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Gas rising above the North Sea pipeline leak (photo from September 27, 2022)
Photo: HANDOUT/AFP
The background to the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea last fall is still unclear.
The debate about the suspected clients of the crime is now fueled by a report by the controversial US journalist Seymour Hersh.
The 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner writes on his own blog, citing a single anonymous source, that US Navy divers used explosive devices to destroy the pipeline – allegedly in cooperation with Norway and on behalf of US President Joe Biden.
According to Hersh, the unspecified source was directly familiar with the plans.
The White House has already denied the report, and Hersh has not provided concrete evidence for his claim.
"This is completely false and a complete fabrication," said US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.
Norway also sharply rejected the blog post.
In Russian leadership circles, however, the contribution is already considered propaganda for US involvement.
“Biden is going down in history as a terrorist,” wrote Russian Parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin on his Telegram channel.
He is considered a hardliner and a loyal supporter of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
Media loyal to the Kremlin had previously picked up Hersh's report.
The blog post was also shared on Twitter by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who is stuck in Russia, and Left Party MP Sarah Wagenknecht.
Increasing doubts about Hersh's credibility
The journalist Hersh, who worked part-time for the »New York Times«, became famous in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre by US troops in the Vietnam War.
In 2004, he was the first to report on the US Army's treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib.
But in recent years, Hersh's credibility had suffered greatly, as he had repeatedly attracted attention through questionable research, and he did not always provide solid evidence for his claims.
Also referring to a few anonymous sources, Hersh wrote in the London Review of Books around 2013: An attack with the poison gas sarin in the Syrian capital Damascus in the summer of 2013 was actually a deceptive maneuver with the purpose of giving the United States a reason to intervene in the conflict.
However, Hersh's account contained a number of gaps - and was later exposed as false by the British "Guardian", among others.
In a text that appeared in the »Welt am Sonntag« in 2017, Hersh claimed with similarly weak sources: A Syrian chemical weapon attack with sarin on rebels in the village of Khan Sheikhoun - which was later confirmed in an official report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - was actually none at all.
Hersh had also been heavily criticized for this, including by the investigative platform Bellingcat.
Alternative theories to Bin Laden and Skripal
In 2015, Hersh claimed, again citing anonymous sources and again in the London Review of Books: Barack Obama's administration blamed the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan as a spontaneous covert operation by the US military and thus as a heroic story staged.
Pakistani generals had long known about bin Laden's whereabouts and even kept him under house arrest.
The White House also denied it at the time.
And in 2018, Hersh told the Independent that the poisoning of ex-Russian agent Sergei Skripal with the neurotoxin Novichok was more reminiscent of an act of organized crime than of a state actor.
The British government, on the other hand, blamed the Russian secret service GRU for the attack and arrested several suspected Russian employees of the service.
Two men suspected of being perpetrators gave a famous interview to Russian television, in which they assured that they had only visited the cathedral at the Salisbury crime scene as tourists.
They were later exposed as secret service employees.
Volodin demands compensation
The recent Hersh report on the Baltic Sea pipelines plays into the hands of Russian propaganda.
Based on the "facts," Biden should be brought to justice and "compensations paid to the countries affected by the terrorist attack," said Duma spokesman Volodin.
He also drew parallels between Biden and former US President Harry S. Truman, who ordered atomic bombs be dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
According to the Reuters news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that Hersh's report deserved more attention.
However, unlike Volodin, he was more diplomatic.
"The world needs to find out the truth about who carried out this act of sabotage," Peskow said.
He called for an international investigation with Russian participation.
The Western partners reject this.
Moscow itself is suspected
Since the incident on September 26, 2022, Moscow has been supporting the thesis of pipeline sabotage by the USA.
However, the Russian leadership itself is suspected of being responsible for the massive damage to the pipelines leading from Russia to Germany.
According to the Swedish public prosecutor's office, the only thing that is clear so far is that the damage was caused by sabotage.
Russia had already shut down Nord Stream 1 at the time of the explosions due to alleged technical problems.
According to Moscow, the Nord Stream 2 line, which is still operational despite the damage, has not yet received approval from the German authorities.
fek/dpa/Reuters