Thursday 29 September 2022 11:05 PM Who DID blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines... Russia or America? trends now
Deep beneath the Baltic Sea, a remotely controlled submarine releases a mine which nestles beside a gas pipeline.
Other mines are laid at critical junctures along hundreds of miles of piping connecting Russia and Germany. They contain the equivalent of hundreds of pounds of TNT.
When they are detonated – either by a timing device or remotely from a secret control room – the aftershocks are felt 800 miles away and seismologists liken the blasts to earthquakes.
Within seconds Nord Stream 1 and 2 begin to leak. Within days, millions of cubic metres of natural gas have been released into Danish and Swedish waters.
Mission accomplished for whoever instigated this unprecedented act of industrial terrorism.
But was it also the staggering act of self-sabotage by Vladimir Putin that the world assumes it to have been?
After all, the president who threatened to ‘end’ Nord Stream earlier this year resides not in the Kremlin but the White House. US President Joe Biden could not have been clearer when, in early February, he promised to bring Nord Stream ‘to an end’ should Russian troops and tanks enter Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden could not have been clearer when, in early February, he promised to bring Nord Stream ‘to an end’ should Russian troops and tanks enter Ukraine
A photo from the Danish Ministry of Defence shows the site of the Nord Stream pipeline gas leak
The invasion happened. So did Mr Biden take revenge as he promised to?
At the time he dismissed suggestions such an operation would be too complicated to carry out or too damaging diplomatically given Nord Stream 2 was controlled by Germany. To the doubters, he added: ‘We will, I promise you. We will be able to do it.’
These remarks have proved a propaganda gift to the Kremlin in the aftermath of the leaks.
Russia’s foreign ministry mouthpiece Maria Zakharova mocked the blunder-prone US President, challenging him to account for his words and actions.
It may appear fanciful to look anywhere other than Moscow to find the perpetrators. However, these incidents occurred in areas of the Baltic Sea belonging to the US’s allies Denmark and Sweden.
While Russian vessels are entitled to enter these ‘exclusive economic zones’, the US and its friends would be expected to closely monitor their activity. Perhaps the US stood by, permitting the plot to be actioned?
The thinking in Washington DC might have been that such an incident would convince those European states with the greatest reliance on
