastructure over the last 15 months: Kakhovka would just be the latest and most wanton example."

Amazingly, the words ‘Nord Stream’ do not appear in Freedland’s article. This is remarkable because the attack on the ‘Nord Stream’ pipelines on 26 September 2022 was obviously a similar event to the destruction of the dam. So why did Freedland not mention it? Did it slip his mind? A likelier reason is indicated by a report last week in the Washington Post:

"Biden administration officials now privately concede there is no evidence that conclusively points to Moscow’s involvement. But publicly they have deflected questions about who might be responsible.

"European officials in several countries have quietly suggested that Ukraine was behind the attack but have resisted publicly saying so over fears that blaming Kyiv could fracture the alliance against Russia.

"At gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm; as one senior European diplomat said recently, 'Don’t talk about Nord Stream'.”

If Freedland is deliberately not talking about Nord Stream because it undermines his effort to blame Russia for Kakhovka, then he is a propagandist, not a journalist.

Videos

Dirk Pohlmann and Jimmy Dore brief the UN Security Council about the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, 26 September 2023.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Dave Cullen	“[...] whether it is Covid lockdowns, or raising the price of electricity and fuel, or restrictions on energy usage, such as mandatory rationing, or even powercuts - the result is always the same. Winding down the economy, destroying small to medium businesses, forcing more people to stay at home, reducing human movement and making people dependent on the government for their most basic needs. [...] The plan appears to be, do drag on the Ukraine war for as long as possible, so as to create an excuse to accelerate the transition to completely insufficient power sources such as wind, wave and solar energy, during this process energy rationing will become the norm, [...]”	Dave Cullen	13 September 2022
Germany/Public broadcasting	“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream. The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop. Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”	NOS Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal Ben Meindertsma	12 June 2023
Maximilian Krah	“Nord Stream has been blown up. In other words, critical infrastructure on which the competitiveness of German industry depends has been blown away before our eyes. Now I still have enough contacts in the United States that my American friends can tell me: Of course it was the United States, who else?”	Maximilian Krah	6 August 2023
NOS	“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream. The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop. Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”	NOS Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal Ben Meindertsma	12 June 2023
Neue Zürcher Zeitung	“A year after the Nord Stream explosions, this question is still unanswered. Evidence points sometimes to Russia, sometimes to Ukraine. In wilder theories, the United States has already been suspected.”	Neue Zürcher Zeitung Linda Koponen	26 September 2023
Patrik Oksanen	“If you look at the factors of capacity, interest, and also add documented operational patterns with high risk appetite, there is only one answer. It is the Russian Federation that has blown up Nordstream 1 and 2.”	Patrik Oksanen Svenska Dagbladet	October 2022
Peter Zeihan	“German manufacturing will be dead within a year and a half. I know that we're used to be more worried about China here, but Germany is not coming back. If the war ended tomorrow it's probably already too late.”	Peter Zeihan	8 September 2022
Zeit	“In March, when the possible involvement of Ukraine was discussed, Minister Ollongren emphasized that the support that that country received from the Netherlands and Europa had nothing to do with the question as to whether Ukraine was involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream. The plan, which was intercepted by the MIVD, put General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's highest-ranking military officer, in charge of the operation. A small team of divers was said to plan to carry out the sabotage from a yacht. Zelensky was said not to have been in the loop. Last week, The Washington Post reported about this plan based on leaked Pentagon documents, stating that the information had been shared by a European intelligence service. As it turns out, that was the MIVD.”	NOS Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal Ben Meindertsma	12 June 2023

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline	Article	8 February 2023	Seymour Hersh	Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told Senator Ted Cruz: “Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea” (Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 26 January 2023).
Document:How Spin and Lies Fuel a Bloody War of Attrition in Ukraine	Article	13 February 2023	Medea Benjamin Nicolas J. S. Davies	President Eisenhower famously said that only an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" can "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. An "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" would surely then demand that our government stop fueling this war and instead support immediate peace negotiations.
Document:Nord Stream 2 requires military protection	Article	14 April 2021

 

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