DISINFO: Sweden may be hiding serious evidence concerning the destruction of Nord Stream
SUMMARY
The United States and other governments simply reject the thesis of Seymour Hersh’s Nord Stream investigation without presenting any arguments. The Swedish authorities took a shameful decision to restrict access to information obtained during the investigation of the attack. Sweden may be acting not as an investigator, but as a player, hiding serious evidence at a crime scene.
RESPONSE
This is part of a wider pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign aiming to amplify and exploit Seymour Hersh’s controversial article accusing the US of blowing up the NS 1 and NS 2 gas pipelines. The article can’t be considered an evidence of this: it is based on a single, unidentified anonymous source and published in Hersh’s personal blog, so no editorial team was involved in its preparation.
Hersh claimed that US Navy divers helped by Norway had planted explosives on the pipelines running under the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany last June and detonated them three months later. Snopes portal asked Hersh to respond to criticism that his article's claims are based on a single source and also asked if any undisclosed parties verified or vetted any of that source's assertions as part of his reporting. In response, he told Snopes, that he protects his sources.
The blog post's key affirmations have been credibly debunked by factcheckers, journalists, experts and OSINT researchers, such as the claims about NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg cooperating with the US since the Vietnam War (who was 15 years old at the time this war ended), the use of the M350 Alta ship (which had been out of use since 2012 and sent to the scrapyard in 2022), or that a P-8 aircraft of the Norwegian Navy was involved to detonate the explosives (none of Norway’s P-8 was remotely closer to the area of the explosions).
Other allegations have been reported as highly implausible, such as the presence of this single source in all the preparatory meetings for the operation; that selected members of the US Congress and other government agencies weren’t informed out of need for maximum secrecy, but then Norway was enrolled and Sweden and Denmark would have been informed at some point; or that this top-secret operation was carried out during the BALTOPS military exercises, attended and closely watched by multiple NATO countries.
Apart from the great attention from Kremlin key propaganda outlets, it has been the main point used by Russian Minister Lavrov to demand the UNSC address the issue with an international investigation.
The White House dismissed Hersh’s report as ‘utterly false and complete fiction(opens in a new tab).’ Similarly, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the allegations ‘nonsense.’ However, pro-Kremlin outlets and Russian authorities have massively reported and commented on it as if this allegation had been proven.
Asked about Hersh's claim that Oslo supported the operation, the Norwegian foreign ministry said: "These claims are false."
Sweden, Germany, and Denmark investigate the incident. The preliminary Danish investigation only found that the leaks in the pipelines were caused by powerful explosions. Sweden’s authorities found evidence of detonations, thus strengthening suspicions of “gross sabotage”. The investigations are ongoing and Swedish, Danish, and German authorities have not pinned the blame on any one country or actor.
For a comprehensive analysis of the issue, please read Nord Stream 1 & 2 sabotage - disinformation a la MH-17. See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Western sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines caused an environmental disaster, that the UK took part in the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, or that the West blew up Nord Stream 1 and 2.