WaPo: US Knew Ukraine Planned to Attack Nord Stream Pipelines

The WaPo story doesn't mention Seymour Hersh's report that says the US blew up the pipelines

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the US received intelligence in June 2022 about a Ukrainian plot to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany.

The report omitted the fact that investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has sources who said President Biden ordered the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.

The Post report cited an intelligence assessment leaked to Discord by Airman Jack Teixeira but did not publish the document. The report said that an unnamed European country’s intelligence service shared information with the CIA about the alleged Ukrainian plot.

The Post said that the Ukrainian plotters were not rogue operatives but reported directly to Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. The report said they initially planned to attack the pipelines at the end of NATO exercises in the Baltic Sea in June 2022, known as BALTOPS.

According to Hersh’s reporting, US Navy divers planted explosives on the Nord Stream pipelines during BALTOPS, and they were detonated by a Norwegian spy plane dropping a sonar buoy in the area on September 26, 2022.

The idea that the US suspected Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings first surfaced in a New York Times report that was published on March 7. Sources told Hersh that the report was a cover-up planted in the paper by the CIA to discredit his story that points the finger at President Biden.

Hersh’s allegations about President Biden ordering the bombing have not been confirmed by other sources, but the US had a clear motive for the attack. The US had tried to stop the construction of Nord Stream 2 for years using sanctions. On February 7, 2022, President Biden vowed to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.