News reports emerging from Germany and the United States claim that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022.
German daily newspaper Die Zeit, public broadcasters ARD and SWR, and the ARD political magazine Kontraste reported this month that investigators were able to reconstruct how the pipelines from Russia to Germany were sabotaged on September 26, 2022.
Citing several unnamed officials, the investigation by the news outlets reported that five men and a woman used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attack.
Also read: Why sabotage is a growing form of warfare in Ukraine
The New York Times also reported that US intelligence is suggesting a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the blasts.
The Times said US President Joe Biden and his top aides “did not authorize” the attack.
The New York Times typically behaves like a mouthpiece for the US State Department. The paper was forced to issue an apology in 2004 over its misleading coverage about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was in essence used by the State Department to parrot the lines that justified the illegal war carried out by the US and its allies.
But here we are again, this time after a report by award-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that accused the US of ordering the bombing of Nord Stream pipelines under cover of a NATO exercise.
Hersh explained how the Norwegians apparently helped US divers set the remotely triggered explosives under the pipelines in June 2022.
Washington and its allies have denied the accusation made by Hersh. The New York Times, true to form, has chosen to parrot the lines given to it and hand-picked German outlets.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he had read the news reports “with great interest” but warned against drawing quick conclusions on the issue.
“We need to clearly differentiate whether it was a Ukrainian group that acted on the orders of Ukraine or … without the government’s knowledge,” he told reporters.
This is very different from the insistence by the US and its allies that Russia was responsible for blowing up the pipelines it earned money from by supplying vast quantities of energy to Europe.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov rejected suggestions that the attack might have been ordered by Kiev.
He told reporters: “It’s like a compliment for our special forces, but this is not our activity.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the New York Times report, noting that investigations by Denmark, Germany and Sweden were still ongoing.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the latest media reports as a coordinated manipulation intended to conceal the origins of the attack.
He said: “The masterminds of the terror attack clearly want to distract attention.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his officials have accused the US of blowing up the pipelines, which they described as a “terror attack.”
Jan Oberg, the director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, said that once the reporting by Hersh is vindicated and the role of US Navy forces proven, “Europeans will wake up and finally understand that they no longer share interests with the US.”
The women-led peace organization Code Pink issued a statement that “We need a real, public investigation into this crime against the environment!”
The national organizer for Black Alliance for Peace, Ajamu Baraka, tweeted: “The arrogance of the white supremacist mind makes it impossible for it to understand how latest propaganda ploy with the misinformation campaign on the US attack on Nord Stream pipelines is making the US press a laughing stock around the world.
“Since the US claims it wants to crack down on misinformation campaigns, perhaps it should investigate the [Times’] misinformation campaign on the Nord Stream attack?”
This article was produced by Globetrotter, which provided it to Asia Times.