US behind Nord Stream sabotage, says expert

BARCELONA, Spain — A political expert in Spain says he is "increasingly convinced" the Nord Stream pipeline blast was caused by the US, with the aim to break Germany's dependence on Russian gas.

Josep Puigsech, an expert on Russian affairs and professor of contemporary history at Barcelona's Autonomous University, said the incident last September dealt a severe blow to Moscow and to its relationship with Western Europe.

"As there's a clear profit to be made by the United States and at the same time a strengthening of its geopolitical influence over Germany, and given the international dimension of the conflict, I'm increasingly convinced this was an action by the US," he told Xinhua News Agency on Monday.

"There were NATO operations in the Baltic in 2022 and a few months later this incident happened, so the general perception is that this was an action most likely had something to do with the NATO maneuvers rather than with the Russian Federation," he said, referring to initial reports that Moscow was responsible for the incident.

The consequences of the incident are long-term, as it increased Germany's dependence on the US and forced Russia's energy out of Europe, Puigsech said.

After leaks were reported in the Nord Stream pipelines, Sweden and Denmark, in whose jurisdiction the leaks occurred, said the pipelines had been deliberately sabotaged, although they did not say who was responsible.

Since then, speculation that the US may have been behind the explosions has grown, culminating this month in a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who alleged that the bombing was carried out on the orders of the White House.

The Joe Biden administration has denied the allegations, but Puigsech said he believes the US had the most to gain from the destruction of the pipelines, arguing that one of the most important benefits to the US was that it could sell natural gas from fracking to Germany.

An article published on Saturday on the Modern Diplomacy website, which cited former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar, said Norway had been attracted to the sabotage project "like a fly to the honeypot" as it stood to gain financially if it helped the US military destroy the Nord Stream pipeline and replace Russia as Germany's principal source of piped natural gas.

Hersh also told German newspaper Berliner Zeitung that Norway was particularly interested in pulling off the plot, according to the article.

At a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in August 2022, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store claimed that "Norway delivers as much gas as possible to Germany", he noted.

"Of course, what he didn't tell Scholz was that Norway was about to execute a project to transform Germany, Europe's largest consumer of natural gas," added Bhadrakumar.

Xinhua