‘Complete fiction’: US denies Nord Stream bomb plot

The Biden administration has slammed a report by a decorated investigative journalist that the US instigated the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

A report by a decorated investigative journalist that the US instigated the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany has been labelled by the Biden administration as ‘utterly false and complete fiction’. Picture: AFP

The Biden administration has slammed as “utterly false and complete fiction” a report by a decorated investigative journalist that the US instigated the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany to quash any chance Berlin might cease helping Ukraine in exchange for cheap energy.

Seymour Hersh, a multi-award-winning journalist, in a self-published essay, said the US used expert navy divers to plant bombs on the pipelines located in the shallow waters off Denmark in June last year under the cover of a regular NATO maritime exercises, detonating them remotely three months later.

“This is utterly false and complete fiction,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council in a statement to journalists.

Mr Hersh, 85, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his investigative reporting, alleged that White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan convened a special task force in December 2021 to investigate how to destroy the pipelines, which had long been opposed by Washington for fear they would bind Germany to Russia.

“The Panama City boys would do their thing and the C4 explosives would be in place by the end of [June NATO exercises] BALTOPS22 … All of the Americans and Norwegians would be long gone by the first explosion,” he wrote, referring to a diver training base in Panama City, Florida.

“As long as Europe remained dependent on the pipelines for cheap natural gas, Washington was afraid that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia,” Mr Hersh wrote.

Tammy Thorp, a CIA spokeswoman, in a statement to media on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) said the claim was “completely and utterly false.”

Former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, husband of influential American foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum, tweeted a picture of the methane gas bubbling in the ocean captioned “thank you USA” in the immediate aftermath of the explosion on 26th September, prompting speculation the US may have been involved.

Two weeks before Russian invaded Ukraine on 24th February President Joe Biden had warned Moscow that if it invaded Ukraine “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2, we will bring an end to it”.

Secretary state Antony Blinken said the explosions were a “tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy” in a press conference a few days after the explosions.

“The American media treated it like an unsolved mystery. Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House,” Mr Hersh, whose reporting relied on a source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning” who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Under pressure from the US and NATO, German regulators hadn’t approved Nord Stream 2 even though the 2400km pipelines, ultimately intended to supply more than 50 per cent of Germany’s annual gas consumption, were completed in September 2021, according to Hersh.

Sweden concluded in October the pipelines, jointly funded by Russian gas giant Gazprom and a consortium of German and French companies, were destroyed in an act of “gross sabotage” but couldn’t determine by whom.

The Kremlin, which in October had accused the UK of destroying the pipelines, seized on Mr Hersh’s report on Thursday (Friday AEDT), demanding “an open international investigation” and “punishment” for the saboteurs.

Germany’s households and manufacturing sector, which accounts for about a fifth of the nation’s GDP, have endured massive increases in gas prices since the war broke out in February, as Russia cut gas via Nord Stream 1 and European nations moved to ban all Russian energy imports.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, was bracing to pay 40 per cent more for energy in 2023 than in 2021, according to a report by Allianz Trade.

Mr Hersh, whose reporting helped uncover US mistreatment of prisoners in the 2004 Abu Ghraib, alleged the US co-ordinated the operation with Norway, which he said had an interest in “selling vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe” in the event of a successful attack.

In December the New York Times reported Russia had begun to repair the pipelines.

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