The United States said the accusation was “completely false,” and it accused Russia of trying to distract attention from criticism around the first anniversary of its unprovoked Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and ongoing attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The exchanges took place at the U.N. Security Council, which has become the world’s only public forum for direct, and often antagonistic, contacts between Washington and Moscow. On the 15-member council, only China offered full support for Russia’s call for a special U.N. inquiry. “A simple statement of utterly false and complete fiction is obviously not enough to answer the many questions and concerns raised around the world,” said China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, referring to the U.S. dismissal of the Nord Stream sabotage charge. The request for an independent investigation “is entirely legitimate and reasonable,” he said.
The two Baltic Sea pipelines, designed to carry natural gas from Russia to Europe, were rendered inoperable by explosions that also caused environmentally damaging gas releases. World leaders quickly suggested Russia was responsible, a view still not entirely dismissed but that some Western intelligence assessments and officials have come to doubt.
Investigations by Sweden, Denmark and Germany are underway five months later. In a letter to the Security Council on Tuesday, those governments said they have established “that there has been extensive damage” to the pipelines “and that the damage was caused by powerful explosions due to sabotage.”
“These investigations have not yet been concluded,” the letter said, and “at this point, it is not possible to say when they will be concluded.” Russian authorities “have been informed regarding the ongoing investigations,” the letter said.
But Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, who called the emergency meeting, said the perpetrator was now known, “thanks to an investigating journalist” who had determined “not only that the United States did it, but how they did it, with the involvement of their NATO ally Norway.”
Two weeks ago, journalist Seymour Hersh published a lengthy article — an online subscription platform for independent journalists and bloggers — alleging that U.S. Navy divers, operating under cover of a NATO exercise with Norway in the Baltic Sea early last summer, placed explosives on the two pipelines. Three months later, Hersh wrote, President Biden gave the order to blow them up, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for uncovering the My Lai Massacre by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, and he is credited with other explosive investigative work over the years, although much of his more recent output has been widely criticized. His Nord Stream allegation was based on a single anonymous source he described as someone “with direct knowledge of operational planning.” No other media outlet has corroborated his account...………………………………………………………………………………………..