Russia has called on NATO to hold an emergency meeting to discuss recently released reports of the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion and allegations that the United States and Western countries were involved.
The explosion on September 26, 2022 severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which transport Russian natural gas to Europe. Ross and the West blamed each other for the bombing.
It was later revealed that the damage to the Russian pipeline was deliberate. But there is still ambiguity as to who is behind it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram on the evening of February 11, “There are a large number of facts here. The pipeline explosion, the motivation for its existence, and the evidence obtained by journalists can all be concluded from it.”
“So when will NATO hold an emergency summit to discuss this situation?” Zakharova asked.
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US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed in an investigation that in June 2022, with the help of Norway, US Navy divers straddled between Russia and Germany under the waters of the Baltic Sea, the Times reported. Explosives were placed on the pipeline, which eventually blew it up after 3 months.
Hersh noted in his investigation that the bombing was part of a covert operation ordered by the White House and carried out by the CIA.
Citing anonymous sources, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist wrote in a post on Wednesday, February 8 that the bombing was ordered by President Joe Biden, but the White House has denied the allegations, saying it “Totally false and purely fictional.”
Meanwhile, a CIA spokesman reiterated the White House’s denial, calling the report “absolutely false.”
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrianne Watson dismissed Hersh’s investigation as “out of the blue.”
On the other hand, in response to Hersh’s claim that Oslo supported the process, Norway’s foreign ministry said “these allegations are false”.
Switzerland: Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines sabotaged (Al Jazeera)
According to Hersh’s investigation, U.S. divers “planted mines along the Russian pipelines under cover of NATO military exercises in the region and then detonated them remotely.”
The drills in question are those announced in the summer of 2022, known as Operation Baltic 22, which took place off the coast of Germany in June.
According to Hersh’s investigation, Biden’s decision to blow up the Russian pipeline came after more than nine months of secret planning with the US national security establishment. He also noted that “taking this long, it’s not a question of whether the mission should have been done. Rather, it’s a question of the means by which it was done without leaving evidence pointing to the party responsible for it.”
Sweden and Denmark, where the bombings took place in their exclusive economic zones, concluded that the pipeline was blown up deliberately, but did not say who was responsible.
While the U.S. and NATO called the incident an “act of sabotage,” and Moscow blamed the West for the explosion that caused the pipeline rupture, neither side has offered evidence to support its claims.