On 8 February legendary journalist Seymour Hersh revealed on his substack that under the cover of a NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22 US Navy divers planted remote triggered explosives which three months later destroyed three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines.
His information comes from a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
Nord Stream One (pipelines one and two), had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian gas for more than a decade. Nord Stream Two (pipelines three and four) had been recently completed in September 2021, before the current war in Ukraine, and was due to be brought on line shortly after.
The military industrial complex in the United States and its allies in the big oil and gas companies felt threatened by Russia’s ability to provide Europe with cheap gas which underpinned much of the EU's prosperity. The US ruling class saw Nord Stream 2 as an opportunity for Russia to extend its influence particularly with Germany which has the most powerful economy in the EU. The US put Germany under a lot of pressure not to allow the completion of Nord Stream 2 and believed that if they could stop the pipeline it would open a very lucrative export market for American energy companies.
From Hersh's source we learn that there was nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about what to do about the situation and more pressing how to best achieve the goal of ending this relationship between West Europe and Russia.
They selected a team of Navy divers from the US Navy Diving and Salvage centre which has been training highly skilled deep-water divers for decades. In part their jobs involved using C4 explosives to clear harbours and beaches of debris and unexploded materials. It also involved blowing up foreign oil rigs, fouling undersea oil rigs and destroying locks on shipping canals.
However, they were not only chosen for their expertise, but because the divers were only Navy they did not have to report covert operations to Congress.
This is vital as the planning stage took place in late 2021 and early 2022 before the Ukraine war commenced.
When he was President, Trump made it known publicly that there was deep concern over Russia’s influence over Europe. Similarly Biden, Jake Sullivan, Tony Blinken and Victoria Nuland have all been vocal in regard to their hostility to Nord Stream.
Germany, especially, had benefited by cheap Russian gas which they even sold on at a profit to other European countries. Therefore the plan to blow up Nord Stream had to be kept on the low down.
On the eve of Biden’s inauguration Republican Senator Ted Cruz repeatedly raised the threat of cheap Russian gas during the confirmation hearing of Blinken as Secretary of State. Blinken stated;
I know his (Biden’s) strong conviction that this is a bad idea, the Nord Stream 2...I know that he would have us use every persuasive tool that we have to convince our friends and partners, including Germany, not to move forward with it.
In May 2021 the US surprisingly waived sanctions against Nord Stream conceding that sanctions and diplomacy had “always been a long shot”. Behind the scenes officials urged Zelensky not to criticize the move. Still, they faced political come back domestically.
In mid-November 2021 Germany’s energy regulator succumbed to American pressure and suspended their approval of Nord Stream 2. Within days natural gas prices surged 8% and the fears of war grew. The US regarded new German chancellor Olaf Scholz with disquiet when he backed Macron’s calls for a more autonomous foreign policy for Europe. Meanwhile amidst war games all sides (you mean Russia and were building up troops.
As Hersh writes;
The administration’s attention once again was focused on Nord Stream. 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.
It was with this background that Biden authorised Sullivan to bring together an inter-agency group consisting of the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State and Treasury departments, to come up with a plan.
Blow up the pipelines
According to Hersh’s source what became clear to the participants was that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the pipelines and that this came with the approval of Biden.
The next series of meetings discussed the hows. Should it be with a submarine? Or dropping bombs with delayed remote control fuses? The CIA argued that however it was accomplished it must be done covertly. They understood that if the attack was traceable to the US it would be seen as an act of war.
From the source we see that the inter-agency group was initially sceptical of the CIA’s plan for a covert deep sea mission. Questions arose. The Baltic Sea was heavily patrolled by Russia. There were no oil rigs that could be used as cover by the deep sea divers. Would the attack be launched from Estonia?
We also know that not everyone was onboard. There were voices saying;
Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.
The Plan
In early 2022 the working group reported back to the inter-agency group.
On February 7 Biden met Scholz in the White House and at the press briefing said;
If Russia invades...there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring it to an end.
Senior officials now determined that the plan to blow up the pipelines was no longer secret/covert operation and downgraded it to a highly classified intelligence operation. However, it naturally had to be secret from the Russians.
The Operation
The group determined the perfect place to base the mission was Norway.
Over the last few years the US has spent a considerable pot of money expanding their military presence in Norway. This included a new advanced synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into Russia. Plus a new submarine base and a vastly expanded Norwegian air base with a fleet of Boeing-built P8 Poseidon patrol planes.
Norway, Hersh notes, was one of the original signatories to the NATO Treaty in 1949. Today, the supreme commander of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, former Norwegian PM and a hard-line anti-Putin anti-Russian war hawk. According to the source he is regarded as;
...the glove that fits the American hand.
Sometime in March some team members flew to Norway to discuss operations. The Norwegians identified the right spot at a place called Bornholm to place the explosives. It would be tedious, time consuming and dangerous work.
In addition to difficult deep diving circumstances and keeping it a secret from Russia, the team also needed to keep Danish and Swedish authorities in the dark. To that end they briefed some officials about possible diving activity so that any questions would be contained.
Another issue was the need to camouflage the American explosive devices. The Norwegians proposed that the devices should be laid during the annual NATO Baltic exercise in June. The Americans persuaded the American Sixth Fleet, which sponsored the annual exercise, to add a research and development exercise to the programme. This public at sea event was to be held off the coast of Bornholm Island. It involved teams of divers to lay mines and competing teams of divers to seek and destroy them. It was ingenious cover.
Initially the plan was to set 48 hour timer but then Washington got cold feet and felt a mere 48 hour delay would implicate them. Despite some frustration and anger the Americans began working on the new problem.
The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped from a plane and involved the most sophisticated signal processing technology. To avoid accidental triggering by say, under water drilling, ship activity, seismic events, or even sea creatures, the buoys would emit a sequence of unique low frequency tonal sounds. Then after a set period they would trigger the explosives to detonate. However, the longer they waited the higher chance that some random signal would trigger the devices.
On September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane made a seemingly routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission. Within a few minutes, pools of methane gas that remained in the shuttered pipelines could be seen spreading on the water’s surface and the world learned that something irreversible had taken place.
Response
The media treated the bombing like an unsolved mystery. Even going as far as blaming Russia for blowing up it’s own pipeline!
Testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in late January 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.
Of course the msm has demonized Hersh as a “discredited journalist” who “self published” “unproven claims” which have been a gift to Putin. The White House called the story “false and complete fiction”. Norway has stated that “These allegations are nonsense”.
Sweden has spent months investigating the incident last year and declared it was an act of sabotage but did not say by whom. Meanwhile, the German government has recently stated that Russia did not blow up the Nord Stream pipelines and added that it didn't know who did. Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s spokesman called Hersh's article remarkable and that they would like more proof.
Of course when Hersh revealed the 1969 My Lai massacre and helped expose the torture programme at Abu Ghraib these were not immediately accepted either. It took time for his revelations to become accepted causing huge scandals for the American military. More recently he has tried to expose the fake killing of Osama Bin Laden and the fake chemical attack in Syria. I’m sensing a bit of a pattern here, are you?
Was this a deliberate leak? Is the US intelligence agency sending a message to the Russians seeking a response allowing them to further escalate the situation? An admission of guilt and a throwing down of the gauntlet seeking to antagonise Russia and provoke a response. A bit like a trial balloon.
This is all the distance that it takes for the Russian underwater naval forces.
You're going to tell me that somehow sleepy joke idiotic Biden was able to pull this off. I just don't see how he's intelligent enough to stay awake during briefings to listen to this let alone understand the details and ramifications.
The United States Navy can't won't and would absolutely refuse to do this. Let alone having to smuggle in enough explosives to be able to trigger these seismic events..
"The C4 attached to the pipelines would be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped from a plane and involved the most sophisticated signal processing technology. To avoid accidental triggering by say, under water drilling, ship activity, seismic events, or even sea creatures, the buoys would emit a sequence of unique low frequency tonal sounds. Then after a set period they would trigger the explosives to detonate. However, the longer they waited the higher chance that some random signal would trigger the devices."
Now we get into the heart and meet of the matter. Excessive amounts of explosive residue has been located and with modern-day forensic analysis, that's going to be a big problem and if it was Western made it would have been reported however there has been absolutely no reporting on exactly what kind of explosive was used. If it is a Soviet era explosive device it will absolutely prove that Russia used Russian munitions.
But the fact that you're going to tell me some funny story that is a complete unproven allegation as well as now being a huge international situation by an old dying fart? Lol his last operation for the Russian intelligence? Don't forget he absolutely has all the accreditation to be able to be a Soviet sympathizer and operative. How else did he get so many leads and all this pre-knowledge.
Personally my analysis is the simplest route.. Russian underwater demolition units only have so far to go and had a 75% success ratio. Don't forget not only Biden was threatening the pipeline but we also had some threats from Putin towards Germany.
To this day there is no confirmation by anyone of the evidence and who did it.
Hate to say it but I don't think sleepy Joe has the intelligence and the Biden administration is a complete failure why would they attempt an international operation.
I will look into the allegation of the additional diver exercise. That's limp and weak for any consideration.
To be honest I don't think we will ever know who blew up the pipeline. I can see your thinking that by blowing up the pipeline Russia could use it as propaganda weapon to blame the Americans. If Russia did blow it up it played into the hands of Washington as Blinken, Nuland and Sullivan all talked in gleeful tones how this was great news that ended Germany's reliance on Russian gas and presented the US with the opportunity to sell LNG to Europe.
I did come across an article about a German investigation into the bombing:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/top-german-investigator-no-proof-of-russian-involvement-in-nord-stream-pipeline-blasts/
"Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General, who is leading the official probe into the blasts, said in a newspaper interview published on Friday that there is no evidence tying Russia to the undersea explosions near the coast of Denmark.
“According to investigators, the probe into the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea has thus far not yielded any evidence of Russia’s authorship,” the German newspaper Münchner Merkur reported Friday, citing the country’s top investigator.
The German news channel NTV reported the Prosecutor General’s remarks:
When blasts hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines last September, Moscow was quickly seen as a suspect. Now the investigators are clarifying that there is no evidence of this so far. (…)
So far, German investigators have found no evidence that Russia was behind the explosions that hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. “This cannot be proven at the moment, the investigations are ongoing,” Prosecutor General Peter Frank told the (newspaper) “Welt am Sonntag”. Supported by two research ships, water and soil samples as well as the remains of the pipelines were collected, and the crime scene was also comprehensively documented. “We are currently evaluating all of this forensically,” [the German Public Prosecutor added.]''
I am willing to keep an open mind on this incident as we far from knowing all the facts about what happened.
Hive needs a plurality of voices for it succeed and blossom. Good luck with your blog.
I love this debate!
And who knows weight be all wrong and this is the result of..... ALIENS!!!!
Yep had to be...
Unless it's a complete false flag operation by Germany in which they destroyed their own pipeline. Which absolutely is another possibility. Having as much drama and fighting has they have had during the construction. It actually might be possible that we see Germany being the ultimate cause.
Especially with the entire threats from russia. As well as the attempted German government coup.
I've thought about quite a few different scenarios and once again you and me and everybody else might have to wait for the next 50 to 100 years for the truth to be declassified.
Seymour is going to have a lot of issues with the problems in his story as well as huge questions to his credibility unless he can verify his source.
In fact there are absolutely ways for you to verify your source as well as to maintain their privacy.
I'm not exactly sure why you would release this story prematurely without confirming your source.
I have great faith in Hersh, given his career of breaking big stories, that he wouldn't publish such a story without there being some substance to it. Whoever blew up the pipeline it certainly has benefitted Norway and US gas companies. Maybe there is some truth to the old dictum 'follow the money' i.e. think about who benefits most from the attack as to who the culprit might be.
Those who pretend to be something they are not usually have some pretty scary skeletons in the closet.
Personally the holes in the story prove that this guy is a complete idiot. Simple verification would have saved his reputation.
His career of breaking big stories is more like getting tipped off by KGB handling agents.
thanks for sharing
The only problem is that the Russian Navy is actually directly posted in that area.
Next up the United States Navy divers would never be allowed to be a part of this and the Navy seals can't even be allowed to do an operation like this because using seals of course requires very special Congressional approval. And of course you'd have the massive mountains with paperwork.
In fact United States Navy seals have come out saying they didn't do it and neither did their guys. That's where this dubious claim of Navy divers which is a direct euphemism for the Navy seals. Because the United States Navy seals do underwater basic demolition training or BUD/S. And in fact there is no salvage diver that is going to play with explosives because they're not rated as an explosive ordinance disposal technician AKA the technical term to be able to blow stuff up.
And Navy seals will be the first to tell you that you only need a couple of ounces worth of explosive. As the sympathetic detonation will cause a massive rupture.. on top of that then it is a complete and total accident with no evidence remaining for anyone to say anything more than this was just an accident and a failure by the pipeline itself. You don't need tons of explosives enough to register on the earthquake seismic measuring devices.
Next up United States Navy divers have enough technology actually to swim right up to the pipelines and didn't have any guesswork if they did this which would have meant that they would have had 100% success ratio.
Unfortunately it is still my guess that Russian dive teams were the ones that did this especially since the fact that the entire gas pipeline was owned by Germany controlled by Germany and was an excellent way to demonstrate the power of the Red army.
Next up I totally want to see the acoustic recording equipment that this idiotic author is saying detonated this explosion.
Yep that's right because if this would have been how he said we would have had a lot more news come out. The fact that most likely we are seeing Russia having done this makes it an act of war which unfortunately there's no accusations being thrown around because that would force NATO into full scale war with Russian forces.
So yeah until this report is confirmed is complete fiction. Shrug. However I think this author needed something to remain relevant.
Your defence of American imperialism is rather sad. Seymour Hersh has exposed numerous crimes of America from the My Lai massacre to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Like any good investigative journalist he will never reveal his sources. Your suggestion that Russia blew up its own pipeline is just ridiculous and full of copium.
I would suggest you go elsewhere if you want to repeat CIA talking points.
Cool I'll just mute you then. Best of luck.
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This really is a huge story, of course it's not getting the attention it deserves - oh look at the pretty balloons! The US is certainly responsible for the Nord Stream attack - cui bono? We can pose the same question with regards to Norway's alleged involvement, they stand to benefit as another large provider of gas to Europe. Also, the idea that Russia would bomb their own infrastructure is highly dubious and I think this is something most objective minds would agree with.
What we're looking at is an act of terrorism and an attack, not only on Russian, but German critical infrastructure. An obvious question that comes to mind is, does this attack invoke NATO article 5?
One last tidbit, maybe check the spelling of Hersh, in a few places it's written as 'Hirsh'. Cheers
Personally the answer is really, who's the most mad at germany.
Unfortunately United States underwater demolition units already said how they would do it and why they can't do it. It would start a war with germany. And the fact maybe seals and underwater demolition units are bound to Congress oversight and unable to conduct such Black operations.
However if we really dig deep into the money part we see that this entire pipeline is German owned and operated. In a huge stealing win the entire operation employees as few Russians as possible and there's a big huge of revenue going directly to Germany instead of Russia Russia doesn't own or have any interest in the Nord stream pipeline and Russia is still really mad about all those military weapons and all that military aid going to ukraine..
How it was done proves this entire thing. The fact that you had multiple seismic level explosions going off? Yeah Russian underwater demolition units are based in the same exact area and able to travel by submarine over into that area do all their thing in roughly as close as possible by deploying huge amounts of explosives to ensure the job is taken care of.
However even still they failed whereas Western demolition units would have only had to use tiny shaped charges. Couple of ounces of explosives. Most likely less than even a pound for each charge. Because one tiny little penetration on that pipeline absolutely is going to catastrophically devastated with the resulting sympathetic terminal failure.
United States Navy seals coming out and laying out exactly what was needed and what was possible to do this?
The fact that the Navy diver that has done this is unnamed and the source is unknown turns this into fake news.
Unless this journalist proves this in court I think he's guilty of making it up. Maybe he's getting paid a lot of money for a bogus story. You got to realize that everybody now is been talking about that....
Personally I think Russia kicked off two charges and had a 75 percent success ratio. The rest of the world doesn't want to say anything. Especially because the Norwegian pipeline just went down.
But until Seymour Hirsch actually reveals his source and we can confirm this, it's suspect. Opinion.
Personally how is Biden going to pull this off I'd love to know. Where is the proof that the United States actually did it.
germany is still occupied and externally managed by US
https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/blowing-holes-in-seymour-hershs-pipe
Think this might clarify this.
I'll be writing this post later.
Thanks.
good take