Cutting off the Nord Stream

Was it an act of terrorism or an attack on a legitimate military target?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announces the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the UN (Photo State Department, 7 March 2005). Rice was U.S. National Security Advisor 2001-2005 and U.S. Secretary of State 2005-2009. John Bolton was Under Secretary of State 2001-2005, U.S. Ambassador to the UN 2005-2006 and U.S. National Security Advisor 2018-2019.

The pipeline company Nord Stream AG (51 % owned Gazprom, Russia, and 49 % by German and other European energy companies) has brought a €400 million lawsuit against Lloyd’s Insurance Company and Arch Insurance in the High Court of Justice. In the upcoming court case with start in November, the insurance companies seem to claim that the attack on Nord Stream was an act of war, a military attack, carried out by Ukraine in a Russian-Ukraine war. Nord Stream AG, however, argues that the attack was a terrorist attack, which would be covered by the insurance, while an act of war wouldn’t. Both the U.S. and Britain claim that they were not and are not part of any war with Russia. Accordingly, a U.S. or British attack should be considered an act of state terrorism, while a Ukrainian attack could possibly be presented as an act of war launched by Ukraine in the Russia-Ukrainian war. It is possible to have a serious discussion about the credibility of each claim. Let’s bring up a few arguments:

1.      From 1981, President Reagan with Defense Secretary Weinberger, CIA Director Casey and National Security Advisor Dick Allen tried to stop the proposed Soviet-German pipeline. Allen and the Deputy Advisor Tom Reed said that the CIA actually succeeded to bomb it in 1982, but the Russians and the Germans continued to build it, which created mutual trust between former enemies. The pipeline became the material foundation for a new “European Peace”, the ending the Cold War, similar to how the Coal and Steel Community had created mutual trust between former enemies after World War II. President Gorbachev spoke now about a Common European Home. But this “European Peace” reduced U.S. influence in Europe. Significant U.S. elites wanted, already from the early 1990s, to stop the European-Russian collaboration and to cut off the pipelines and to cut off Russia from Europe. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the German TV in 2014 that the Germans had to replace their dependency on Russian gas with U.S. gas. “It is time to do that”, she said. You have to act, and “act as quickly as possible”. From that moment, it was clear that the U.S. was going to cut off the Nord Stream pipeline. There was no other way to do it. From 2016, the U.S. started increased LNG production (liquefied natural gas) for the market, and from 2017 Germany started the plans for a LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton told Sky News in January 2022: “We should have cut it off in the Trump Administration. Trump talked about it, but he never actually wanted to do anything about it. That is not untypical unfortunately”. The demand for cutting off the Nord Stream pipeline was brought up to Trump in 2018 or 2019, and Bolton accused Trump of being unwilling to do it. In 2021, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson and the Foreign Relations Committee wanted the U.S. to take “action that will prevent [the pipeline] from ever being operational”. In early 2022, U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland as well as President Biden himself promised to eliminate the pipeline and immediately after the attack, Nuland and Secretary of State Blinken celebrated the successful operation. “It is a tremendous opportunity”, Blinken said. To cut off Russia from Europe has been a long-term U.S. policy.

2.      Seymour Hersh wrote in February 2023: President Biden himself had taken the decision to destroy the pipelines. Hersh’s sources [supposedly from the CIA] argued that they had recruited a team of U.S. Navy deep-sea divers from Panama City Florida, and that they were going to use the June 2022 BALTOPS exercise at Bornholm as a cover. The divers planted the bombs on the pipelines at the end of the exercise, he argued. The U.S. would then, in September, have used a Poseidon aircraft to drop a sonar buoy sending a coded signal that would trigger timers for the bombs, Hersh said. And true, the U.S. Navy deep-sea divers were based at the U.S. diving center Panama City Florida. One source, a coordinator for the divers at the BALTOPS exercise claimed already a week after the explosions that U.S. Navy deep-sea divers arrived at the end of this exercise and were under water for a long time. There was no need for such divers in a mine clearing exercise like the BALTOPS that only included dives just below the surface. These deep-sea divers were also received by the U.S. admiral. They were not treated as regular divers. The coordinator believed that they had used the advanced MK29 rebreather system from Panama City Florida. Immediately after the exercise, some U.S. Navy aircraft left Ronneby BALTOPS airbase (Sweden) for U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella (Italy), while others left for U.S. Naval Station Rota (Spain) and went further to U.S. Naval Station Norfolk (outside Washington), while two aircraft left for Panama City Florida. There are clear indications supporting the argument that U.S. Navy deep-sea divers from U.S Navy diving center Panama City participated in the BALTOPS-22 exercise and the only reason for using these deep-sea divers would be to go down to the sea-floor, to the pipelines and possibly to plant bombs on the pipelines.

3.      Several major U.S. Navy ships, among them USS Kearsarge (257 meters), USS Gunstone Hall (190 meters) and the Flagship and Command ship of the 6^th Fleet, USS Mount Whitney (189 meters), participated in the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022 east of Bornholm in the area of the pipelines and the upcoming explosions. U.S. Navy divers could easily have used a midget submarine from the former ships to go down to the pipelines. U.S. Navy divers also used the Norwegian ship KNM Magnus Lagabøte carrying a decompression chamber only necessary for deep-sea diving. There were plenty of opportunities to support these dives. Kearsarge, Gunstone Hall and USS Arlington (208 meters), all with capabilities to bring a midget submarine with divers down to the pipelines, also appeared in the area of the pipelines east of Bornholm around 20-21 September days before the explosions and with their AIS turned off. On 21 September, a Danish rescue vessel went out from Christiansø northeast of Bornholm to check out a couple of ships that did not respond on radio and had their AIS turned off (close to the area of the upcoming explosions). These were Kearsarge, Arlington and Gunstone Hall. Kearsarge left the Baltic Sea on the 22 September, four days before the explosions. There seems to have been a significant U.S. Navy presence with capabilities for deep sea divers over the area of the upcoming explosions both during the BALTOPS exercise and during the very days preceding the explosions. On the day of the explosions, while using AIS signals to masquerade as a Greek container ship, U.S. Navy destroyer USS Paul Ignatius (160 meters) left Gdynia (Poland) to “guard the crime scene” for three weeks until 18 October. In November, a chartered large Norwegian offshore ship Northern Frontier (with a huge crane and a UUV Hugin) appeared at the crime scene, both at the northern and the southern sites of the explosions, while guarded by the American USCGS Hamilton. This seems definitely to have been a U.S. operation.

4.      During the BALTOPS-22 exercise, a U.S. Navy Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft went up from U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella Italy to the German Naval Air Base Nordholz (Cuxhaven) from where it operated over the Baltic Sea east of Bornholm. During the BALTOPS exercise, also another U.S. Navy Poseidon went on daily basis from Keflavik Iceland to the Baltic Sea east of Bornholm, where it covered the area close to the upcoming explosions. Usually, it was refueled at Ronneby airbase in southern Sweden before returning back to Keflavik over Sweden and Norway. The two Poseidon seem to have operated in tandem. Days before the explosions, a U.S. Poseidon from Sigonella went once again up to Nordholz (Germany). For three nights 22-25 September, it passed back and forth over Bornholm. It would have had plenty of occasions to drop a sonar buoy that would trigger the timers for the bombs. Military aircraft are usually not in the air during the night, and during these nights there were no other aircraft except for a U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter that patrolled the area outside the Russian naval base of Baltiysk apparently following Russian naval activity. Each night, this Poseidon also patrolled the area between Gotland and Latvia and each time for a couple of hours, which appear to have been a cover operation. If the timers of the bombs had been triggered by sonar buoy shortly before the explosions on 26 September, as Seymour Hersh had said, these buoys would have been dropped by a U.S. Navy Poseidon from Sigonella (Italy), not from a Norwegian Poseidon, as his sources originally had told. But in operations like this, the U.S. always prepares a cover. One tries to involve someone, like Norway, that for example would have (economic) interest in destroying the pipeline and accordingly could be presented as “the usual suspect”, but the training program for new Norwegian Poseidon aircraft had been delayed. They were not yet fully operational. Norway seems to have backed out some weeks or months before the attack was carried out.

5.      On 26 September, at midnight, Central European Summer Time (CEST), a U.S. Navy Poseidon aircraft left Keflavik Iceland for the area of Bornholm. At 02.03 CEST, at the time of the first explosion at Bornholm, this Poseidon passed southwest of Norway. One hour later, at 03.00 CEST, the aircraft reached the position of the explosion. It then went in over Poland, where it was air refueled by a U.S. tanker aircraft, which had left the U.S. Spangdahlem Air Base at the very minute of the explosion. After an hour of refueling, the U.S. Poseidon went in over the southern Baltic Sea again and towards the site of the explosion and at lower altitude. It then turned off its transponder at 05.10 CEST and turned it on again three hours later. It then passed over the site of the explosion at rather low altitude at 09.00 CEST. Minutes afterwards, it climbed to 10,000 meters and returned to Keflavik. No other military aircraft were in the area except for the U.S. Seahawk that patrolled the waters off the Russian naval base of Baltiysk. The U.S. Poseidon covered the area east of Bornholm for hours after the explosion. This operation was planned and prepared for before the first explosion took place, also the refueling for the extended patrol over the area of the explosion was planned beforehand. Different from the pattern during the BALTOPS exercise, this Poseidon avoided Norwegian and Swedish territory. It was refueled not at Ronneby airbase (Sweden) as during the BALTOPS exercise, but over Poland. The Americans were definitely aware of the upcoming explosion and the exact time of the explosions and the possible sensitivity among the Norwegians and the Swedes. The Americans definitely knew, and they did neither inform the Nord Stream company nor the Russians or the Germans. They were, accordingly, involved in the operation. This seems to be definite evidence.

6.      On 6-7 September, three weeks before the explosions, five Ukrainian men and one woman (including three divers) went on a 15 meters’ sailing boat from Rostock Germany, visiting harbors on Rügen (Germany) and Bornholm (Denmark), Christiansø at Bornholm 11-12 September, the Swedish port of Sandhamn on 13-14 September, according to some sources Christiansø once again on 16-18 September and then the city of Kołobrzeg in eastern Poland on 19-20 September, before returning to Rügen on 22 September and to Rostock three days before the explosions. They flew a Ukrainian flag, and the charter fee had been paid by a small Ukrainian company with address in Warsaw Poland. Media claimed that the operation had been ordered by Ukraine Chief of Defence General Valery Zaluzhny. President Zelensky had “initially approved the plan”, The Wall Street Journal writes, but the CIA had asked him “to pull the plug”. Colonel Roman Chervinsky was said to have been responsible for the logistics. A Ukrainian politician Andrei Derkach claimed on Belarus TV that that this “Ukrainian contribution” had actually been initiated by CIA’s top man in Kyiv, Christopher W. Smith, now U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Eastern Europe. The very competent divers had been trained on the South Stream pipeline from the Mangalia Naval Base in Romania. The “Ukrainian operation” was organized as a cover to make it possible for the Americans to blame Ukraine, Derkach said. The CIA would always prepare a cover, and why would a couple of divers in a small sailing boat lacking specialized equipment plant the explosives at the depth of 75-80 meters, when the depth along the pipeline in southern Baltic Sea is mostly 30-60 meters? The pipelines would be much more easily accessible in these areas. In addition, the crew did not try to hide their presence. They seem to have been occupied by visiting various ports. They may have had a role in the operation, but perhaps rather as a cover.

7.      On 27 September, the day after the explosions, the Norwegian-Danish-Polish pipeline, the Baltic Pipe, was inaugurated. The Baltic Pipe came to replace the Nord Stream as the main pipeline for delivering gas to Central Europe. The leaders of Norway, Denmark and Poland had pre-notified their presence at the upcoming inauguration in the Polish city of Szczecin. This was supposed to be a major event. However, five days before this event, Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre cancelled his trip to Poland after having been to Washington and having had a one-day guided tour by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro at the U.S. Naval Station Norfolk outside Washington. Del Toro must have told him about the upcoming attack on Nord Stream. Obviously, it became impossible for Prime Minister Støre to celebrate the new Baltic Pipe, because in that case, he would also have celebrated the physical destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, Norway’s main competitor. Perhaps the date, the day before the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe, had been chosen to punish of Norway for backing out from the deal of triggering the explosives. Instead of going to the most important Norwegian inauguration for years, Prime Minister Støre stayed in Oslo looking at some figures for the yearly budget. It is very difficult to explain this if he wasn’t pre-notified about the upcoming explosions. The Polish leadership, however, seems to have been happy letting its pipeline replace the Nord Stream pipeline. On the day of the explosion, the present Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski wrote on his Twitter account over a photo of the massive gas release from the pipeline: “Thank you, USA”. When the German authorities wanted to question a Ukrainian “suspect” in Poland, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the initiators of Nord Stream [the Germans] should “apologize and keep quiet”. The air refueling over Poland would also have included Polish pre-knowledge.

Concluding remarks: An important U.S. elite has for years prepared for cutting the Nord Stream pipelines in order to cut off Russia from Europe, which would increase U.S. influence in Europe and make Europe turn to the U.S. for protection. The above Poseidon flights over the area of the explosions on 23-26 September and particularly on 26 September, do not just show that the Americans were aware of the upcoming explosion and of the exact time of the explosion, the U.S. would also have been directly responsible for targeting the Nord Stream, because one did neither notify the owners of Nord Stream, nor the states dependent on it. The massive U.S. naval and air presence in the area during the BALTOPS exercise and during the days preceding the explosions indicate a huge U.S. operation. There are enough evidence supporting Seymour Hersh’s claim that the U.S. had used deep-sea divers from Panama City Florida at the end of the exercise. These divers cannot be explained by any task linked to the BALTOPS exercise itself, because the exercise only conducted dives close to the surface. The deep-sea divers almost certainly went down to the pipelines, and they would then have planted or prepared for the bombs that would have been triggered by a coded signal from a sonar buoy dropped by a Poseidon aircraft, as stated by Seymour Hersh. But this Poseidon would have been a U.S. Poseidon from Sigonella (Italy), which was the only military aircraft operating in the area the nights before the explosions. However, the U.S. always wants to have “plausible deniability”. They want to involve other states to be able to blame these states afterwards, in case something goes wrong. One will choose states with direct interest in blowing up the pipeline, like Norway that would radically increase its profits after the elimination of its major competitor, or Poland and Ukraine that always protested against these pipelines that circumvented Polish and Ukraine control. But such a cover has to be true. It has in certain respect to be real. The state covering up for the U.S. has to be involved in the operation in one way or another. One could possibly even imagine that the Ukraine diving team would have been able to plant a bomb at, for example, the southern site or contribute with something else. To use Ukraine as a cover would also make it possible for Western countries to claim that a Russian pipeline was a legitimate military target for Ukraine. The attack would no longer be a considered a terrorist or state terrorist attack. To use a Ukraine cover could make it possible to present the attack a legitimate act of war.

Some Polish people were almost certainly involved, some Ukrainians would have been involved, at least in a cover operation, some Norwegian Navy and Intelligence people were most likely involved and also some Swedes, Danes and probably Germans and almost certainly some British people, because Britain has, according to the historical U.S.-British division of labor for intelligence operations, largely been responsible for the Baltic Sea area. However, the U.S. would, in this case, have had a dominating role and the overall responsibility. On 26 September, the U.S. Poseidon aircraft seems to purposely have avoided Swedish and Norwegian territory. The U.S. Navy had apparently decided not to embarrass Sweden and Norway. The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline would primarily have been a U.S. state terrorist operation.

U.S. state terrorism is not something you would read about in the newspapers, and for that reason, it might be interesting to listen to Lieutenant General William Odom, who was the military assistant to the U.S. national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski under President Carter 1977-81, Chief Army Intelligence 1981-85 and President Reagen’s Director National Security Agency 1985-88 (heading U.S. signal intelligence). In 1987, he was a candidate to replace Robert Gates as Deputy CIA. Odom stated several times that “terrorism is a tactic and not an enemy”, and “the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics.” In 2004, he wrote: “That is why efforts to draft a law against international terrorism in the U.S. Senate in 1979 were eventually dropped: no variant could be devised that the United States had not violated.” Two years later, he wrote: “By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation” U.S. covert operations or “state terrorism” has had a major role in U.S. policy.

The evidence supporting a U.S. act of state terrorism is overwhelming, while several countries are likely to have been involved in the Nord Stream attack, including Ukraine. But that does not make the attack an act of war, a legitimate military operation, and the attack on Nord Stream was not just an attack on Russia but also an attack on Germany, which would raise the issue of NATO’s article 5. To claim that the attack on Nord Stream was an act of war in a Ukraine-Russian war is not credible. It does not fit with the actual evidence.