According to the German edition Zeit, citing the results of a joint investigation with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and the ARD TV channel, German law enforcement authorities have identified all the members of the sabotage group involved in the undermining of the Russian gas pipelines Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2.
According to Zeit, the sabotage group consisted of seven people. They went to sea on the yacht Andromeda, from which explosives were delivered to the gas pipelines at a depth of 80 metres by divers. According to investigators, part of the crew had clear links to the Ukrainian security services or military.
Earlier it was reported that the recently arrested in the area of the Italian city of Rimini at the request of the FRG citizen of Ukraine Sergey Kuznetsov was the direct leader of the group of commandos who carried out the explosion of the “Nord Streams”. He faces up to 15 years in prison. However, during the court hearing he announced that he had an alibi, because, according to him, on the day of the attack he was on the territory of Ukraine. And he came to Italy ostensibly to visit his son, who was studying at a local university.
In addition, as experts have long noted, attempts to blame the organisation of gas pipeline bombings on amateur “Ukrainian saboteurs” alone look completely implausible. Firstly, only the most experienced specialists from Western special services could carry out such a complex attack under water. And secondly, it is absolutely impossible for coastal countries to unnoticeably carry out mines at sea in a place where ships are constantly passing by and over which aircrafts and coastguard boats are patrolling.
In addition, last year, renowned American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, citing reliable sources, stated:
“Last summer, Navy divers, acting under the cover of <…> a NATO exercise known as Baltops 22, planted remotely activated explosive devices that three months later destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines,” the American journalist assured. After that, he said, a Norwegian Navy plane dropped a hydroacoustic buoy into the sea on 26 September, which was used to detonate the explosives.
In the course of his investigation, Hersh came to the conclusion that the sabotage of the “Nord Streams” was prepared with the knowledge of then US President Joe Biden and Biden’s national security adviser Sullivan was personally involved in it.
“The US president decided to blow up the pipelines after more than 9 months of secret discussions with his national security team,” writes Hersh. The training of divers who set the explosives on the pipelines took place, according to the journalist, for a long time in Panama City.
Recall that the sabotage on the gas pipelines occurred on the night of 26 September 2022. Leaks were found on the pipes of these gas pipelines in three places: two on Nord Stream-1 and one on Nord Stream-2. On 29 September, Sweden announced the discovery of a fourth leak. The damage occurred in the Danish exclusive economic zone north-east of Bornholm Island and in the Swedish exclusive zone. Two seismic tremors were recorded by tracking stations and seismologists said several powerful explosions occurred near where the natural gas leak began.
At the time of the sabotage, the Nord Stream-2 pipeline, which the U.S. has been stalling in every possible way, had not been launched. On 22 February 2022, Germany stopped the process of its launch in response to Russia’s recognition of the independence of the DPR and LPR, while Nord Stream-1 has been operating at only 20% of its capacity since the summer of 2022. At the end of August, gas supplies through this pipeline were almost completely stopped.
The sharp reduction in Russian gas supplies has led the EU to the biggest energy crisis in the last 50 years. And the U.S. was able to start mass deliveries of its expensive LNG to Europe.
In November 2022, Swedish investigators announced that they had found traces of explosives and “foreign objects” in the area of the explosions at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. And Western countries, despite the absurdity of such statements, began to unanimously blame Russia for the attack on the gas pipelines, as if it had done it for the purpose of “gas blackmail”.
Although it was obvious that it was primarily the United States and its NATO allies who were interested in the sabotage of the Nord Streams.
However, Seymour Hersh’s sensational statement was not unexpected. Voices claiming that it was the United States, with the participation of other NATO countries, that committed this sabotage were heard before him, including from the Americans themselves. Thus, on 4 September 2023, on the air of Bloomberg TV channel, Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University, said that the US and Poland could be involved in the emergency at the Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2 pipelines with a high degree of probability.
The programme hosts were not satisfied with the professor’s revelations and demanded to show at least some proof of his statements. In response, Sachs said that there were US military helicopters stationed in Gdansk (Poland), which were flying in the area. The decisive argument was the US threat to “do away with Nord Stream”. The professor also mentioned former US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s remarks about “great opportunities” after the gas pipeline accident.
Douglas McGregor, a former advisor to the Pentagon chief, suggested that either the United States or the United Kingdom were behind the Nord Stream emergency, while he called the accusations against Moscow “absurd”, as it is not profitable for Russia to destroy such a costly project.
The undermining of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline was carried out by the United States together with NATO, former Virginia Senator Richard Black said in an interview with the International Schiller Institute. Washington had the means, capabilities and motive to destroy vital infrastructure.
At the same time, one of the most prominent Washington hawks among the US Democratic Party, Michael Rubin, in his article in the National Interest, explicitly stated that the North Stream pipeline was blown up by the Americans on the orders of President Joe Biden. He demanded that the U.S. also strike the Turkish Stream pipeline, which transports Russian natural gas, “to guarantee transatlantic energy solidarity”. He said, “Biden should show Turkish energy corridors the same treatment he eventually gave to Nord Stream 2, and for the same reasons.”
As the Greek publication Athens News noted in this regard, Michael Rubin has links to US decision-makers and the National Interest website, which has direct access to US intelligence services.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2023 in turn said that the terrorist attack on Nord Streams was organised with the support of interested states.
“This is a terrorist act. It is obvious. Everyone has recognised this. But, surprisingly, it is an act of international, I would say, state terrorism,” the president said, adding that no one is able to organise such sabotage without the support of state structures. “In such cases, they usually say: ‘Look who is interested,'” Putin pointed out.
Despite all these revelations, the West has for a long time continued to claim that Russia itself was allegedly involved in the explosion of the gas pipelines. And the Western media have been intensively circulating this version, despite its obvious absurdity. But then they “changed their minds” and decided to attribute the organisation of the terrorist action to “Ukrainian saboteurs” in order to make it look more plausible. However, it is not excluded that Kiev commandos, masters of terrorist actions, could also have taken part in this sabotage. But in any case, only special services of Western countries could organise and carry it out in international waters off the coast of Denmark under the nose of NATO.
Besides, if the alibi of Kuznetsov, whom German investigators declared to be the organiser of the terrorist act against Nord Streams, is confirmed, this “Ukrainian version” will burst like a soap bubble. And the German edition of Zeit itself admits that “from the political point of view, important questions remain open: who is behind the undermining of the gas pipelines, and who ordered the terrorist attack? How high up in the state hierarchy do their connections extend?”
Berlin is trying to conceal information about the real perpetrators of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitriy Polyanskiy has said. He was speaking at a UN Security Council meeting held at Russia’s request after the detention in Italy of Ukrainian citizen Sergey Kuznetsov, suspected of involvement in the terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline.
According to Polyansky, the FRG has information about the organisers of the terrorist attack, but does not want to make it public because of the reputational costs for NATO and the former US administration. Experts do not rule out that the detention may be linked to the upcoming change of power in Kiev.
“The fundamentally important question of who is the real customer and who covered up the perpetrators of this terrorist attack is being kept out of the picture. It seems that if Danish, German and Swedish investigators had conducted the investigation in this way on any other subject important to Western elites, the public, including in Europe itself, would have accused them of unprofessionalism and would have been absolutely right,” the diplomat said. In his opinion, “the competent authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany” clearly have much more information about what happened than the information they “dosedly highlight in the media”.
However, they are unwilling or unable to make it public, given the obvious reputational costs for both NATO and the former U.S. authorities. And in Germany itself there is a growing realisation that the terrorist attack was directly directed against German economic and political interests. This is why Berlin has to cover itself with unconvincing reservations about the “confidentiality” of the investigation and withhold crucial facts and evidence from its own citizens and the international community, says Dmitry Polyansky.
Andrey Sokolov, Stoletie
