September 26, 2022, massive leaks were detected in two Russian pipelines — Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 — that deliver natural gas from Russia to Europe underneath the Baltic Sea. Within a couple of days, several countries, including Russia, agreed the leaks were the result of intentional sabotage.
The sabotage came right on the heels of Moscow’s decision to cut off Nord Stream 1’s supply to Germany at the end of August 2022. Prior to that, in February 2022, Germany had suspended its certification process of Nord Stream 2, so it was never entered into service.
US Threatened to Take Out Pipeline
From the start, Russia accused the United States of destroying the pipelines. It was a rather obvious choice, considering President Biden had publicly announced that “if Russia invades Ukraine, there will be no Nord Stream 2.
We will bring an end to it.”1 When asked by an incredulous reporter how Biden could ensure that, considering the pipeline was under German control, he replied, “I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.”2
During a January 27, 2022, State Department briefing, undersecretary Victoria Nuland also delivered a near-identical message, saying “I want to be very clear to you today. If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”3
Despite such direct promises, the Biden administration denied having anything to do with the explosion after the fact, instead claiming Russia blew up its own pipeline, ostensibly for no other reason than being able to blame the U.S. As incomprehensible as that was to any rational person, the mainstream media ran with this narrative.
In early October, Germany partnered with Denmark and Sweden to investigate, using Navy, police, and intelligence services from the three countries.4 As of this writing, that investigation is still ongoing.
Legendary Journalist Publishes Shock Report
February 8, 2023, legendary investigative journalist Seymore Hersh — famous for his 1969 exposure of the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1970 — published a shocking article5 claiming the sabotage was carried out by U.S. Navy divers during BALTOPS 22, a NATO exercise that took place in the Baltic Sea in June 2022.
Three months later, the planted explosives were remotely detonated, destroying the two pipelines. According to Hersh:6
“Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines 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.
For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible. There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the [U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage] center’s hardcore diving school in Panama City.
The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership—the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.
President Biden and his foreign policy team — National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Policy — had been vocal and consistent in their hostility to the two pipelines, which ran side by side for 750 miles under the Baltic Sea from two different ports in northeastern Russia near the Estonian border, passing close to the Danish island of Bornholm before ending in northern Germany.
The direct route, which bypassed any need to transit Ukraine, had been a boon for the German economy, which enjoyed an abundance of cheap Russian natural gas — enough to run its factories and heat its homes while enabling German distributors to sell excess gas, at a profit, throughout Western Europe. Action that could be traced to the administration would violate US promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia. Secrecy was essential.”
The Threefold ‘Why’ Behind the Attack
According to Hersh’s investigative report,7 the “why” behind Biden’s decision to blow up the pipelines was threefold. First, it would massively impact Russia’s economy, as its oil and gas revenues are estimated to account for as much as 45% of its annual budget. Once Nord Stream 2 got underway, that income stream would increase even further.
Second, eliminating Germany’s and Western Europe’s ability to buy low-cost gas from Russia would force them to buy U.S. gas. As noted by Hersh, Nord Stream 1 was bad enough from the perspective of Washington, but were Nord Stream 2 to open up, Germany would be able to buy more than half of its annual consumption straight from Russia.
The ‘why’ behind Biden’s decision to blow up the pipelines was threefold. First, it would massively impact Russia’s economy. Second, eliminating Germany’s and Western Europe’s ability to buy low-cost gas from Russia would force them to buy U.S. gas. And third, he feared Europe would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with money and weapons if they were reliant on Russian gas.
Third, with Europe being so reliant on low-cost gas from Russia,8,9 “Washington was afraid that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia,” Hersh writes.
A Fateful Plan Was Hatched
According to Hersh, Biden authorized U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to “bring together an interagency group to come up with a plan” for how to address the Nord Stream threat. The task force Sullivan convened allegedly included “men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA and the State and Treasury Departments.”
“What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines — and that he was delivering on the desires of the President,” Hersh writes.
“Over the next several meetings, the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly.
The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. ‘This is not kiddie stuff,’ the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, ‘It’s an act of war’ …
Throughout ‘all of this scheming,’ the source said, ‘some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.'”
Will Europe View the Attack as an Act of War?
Unfortunately, that’s where we find ourselves today. If the attacks can be definitively traced to the U.S., the Biden administration has not only committed an act of war against Russia, but also against NATO allies! To say the world is now in a conundrum would be an understatement.
Will Germany and Western Europe accept industrial terrorism against them by a supposed ally? Well, perhaps. Because according to Hersh’s “deep throat” source, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Biden at the White House and personally OK’d the operation.
The source also claims Norway, another NATO member, was in on the plan and helped solve several hurdles encountered along the way. Norway also had financial incentive to keep the secret, as the destruction of Nord Stream would allow them to sell more natural gas to Europe too.
But here’s the deeper question: If a small group of NATO allies conspired to commit what some have called “one of the worst terrorist attacks in history”10 against allied member nations, in addition to causing one of the worst ecological disasters in history, what will be the result? Will affected NATO members, whose economies and industries have been demolished, accept a sheepish apology?
Time will tell, but clearly, the Biden administration’s actions have brought us to the very brink of world war.
The possibility of war escalation is made even more prominent by the fact that President Putin on February 21 announced he is indefinitely suspending Russia’s participation in the New START treaty, a strategic nuclear arms treaty with the U.S. that limits the nuclear arsenals of both countries.11,12 The only thing really holding this house of cards together right now is the fact that mainstream media are refusing to touch Hersh’s whistleblower story.13
Circumventing Congress
As for the shocking indiscretion of Nuland and Biden in the months before the attack, Hersh’s source noted that several of the planners were indeed “dismayed” by it.
“It was like putting an atomic bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it,” the source told Hersh. “The plan was for the options to be executed post invasion and not advertised publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or ignored it.”
However, the indirect admission also “created an opportunity” for the planners, as “senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline ‘no longer could be considered a covert option because the president just announced that we knew how to do it.'” Hersh continues:14
“The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation with U.S. military support.
Under the law, the source explained, ‘There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. All they had to do now is just do it — but it still had to be secret. The Russians have superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea.’
The Agency working group members had no direct contact with the White House and were eager to find out if the President meant what he’d said — that is, if the mission was now a go. The source recalled, ‘Bill Burns comes back and says, ‘Do it.'”
Russia Calls for Independent UN-Led Probe
Russia is now calling on the United Nations to establish an independent international investigation to identify “perpetrators, sponsors, organizers and accomplices,” as Russia and “other interested parties” have been barred from the German investigation.15
February 21, 2023, Russia convened a Security Council meeting to vote on the resolution.16 According to UN News, the Council discussion got rather heated as U.S. ambassador John Kelley insisted Russia was “abusing its position as Council member” by airing unfounded “internet conspiracy theories”:17
“‘We are not here to set up a trial in the Security Council,’ Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said during discussions. He said Moscow was presenting a request for an independent investigation in light of doubts about the integrity and transparency of Denmark, Germany and Sweden in their ongoing inquiries.
Instead, he said, the UN Secretary-General ‘is someone we trust’ to lead an investigation … There was ‘proof that explosives had been planted’ near the pipeline during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exercise in the summer of 2022, he said, referring to a recent United States news report by reporter Seymour Hersh claiming Washington was involved.
‘This journalist is telling the truth,’ he told Council members. ‘This is more than just a smoking gun that detectives love in Hollywood blockbusters. It’s a basic principle of justice; everything is in your hands, and we can resolve this today.'”
Evidence of ‘Gross Sabotage’
UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, urged parties to “show restraint” and “avoid any speculation” and “unfounded accusations that could further escalate the already heightened tensions in the region and potentially inhibit the search for the truth.”18
She did note, however, that preliminary results from the inquiry by Germany, Sweden and Denmark showed signs of “gross sabotage” and that “foreign items” had been seized at the site.
While the Council remained split on the decision to launch a UN-led investigation, many expressed “grave concerns about the ecological impacts” of the sabotage, and agreed that the Council’s efforts should focus on de-escalating tensions in line with international law and the UN Charter.
According to an analysis by the UN Environment Program’s (UNEP) International Methane Emissions Observatory, the methane emitted during the explosion is estimated to be between 75 to 230 kilotons — a record in terms of being from a single event.19
An Undeclared War
As suggested by UnHerd columnist Thomas Fazi, “We are already at war with Russia,” and this “never-ending escalation will result in catastrophe.” He writes:20
“Almost a year into the conflict, the narrative of Western intervention in Ukraine — that ‘NATO is not at war with Russia’ and that ‘the equipment we’re providing is purely defensive’ — is being revealed for what it always was: a fiction.
Last month, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, another kernel of truth slipped through the cracks at a briefing21 by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.
Austin and Miller stated in no uncertain terms that the US was committed to going ‘on the offensive to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine’ …
The admission that the weapons being provided by the US and NATO are of an offensive, not defensive, character marks a significant U-turn for the Biden administration. In March last year, Biden promised22 the public that the US would not send ‘offensive equipment’ and ‘planes and tanks’ to Ukraine, because this would trigger ‘World War III’ …
Yet in the coming months, the US is planning to deliver 31 Abrams tanks, and even Germany, after weeks of reluctance, has caved in to the immense pressure coming from Washington and other allies …
This is simply the latest in a long list of red lines that the US and NATO have crossed since the start of the conflict … [We] need to acknowledge that we are already at war with Russia … The fact that there has been no formal declaration of war is beside the point …
By providing increasingly powerful military equipment as well as financial, technical, logistical and training support to one of the warring factions, including for offensive operations (even within Russian territory), the West is engaged in a de facto military confrontation with Russia, regardless of what our leaders may claim.”
As noted by Fazi, the current military strategy of the West is based on a highly dubious assumption, namely that Russia will accept military defeat and loss of territory without resorting to nuclear weapons. Being wrong would be disastrous for the whole world, and if we’re making assumptions, there’s every reason to assume Russia will NOT accept defeat before every available option has been used up.
After all, Russia’s perspective is that it’s fighting an existential threat in Ukraine. Meanwhile, evidence suggests the basis for the United States’ interest in, and defense of, Ukraine is related to it being a valuable money laundering hub and, potentially, a secret biological weapons manufacturing ally.
As Americans, we cannot be naïve about this, seeing how it’s our lives that will be destroyed were Russia to send nuclear missiles our way. Europeans also need to search their souls to determine whether protecting Deep State interests is really worth the price.
