The fourth episode focuses on the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline with a focus on Seymour Hersh’s bombshell expose. It also explores the history behind the pipeline and why it posed such a threat to the United States.
On September 26, 2022—seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine—three massive pipelines exploded under the Baltic Sea.
Western media and politicians claimed that the explosions of what were known as the Nord Stream pipelines was sabotage… not by the U.S. but by Vladimir Putin himself.
I’m investigative journalist Ben Swann.
If you don’t know what the Nord Stream pipelines are… they formed part of what was arguably Russia’s biggest economic and political win since the fall of the Soviet Union.
They are underwater pipes which carried Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing third countries, which made it extremely cheap for Europeans and very profitable for the Russians.
Which is why the Western media reaction to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines as Putin sabotaging his own pipelines, was nonsensical.
The truth behind what happened, that was finally revealed months later by venerable investigative journalist Seymour Hersh—who previously broke stories on the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam and the torture of prisoners at Abu Gurib.
In a bombshell report, Hersh detailed how President Biden and the CIA blew up the Nord Stream pipelines –an act of war, not just against Russia, their archnemesis, but also against their ally, Germany.
McKnight: The only thing that surprised me about the recent revelation about the Nordstream pipeline is that it took this long to come out.
Black: These pipelines were the arteries, the veins and arteries that fed the beating heart of Europe.
The Nord Stream pipelines first began delivering Russian natural gas to Germany in 2011. Similar to oil, natural gas is a source of energy, and Russia has the world’s largest reserves.Natural gas has many advantages over oil; it’smore ecologically friendly, releasing far less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It’s also a lot cheaper.
Before Nord Stream was built, Russian gas was delivered to Western Europe through two underground pipes. One went through Ukraine and Slovakia. The other went through Belarus and Poland before getting to Germany.
McGregor: Historically, Russia’s resources have been essential to Germany and Germany’s technology. Its manufacturing capability, its human capital have been very helpful to Russia. It’s a very positive relationship, and this has been growing in many ways, despite our efforts to inhibit it.
The Nord Stream idea came about in order to cut costs. With an underwater pipeline, gas could be delivered directly from Russia to Germany, bypassing the middle countries, who were paid billions of dollars a year in transit fees. With transit costs cut, Germany would save big.
RICK: With this action Sy, aren’t we leaving them out in the cold, quite literally leaving them out in the cold.
HERSH: More than that. It’s desperate there now, inflation like you’ve never seen, they’re trying to get by with LNG, liquid natural gas. It doesn’t produce enough and it costs 3-4 times as much. They’re not gonna have gas to keep their people warm.
The original Nord Stream pipeline, Nordstream 1 greatly increased Russian gas supplies to Europe, especially Germany. Before the pipeline was built, Germany received 37.5% of their natural gas from Russia. Nord Stream nearly doubled that figure, reaching as high as 70% of German gas supplies in 2016.
Germany was receiving so much cheap Russian gas that they were able to re-export it to other European countries. This increased Russian gas supplies all over the continent, most notably in Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Portugal.
Once Nord Stream 1 began operations, Russia began laying the pipes for Nord Stream 2. The second project would increase the gas pipelines from two to four, giving Russian gas supplies to Germany the potential to double. In reaction, U.S. Government officials declared Nord Stream 2 a threat. It had the potential to resultin Germany getting 100% of its natural gas from Russia. But it wouldn’t stop there. Germany would bring in so much Russian gas that it would let them re-export even more massive quantitiesto other countries in western Europe.
Cruz: THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE IS A PIPELINE FROM RUSSIA TO GERMANY TO CARRY NATURAL GAS THAT IF COMPLETED WOULD GENERATE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR PUTIN, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS THAT WOULD FUND RUSSIAN MILITARY AGGRESSION AGGRESSION. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT THIS PIPELINE IF COMPLETED WOULD MAKE EUROPE EVEN MORE DEPENDENT ON RUSSIAN ENERGY. EVEN MORE VULNERABLE TO RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL. PUTIN HAS DEMONSTRATED HE IS MORE THAN WILLING TO CUT OFF THE GAS IN THE DEAD OF WINTER AS ECONOMIC BLACKMAIL AGAINST HIS NEIGHBORS. THIS PIPELINE IS BEING BUILT THIS VERY MOMENT. IT IS NEAR COMPLETION. THE LEGISLATION THAT WE ARE PASSING IS DESIGNED TO OPERATE LIKE A SCALPEL SPECIFICALLY DIRECTED TO THE SHIPS THAT LAY THE DEEP SEA PIPELINE NEEDED TO COMPLETE IN NORD STREAM 2.
US resistance to Nord Stream 2 began within the first year of the Trump administration. Bipartisan sanction packages were passed in 2017, 2019, and 2020, which effectively brought a halt to the pipeline’s construction.
| Pompeo: With respect to Nord Stream 2, which fits into that, we don’t think that’s in the best interest of the security of Europe. We think it funnels money to Russians in ways that undermine European national security. |
The Trump administration wasn’t just responding to deep state interests, but also to domestic economic concerns.
Due to the revolution in fracking, the United States became a natural gas exporter to Europe for the first time in 2016. This was due to technological advancements that allowed the US to produce Liquid Natural Gas, or LNG, which could be shipped to other parts of the globe.
The United States wanted access to European markets, but their gas was significantly more expensive than Russian gas.
The U.S.’s burgeoning LNG industry received a boon, however, in the form of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Since that time, U.S. exports to Europe have nearly doubled.
Telizhenko: Now you pay 200 euros a month per gas. That’s for one apartment. I’m not saying about businesses. But that’s because they’re buying US gas from the United States, which is three times more expensive for Europe than it was through the Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which are now, you know, who blew them up. But that’s, that’s the consequences Europe is paying today.
But the economic devastation unleashed in Europe, because of the switch from Russian to American gas, hadn’t always been part of the continent’s destiny.
The year before the Nord Stream explosions, the Biden administration surprised many by introducing a sanctions waiver on the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline.
The media painted this development as the Biden administration seeking to cozy up to Europe, particularly Germany, after years of tension under Trump. But could they have had another plan in mind? Here’s Deputy Secretary of State, and Ukraine/Russia policy architect, Victoria Nuland.
Nuland: If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.
And here’s Biden himself just two weeks before Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Biden: If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.
Reporter: How will you do that exactly, since the project is controlled by Germany?
Biden: I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.
Hersh: When Biden spoke publicly about this within three weeks of the briefing, the information he got. And Victoria Nuland both, within a three-week period in late January and early February of last year, both said publicly ‘well, we know we can stop it and let me be’—he said that in a news conference—we will stop Nord Stream 1, but President, it’s on tape it was on the nightly news. The reporter said ‘well how will you do it.’ And he said ‘let me tell you, we know how to do it,’ language like that. And at that point, the guys from teh group were upset because it was supposed to be a covert operation.
McKnight: Joe Biden himself has said that we would destroy the pipeline if Russia invaded. Russia invaded. Either the president fulfilled his promises threat or he didn’t.
But Biden reportedly did come through on his threat.
A year after the Russian invasion, Seymour Hersh exposed the inner workings of the top-secret US Government mission to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines.
McGregor: It was an act of war against Russia on the one hand, and against Germany on the other, because this was a Russian German agreement. This, again, has been an obsession in the neocon community.
| Reade: I mean that’s a war crime. They blew up civilian infrastructure that’s now going to bankrupt Europe potentially. |
If you haven’t read his incredible report, here’s how it all went down… According to Hersh, two months before the Russian invasion, Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, formed a task force with individuals from the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Treasury Department, and the State Department.
One of the task force’s first duties was to follow through on a Biden-approved plan to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines.
The CIA reportedly developed a strategy to use people serving at the US Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center in Panama City, Florida. Divers would plant bombs onto the pipelines, ones that could be detonated remotely.
In order to cover their tracks, they planted the bombs during NATO’s June 2022 military drills, BALTOPS 22.
The operation to blow up the pipelines was based in Norway, a member of NATO.
Norway also happens to be Europe’s second leading natural gas supplier, behind Russia.
Just a couple of weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, task force members travelled to Norway to meet with the country’s Secret Service and Navy.
The Norwegians recommended that the explosives be placed right off Denmark’s Bornholm Island, whose waters were shallow enough for divers to place the bombs.
According to government insiders interviewed by Hersh, the bombs were placed during BALTOPS 22 and programmed to be detonated at a later date.
Three months later, on September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy surveillance plane dropped off the detonation device, a sonar buoy. Hours later, 3 of the 4 Nord Stream pipelines had exploded… creating one a massive ecological disaster and constituting an act of war.
Mcadams: I think it rises to a 9/11 scale of attack. If you think about the complexity, if you think about, you know, the world changing, you know, dynamics of blowing up the pipeline. And it is astonishing.
When they weren’t blaming Russia for blowing up their own pipelines, mainstream media outlets treated the explosion as a mystery. The White House did too.
Reporter: Thanks, Karine. Back on the Nord Stream pipeline, whoever attacked the pipeline – and it may take a while to figure out who it was – would the U.S. consider that to qualify as an attack on a NATO Ally worthy of retaliation?
Pierre: So I don’t want to get ahead of the investigation. We have to see – we have to see who is behind this at this time. I understand the question, because it is a pipeline and it is going to affect our – certainly, our NATO Allies.But we want to see where the investigation goes. And, again, an attack on critical infrastructure of our European allies and NATO – our European partners and NATO Allies is a – is a matter of concern for us. But we will – we will be there and we will be ready to – be ready to react once we have – the investigation is completed.
But other public figures reacted to the explosion by gloating, like EU Parliament Member Radek Sikorski (Rah-deck See-kor-skiy). He Tweeted, then deleted, an image of the Nord Stream blast with a caption that read “Thank you, USA.” Ted Cruz and Victoria Nuland also got in on the fun.
NULAND: SENATOR CRUZ, LIKE YOU, I AM, AND I THINK THE ADMINISTRATION IS VERY GRATIFIED TO KNOW THAT NORD STREAM 2 IS NOW, AS YOU LIKE TO SAY, A HUNK OF METAL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.
Four months later, Hersh released his report, which detailed the US and Norwegian governments’ planning and execution of the Nord Stream attack. Mainstream media outlets reacted to Hersh’s expose largely by… not reacting. Here’s the late journalist, Gonzalo Lira, who died while imprisoned in Ukraine because of his reporting.
McAdams: it says everything we need to know about the state of the media in the United States, hence the rise of alternative media and hence the rise of independent programs, because the mainstream media’s how many Pulitzers are there waiting to be had on reporting on this stuff? And nobody takes it up. Nobody wants to in the mainstream media, nobody cares.
Once Hersh’s story went viral, mainstream media outlets finally responded. They did so by questioning Hersh’s motives and his credentials.
AFSHIN: what’s all the character assassination bundled in with the denials that they’re allowed to do if this was a covert atrocity that the administration undertook?
Hersh: That’s the game. I can live with that; that’s the game.
But Hersh says this isn’t the first time he’s faced backlash for publishing inconvenient truths. In fact, he’s spent his career in this situation, like when he exposed the US military’s massacre of innocent civilians in Vietnam.
Hersh: Since doing the Mi Lai story in 1969, it was a massacre that had been done a year and a half earlier, about which I will tell you the knowledge of that kind of stuff was known to many in the press corp. But if you’re working there, I can understand that, over there it would be dangerous to do a story like that. The Americans would not like it. There was always a hesitation inevitably about that. But when I did that story more than half of the country thought I was lying about it. So, I’ve gone through this.
Mcadams: And I love it when people say, Oh, Sy Hersh, oh yeah, he’s old. Okay. Oh, yeah. Well, he had a couple of stories back then, but what has he done for us lately? I mean, this is astonishing. He’s always been viewed as one of the greatest investigative reporters in the history of journalism. So when they can’t refute what he says, they simply change the subject or bring in something that’s ancillary.
Lira: He is not a man at this stage of his life at his age, and he’s going to risk that reputation by pushing something false. No way. He has this cold.
Despite having it cold, The White House has denied Hersh’s allegations.
JOURNALIST: Can you say unequivocaly the US, no US proxy, no one connected to the US had anything to do, I mean is the Seymour Hersh a complete fabrication -that article?
Kirby: It’s a completely false story. There is no truth to it, Shannon. Not a shred of it. It is not true.
A few months after Hersh released his bombshell, news outlets like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico started filing reports arguing that Ukrainians were behind the blast. The reports were based on anonymous US government sources and added that these mysterious culprits weren’t affiliated with the Ukrainian government; they were just sympathizers. And the US was not, in any way, involved.
Credico: I don’t think the Ukrainians are that sophisticated to be able to pull something like that off, and they certainly don’t have the aerial intelligence to do it. So I think, like the bridge the other day, there’s no way it was just the Ukrainians. I’m quite certain don’t get the blame. Because the US can’t do here. We’ll do it. But you got to take the blame for it. You guys got to go out there and say that you did it. So we don’t get to a direct conflict with Russia.
| The US government still refuses to admit their guilt and mainstream media outlets are still treating the blast as a mystery. As it stands now, there are no official plans to fix the Nord Stream pipelines. In the meantime, US gas producers are the big winners. Norwegian gas producers have also increased their supplies to Europe. Meanwhile, it is the working class people in Germany, and the rest of Europe, who suffer under the weight of rising gas costs, and thus, higher inflation. Just as U.S. taxpayers suffer from that massive amounts of treasure being sent Ukraine. Next time on Zelensky Unmasked, we’ll investigate the over 160 billion dollars that the US government has sent to Ukraine. Do we know what its going there for? Where are your tax dollars really going? |