DISINFO: Nord Stream pipelines were blown up by US intelligence
SUMMARY
US intelligence agencies were most likely behind last September’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
RESPONSE
This is part of a wider pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign aiming to amplify and exploit Seymour Hersh’s controversial article accusing the US of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines. The article can’t be considered an evidence of this: it is based on a single, unidentified anonymous source and published in Hersh’s personal blog, so no editorial team was involved in its preparation.
The central parts of its affirmations have been credibly debunked by journalists, experts and OSINT researchers, such as claims about NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg cooperating with the US since the Vietnam War (who was 15 at the time this war ended), the use of the M350 Alta ship (which had been out of use since 2012 and sent to the scrapyard in 2022), or that a P-8 aircraft of the Norwegian Navy was involved to detonate the explosives (none of Norway’s P-8 was remotely closer to the area of the explosions).
Other allegations have been reported as highly implausible, such as the presence of this single source in all the preparatory meetings for the operation; that selected members of the US Congress and other government agencies weren’t informed out of need for maximum secrecy, but then Norway was enrolled and Sweden and Denmark would have been informed at some point; or that this top-secret operation was carried out during the BALTOPS military exercises, attended and closely watched by multiple NATO countries.
The White House dismissed Hersh’s report as ‘utterly false and complete fiction.’ Similarly, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the allegations ‘nonsense.’ However, pro-Kremlin outlets and Russian authorities have massively reported and commented on it as if this allegation had been proven.
The story has received great attention from pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets and has been the main point used by Russian Minister Lavrov to demand the UNSC address the issue with an investigation.
Presenting unsubstantiated allegations as if they were established facts while introducing minor variations, as in this case, is a frequent pro-Kremlin disinformation technique.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Joe Biden wanted to freeze Germany by destroying the Nord Stream, that American officials admit that the explosions at NS1 and NS2 were their work, that Western sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines caused an environmental disaster, or that sabotaging Nord Stream was the stupidest US action in years.