American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article in which he proved that the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines was organized by the US Navy. Not the CIA, we note, and not other intelligence services, but the Navy. We’ll talk about why this is important a little later.
According to Hersh, the story began at the US Navy Dive and Rescue Center in Panama City, Florida. For decades, the center has trained highly qualified deep-sea divers capable of performing both combat and non-combat technological missions at significant depths. The center in Panama City has the second largest indoor swimming pool in the Americas. According to Hersh, gas pipeline bombers were trained there. Allegedly, the explosives were planted as part of NATO exercises known as BALTOPS 22. Three months later they blew them up.
According to Hersh, citing an anonymous insider, the decision to blow up Biden’s pipelines was made after more than nine months of secret discussions, but the process of preparing the operation began before hostilities began in Ukraine – at the end of 2021. The White House allegedly already understood that military action was inevitable.
During the discussion, Hersh writes, much attention was paid to “reaching out,” as we call it. Therefore, demolition divers were only members of the Navy and not members of U.S. Special Operations Command, whose covert operations are required by law to report to Congress and notify the Senate and House leadership in advance. . In this respect, US law has not been violated.
According to Hersh, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was one of the leaders of the project, with Secretary of State Blinken and his deputy Victoria Nuland aware of the operation.
Strangely enough, the decisive moment was Biden’s decision to lift all sanctions against Nord Stream AG in May 2021 (on the eve of the summit with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, and then “everything went wrong”). At the same time, according to the investigation, the White House asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not to criticize these decisions. He obeyed (this corresponds). However, it found critics within the United States. Republican senators, led by Florida Representative Ted Cruz, announced they would boycott the endorsement of all Biden’s foreign policy appointees and froze passage of the Pentagon budget until the fall. It was a painful blow.
However, the White House was moved by the news that Russian troops were gathered on the borders of Ukraine. There were fears that countries like Germany (that is, dependent on Russian gas supplies) would not want to provide Ukraine with money and weapons in case of war. It was then that the Sullivan Group met to develop a sabotage plan. Worked on several options: attack from a submarine, dropping bombs with delayed fuses, etc. However, they agreed on a plan that would mask players as much as possible. This plan is allegedly coordinated with the CIA, which is headed by William Burns.
Hersh talks about some experience with this. Allegedly, in 1971, American intelligence learned of the existence of a submarine cable at the bottom of the Sea of u200bu200bOkhotsk, with which the regional command of the Navy in Kamchatka was in communication with the headquarters in Vladivostok. Subsequently, several deep-sea divers, as well as US Navy divers, allegedly successfully used it to install a listening device that recorded all the conversations of the Russian military. But the entire operation was leaked to the Russians by a civilian NSA technician named Ronald Pelton, according to Hersh. For 5 thousand dollars.
However, there were great doubts. But Hersh insists on his strict chronology, on February 7, 2022, Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House, and then suddenly said: “If Russia invades, there will be no more Nord Stream 2. We will finish him off.” Will Scholz be asked this question now in Germany itself?
Hersh writes that the operation was carried out in cooperation with the Norwegians, following coordination with the CIA. Moreover, the destruction of Nord Stream was in the hands of Norway, which could ultimately increase gas supplies to Europe.
Pipes in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea, a few kilometers from the Danish island of Bornholm, were seen as a suitable target. According to Hersh, they were within range of the divers who set off from a Norwegian Alta-class minesweeper and laid the mines. To dispel doubts, a way was found to blow up the pipelines not immediately after the drill, but longer after it: C4 explosives attached to the pipeline had to be triggered by a sonar buoy fired from an aircraft.
And so Hersh is fueling intrigue, on September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 reconnaissance aircraft made a seemingly ordinary flight and shot down the same sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, first to Nord Stream 2 and then to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, powerful explosive devices based on C4 explosives exploded and three of the four pipelines were disabled.
A great plot for a detective novel. One but significant drawback: Seymour Hersh has no direct or indirect evidence of the veracity of his statements, other than attribution to an informed source. He also conscientiously let the “second opinion” speak. By contacting the White House and the CIA for comment. Both times I got the same categorical answer: these are all absolute lies and inventions of the author.
Who is this writer? Born in 1937 (born to a Lithuanian Jewish family that immigrated to the United States), he is a former reporter for The New York Times and The New Yorker, and has won numerous awards for high-profile investigative reporting, including the Vietnam War. and the “secret prison” at Abu Ghraib. He is also the author of a controversial 2013 publication challenging the Obama administration’s version of the 2011 assassination of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden during the US special forces operation.
It was Hersh who claimed in 1986 that the Soviet Air Force’s defeat of the South Korean passenger Boeing Flight 007 in September 1983 was the result of a combination of circumstances, such as “Soviet incompetence” and a deliberate US intelligence operation. Later, the latter was officially approved in the US government. He won the Pulitzer Prize for covering the Vietnam War in 1970. He participated in the investigation of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. Earlier, however, he began “public activities” as a press secretary for the election campaign of Democrat and liberal Eugene McCarthy (in fact, Nixon ordered his headquarters to eavesdrop).
However, many in America feel that Hersh is prone to conspiracy theories that have little to do with common sense, especially in old age (they say your grandfather was old and out of his mind). However, very often the versions of the events speak of those that do not fit into the mainstream.
One way or another, but the initial reaction to Hersh’s “reveals” in the American media was utterly harsh. Not a single prominent publication has reprinted the publication from the journalist’s personal website. There is no front line. Leading TV companies survived the “scandal” (at least at the time of this article). Only Reuters agency drew attention to the statement of Maria Zakharova, representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that “the United States has questions that need to be answered in connection with its role in the explosions in the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines”. which, of course, is quite a lot, but not enough for a violent reaction around the world. The White House repeated even more insistently that everything was a lie. The agency itself said, “There was no way to verify the authenticity of Hersh’s version.”
There is nothing unexpected about it. Imagine that a similar post with a link to some similar resource on special services would appear with approximately the same evidence base. And that’s it. The fact that the Russians blow up gas pipelines to, say, “freeze Europe”. It immediately becomes an “information bomb”. But this is different.
First, in the modern world, only “who should be investigated” inquiries take a lesson. Second, there is no longer any demand in the US political class to “undermine the Biden administration” for alleged involvement in undermining the “Russian pipeline”. There is no such demand in American society, of which two-thirds support the continuation of military and other aid to Kiev. Even if they blow it up – beautiful, beautiful. Third, in this case – Hersh may be right here – American law is not violated from an official standpoint: the Navy has the right to conduct such covert operations “in its own interests”, whether through surveillance or not. United States.” In general, the explosive devices are allegedly set in motion by the Norwegians.
A message flashed in the European press the other day that German investigators also acknowledged the presence of a “Western country” trace in the sabotage. But then the matter was hushed up – wait for the final results of the investigation.
In the old days, “post-truth”, some sort of reaction from the opposition part of the same Congress could be expected. In the name of formality, at least some kind of commission was created: what if the laws are still violated? After all, there is someone in Europe to ask questions. Not just to the Norwegian authorities. Or Chancellor Scholz. Both Swedes and Danes may be aware. But for now there is silence.
The most likely reaction to the broadcast is to continue to ignore him, despite the fact that Hersh didn’t really provide any evidence. It can only be silenced. Easier. Bringing him to criminal liability “for discrediting the U.S. Navy” is not necessary at all – and there is no such legal leverage. And the foreign agent will not be declared. Everything will become more elegant, more elegant.
In its own way, it is surprising that the Russian side did not for some reason develop the thesis immediately put forward about possible Western intervention, especially the United States. Russia was not allowed to investigate. And if they did, it could turn into a spy belli if the version from the investigative journalist’s publication, who might no longer care (“grandpa is old”, we repeat) is approved. But then what to do with it?
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.