Part II: The Destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline: We Came We Saw They Died

[This is part 2 of a larger series on Scandinavia. Part I can be read here.—Editors]

“If Russia invades—that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine—then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” President Joe Biden said standing next to the new Social Democrat chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, at a White House news conference, February 7, 2022.

When pressed for details on how he would keep that promise given that the pipeline is not under U.S. control, Biden stated: “I promise you, we will be able to do it.”

Scholz hedged, saying only that Germany was “acting together” with its allies and promising “very, very harsh” steps against Russia if it invades Ukraine.

Three weeks earlier, Undersecretary Victoria Nuland delivered the same message at a State Department briefing. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

Nuland was Obama and Biden’s point woman for organizing the 2014 fascistic coup in Ukraine. She was caught on tape telling Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who should run the coup government, as if she were in charge of Ukraine.

The coup took place three weeks later, February 24, 2014, and led to neo-fascist military battalions’ war against ethnic Russians in the Donbas area, and the Crimean secession.

On February 19, Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky made it clear his country would join NATO and he implied that he wished to have nuclear weapons. That, at least, is how Russia’s government interpreted what he sought when he spoke at the Munich Security Council.

“I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.” Kyiv Independent daily printed Zelensky’s speech.

This is Tass’ headline. “Europe won’t understand Kiev talking of regaining nuclear weapons — Russian diplomat”. “The Budapest Memorandum was signed on December 5, 1994, by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Britain, and the United States. Under the treaty, Ukraine agreed to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, while Russia, the United States, and Britain guaranteed Kiev’s security.”

President Putin: Enough is Enough!

Five days later, February 24—on the day eight years before that the U.S. got the neo-fascist coup it had wanted—President Vladimir Putin told the world that Russia had lost its patience with the U.S./NATO’s insistence on encircling its nation, and was using force.

“[O]ver the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.”

President Putin summarized a few of the aggressive wars the U.S. has conducted in the Middle East, breaking up Yugoslavia into five countries, in order to end Serbia’s socialist mode of government. U.S./NATO also carved a new state from Albania, Kosovo, led by the U.S./EU declared terrorist organization Kosovo Liberation Army, which it encouraged. All the while pushing closer to Russia.

President Putin continued. “Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia.”

“Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism. I have only mentioned the most glaring but far from only examples of disregard for international law.

“This array includes promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us…Incidentally, U.S. politicians, political scientists and journalists write and say that a veritable ‘empire of lies’ has been created inside the United States in recent years. It is hard to disagree with this – it is really so.” 

President Putin referred to the peace proposal Russia offered to the U.S. in December 2021. “Our efforts were in vain.”

Here are a few of the proposals.

Article 1. “The Parties shall cooperate on the basis of principles of indivisible, equal and undiminished security and to these ends: shall not take actions nor participate in or support activities that affect the security of the other Party.”

Article 3. “The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.”

Article 4. “The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

Article 5. “The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the natural territories of the Parties.”

President Putin continued.

“Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile ‘anti-Russia’ is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.

“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact.”

“This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.”

“In this context, in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation. [Author emphasis for what the West calls a criminal warring invasion.]

“The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.”

So, the war began, one which U.S.-ARME [U.S. Racist Military Empire] had hoped would arrive to rationalize that it is acting “defensively” instead of aggressively to take over another nation’s sovereignty, the biggest of prizes: Russia’s natural resources while submitting its citizenry to the rule of its empire.

The vast majority in the West see Russia as the invader and interpret Article 51 in the opposite manner than does Russia. Daniel Kovalik is one of several international law attorneys who make the argument that Article 51 also provides for self-defense when a nation’s sovereignty is at stake.

“There is no doubt that Russia has been threatened, and in a quite profound way, with concrete destabilizing efforts by the U.S., NATO and their extremist surrogates in Ukraine. Russia has been so threatened for a full eight years. And Russia has witnessed what such destabilizing efforts have meant for other countries, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria to Libya—that is, nearly a total annihilation of the country as a functioning nation-state.

“It is hard to conceive of a more pressing case for the need to act in defense of the nation. While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that ‘[n]othing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense…’ And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.

“In light of the above, it is my assessment that this right has been triggered in the instant case, and that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the U.S. and NATO for an assault—not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine—but also upon Russia itself. A contrary conclusion would simply ignore the dire realities facing Russia.”

Nearly all Scandinavian’s political parties in the parliaments—and all in Denmark—support sending weapons and funds to Ukraine’s neo-fascist government. Nor do they and the MSM mention that the US-ARME violates Article 51, and other international laws, by invading half the world’s countries hundreds of times for economic and political gain, not to protect its sovereignty.

The two traditional neighbors kill one another in the tens of thousands while NATO countries send more and more weaponry even allowing its citizens to travel to Ukraine as mercenaries to fire NATO weapons. Then on September 26, 2022, underwater explosions and consequent gas leaks crushed three of the four pipelines of Nord Stream I and 2.

The 1200-kilometer-long pipelines transported Russia’s inexpensive natural gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea. Russia’s state gas company, Gazprom, owns 51%. The remainder is owned by two German, one French, and one Dutch energy firms.

The immediate loss in construction money value was $11 to $12 billion dollars. Lost income and damage from pollution amount to roughly billions. Loses to the environment, the sea, flora and fauna, the air are also incalculable—the greatest human made methane gas pollution in history, the single-biggest such release of the greenhouse gas, according to the United Nations.

Methane is 80 times more harmful than carbon dioxide during 20 years after release and is reasonable for more than a quarter of global warming, according to the UN agency. Commercial fishing is affected as is angling.

Where I live in eastern Zealand by Koege Bay, which runs into the Baltic Sea, commercial fishing has been stopped in some areas. I no longer fish nor do most others around me. The local newspaper, Stevns Bladet, reported that climate organizations GeoHavs and Nature Conservation Association maintain that eating fish in the bay is risky. Swimming is problematic.

The government’s Ministry of Fishery prohibited fishing in the nearby Sound, which separates Denmark and Sweden and runs into the Baltic Sea: too much heavy mercury metal contamination.

Who Did the Dirty Deed?

The mass media has for two years mainly accused Russia of doing it, albeit the media does not indicate what they would achieve with such a loss of money, fossil fuel, and damaged seas. Gas and oil revenues are a huge percentage of Russia’s annual budget.

A few media sometimes suggest Ukraine’s government might have done it, or Ukraine civilians. That the U.S. government stood behind the sabotage is rarely suggested as a possibility and rarely is Biden’s speech even mentioned.

Since the pipelines are in Sweden and Denmark’s economic territory, they conducted separate investigations, as did Germany. While Sweden and Denmark governments concluded that “there was deliberate sabotage,” they closed their investigations without naming the culprit. All three countries refused to allow Russia to investigate the explosions of their own pipelines.

Tony Norfield, a well-known financial journalist and former bank executive, told Common Dreams what he thinks of who-done-it. That “has troubled Swedish and Danish investigators so much, they have closed their inquiries. Just in case they uncover something embarrassing.”

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh has conducted the most thorough investigation using insider sources who know who and how it was done. His investigative journalism is a must reading for readers who want to learn the truth. The main stream media does not allow its multi-million readers to know what he found out.

Planning began December 2021, two months before Russia’s invasion, and before Biden’s news conference warning. Excerpts herewith relate especially to Norway, Denmark, Sweden’s cooperation with CIA and U.S. Navy.

“A hand-picked team of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency operatives was assembled somewhere in the Washington area, under deep cover, and worked out a plan, using Navy divers, modified submarines and a deep-submarine rescue vehicle, that succeeded, after much trial and error, in locating the Russian cable. The divers planted a sophisticated listening device on the cable that successfully intercepted the Russian traffic and recorded it on a taping system.

That underwater success, codenamed Ivy Bells, was innovative and risky, and produced invaluable intelligence about the Russian Navy’s intentions and planning.”

“Norway was the perfect place to base the mission.”

“Today, the secretary general of NATO is Jens Stoltenberg…a hardliner on all things Putin and Russia who had cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War. He has been trusted completely since…The destruction of Nord Stream (would also) allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.”

“The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island…a Norwegian Alta class mine hunter would dive with a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium streaming from their tanks, and plant shaped C4 charges on the four pipelines with concrete protective covers. [Only three pipelines were prepared for exploding due to a time factor.]

“The Norwegians and Americans had a location and the operatives, but there was another concern: any unusual underwater activity in the waters off Bornholm might draw the attention of the Swedish or Danish navies, which could report it.”

“The Norwegians joined the Americans in insisting that some senior officials in Denmark and Sweden had to be briefed in general terms about possible diving activity in the area. In that way, someone higher up could intervene and keep a report out of the chain of command, thus insulating the pipeline operation.” [emphasis added]

“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.”

Fallout

“In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, the American media treated it like an unsolved mystery. Russia was repeatedly cited as a likely culprit, spurred on by calculated leaks from the White House—but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, beyond simple retribution.”

Soon thereafter, Blinken described the moment as a potentially good one: It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs. That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come, but meanwhile we’re determined to do everything we possibly can to make sure the consequences of all of this are not borne by citizens in our countries or, for that matter, around the world.”

Six weeks later, Hersh wrote a follow up article. “The [sabotage] story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe, but was subject to a near media blackout in the U.S.” 

“There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally ‘task’ the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea. According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.”

Scholz traveled to Washington weeks after the explosion. He was not to talk about the sabotage. No news conferences. A CNN reporter, Fareed Zakaria, was allowed to interview Scholz but did not ask anything about the pipelines.

The former leftish Danish daily Information wrote that Hersh’s work is “full of holes”, using the CIA and mass media condescending rejection terminology “conspiracy theory”. The former critical journalism newspaper ignores the CIA’s 77-year history of conspiratorial sabotages, conspiratorial regime changes, conspiratorial covert actions that destroys nations and millions of people.

Information’s headline indicates what PM Mette Frederiksen wants us to believe. She shows her conspiracy with the White House and CIA. “Mette F. Warns Against Conspiration Theories After the Gas Pipeline Histories.”

In March 2023, the U.S. and several Western allies opposed a United Nations Security Council resolution that aimed to launch an international probe into the Nord Stream explosions.

In March 2024, German media reported that a pro-Ukraine group was involved in the sabotage. Ukraine rejected suggestions that it might have ordered the attack, and German officials voiced caution over the accusation. Most media ignored the matter until this August when MSM reported that German federal prosecutors had put out an arrest order, in June, for a Ukrainian, Volodymyr Z, as one of six saboteur-suspects. He was supposedly living in Poland, whose authorities said he had returned to Ukraine.

The new Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk replied: “To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today about it is apologize and keep quiet.”

Media in Denmark usually do not even mention that the U.S. could be the conspirator behind the sabotage. I have written to two media about their only assumptions that it was either Russia or a group of “civilian” Ukrainians. The Christian Daily rejected my letter-to-the-editor objection.

I protested to Denmark’s government sponsored radio/TV network DR for its one-sided news reports. I wrote that journalists (such as Seymour Hersh) have been trained, just like detectives, to trace who benefits from criminal acts. So why should Russia destroy their rich revenues while the U.S. and Norway get to sell higher priced gas to Europe? I recalled that Joe Biden had promised that the pipelines would no longer exist, and referred to Denmark and Sweden’s refusal to allow Russia to investigate their own pipelines.

Morten Tvegaard, the editorial chief of DR 18:30 news program, replied: “I don’t think
there has been any evidence or stories of American meddling from serious media, and therefore I don’t think it’s a sin of omission that only Russia and Ukraine are mentioned as possibilities.”

He refused to answer when I pointed out the sterling history of Hersh’s journalism as serious.

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