Quote:Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
....
What became clear to participants, according to the source with direct knowledge of the process, is that Sullivan intended for the group to come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines—and that he was delivering on the desires of the President.

Quote:There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school in Panama City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership—the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.

Quote:Over the next several meetings, the participants debated options for an attack. The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes. “This is not kiddie stuff,” the source said. If the attack were traceable to the United States, “It’s an act of war.”

Quote:The days were counting down. “The clock was ticking, and we were nearing mission accomplished,” the source said.

And then: Washington had second thoughts. The bombs would still be planted during BALTOPS, but the White House worried that a two-day window for their detonation would be too close to the end of the exercise, and it would be obvious that America had been involved.

Instead, the White House had a new request: “Can the guys in the field come up with some way to blow the pipelines later on command?”

Some members of the planning team were angered and frustrated by the President’s seeming indecision. The Panama City divers had repeatedly practiced planting the C4 on pipelines, as they would during BALTOPS, but now the team in Norway had to come up with a way to give Biden what he wanted—the ability to issue a successful execution order at a time of his choosing.

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

Quote:Absolute victory over Russia isn’t possible (Fiona Hill interview by Freddie Sayers)

FS: Let’s move on to a few specific areas. Who do you think blew up the Nord Stream Two pipeline? Was it the Russians? Do you think there’s a chance that it was the Americans?

FH: Initially, I did think it was the Russians. There was just so much about the whole eruption that reminded me of the kind of sabotage the Soviets undertook during the Second World War, and that Putin’s father was actually engaged in during the siege of Leningrad. He talks a lot about how his father was part of a destruction battalion, going behind enemy lines and getting rid of any infrastructure the enemy could use. And there was just something about the way Putin talked about it that made me think the Russians did this — that they think this will teach the West a lesson.

Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t believe it was the United States. If the United States had done that, by now, somebody would have laid claim to this. The United States can be a leaky sieve in terms of information. Some of my colleagues who have been looking at this think Ukraine could have done it. And this isn’t implausible, because they already managed to launch a pretty significant strike on the Kerch (Crimean) Bridge, but I haven’t seen any evidence.

FS: Do you believe Ukraine has the capacity?

FH: That’s why I initially didn’t think that it could be Ukraine, because I wasn’t sure they could have had the capacity. But it’s possible that Ukraine could have found a way of doing this: we’ve seen them be extremely inventive. But I just want to make it very clear that I absolutely do not know who carried this out. And I think that we actually should continue to look at this. And I’m certainly ready to concede that my initial suspicion that it was the Russians is wrong.

FS: You’re no fan of Trump. But do you think that his unpredictability is part of the reason why there were no major wars during his presidency?

FH: Well, the situation hadn’t ripened in that way. Putin probably wasn’t ready at that point. There are other factors here. It’s not just always about the United States. I mean, Putin saw weakness in the United States, for sure. But he saw weakness over a whole period of time. Remember, he intervened with an influence operation. That’s why I went into government in 2016. I didn’t go in there to serve Donald Trump. I went in there to deal with a national security crisis after the Russians launched an influence operation to basically subvert the US 2016 presidential election.

Quote:FS: My question was more about Donald Trump. I suppose most journalists would push you to condemn Trump in more and more severe terms. I guess I’m interested in the other side: having worked with him for that period, what’s the best thing you can say about him? Do you think some of his instincts were good?

FH: “Good” is subjective, isn’t it? But look, I think he had a lot of instincts where he understood strength versus weakness. He understood that he had to appear strong. He had that kind of strongman idea in many of his interactions with people, which was sometimes misplaced in the way he behaved. But he also asked a lot of hard questions that we weren’t asking ourselves. He was right on a number of issues related to European security. He basically was saying, as he said to Germany: if Russia was such a threat, why are you involved in all of these multibillion dollar deals for energy development? Bloody good question, right.

FS: And he was right on the Nord Stream pipeline.

FH: He was on the money with those ones — basically saying to Nato countries: if Nato is so concerned about Russia, why are you not spending enough on your defence? And why are you always looking to the United States?

Sometimes he would say that Nato is 80% or 100% dependent on the United States. This wasn’t entirely true, but he also wasn’t wrong. During the war in Ukraine, the US has ended up having to be indispensable with its leadership and military provisions again. So, there were lots of things he was right on, including the threat of China.

Quote:Soon after Nord Stream I went online, the Kremlin started pushing for another set of pipes. This second pipeline, known as Nord Stream II, has been even more contentious, with most of the European Union and the United States — under both President Barack Obama and President Donald J. Trump — opposing it.

Construction finished last September and, as Russian soldiers gathered on the border with Ukraine, Ukrainian officials saw the pipeline as a security threat. If Russian gas suppliers could further bypass Ukraine, the argument went, the Kremlin would have no reason not to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure.

Last year, Ukrainian energy regulators sent a 13-page letter to Poland as part of a coordinated effort to stop the new pipeline from coming online. Nord Stream II “will negatively impact on Ukraine’s national security,” read the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. The letter also warned of economic consequences for Ukraine, since Russian companies still pay to send gas through Ukrainian pipes.

Even after Russia invaded, a Ukrainian government document obtained by The Times shows that Ukraine expected to continue charging Russian companies, including state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft, to transmit gas during the first half of 2022. Under its contract, Ukraine receives an average of $1 billion a year in transit fees.

So the pipelines had no shortage of adversaries.

But sabotaging a key piece of energy infrastructure could be considered an act of war. For a European Union or NATO member to carry it out would have significant consequences, shattering trust in two of the most important Western partnerships. And while attacking the pipeline may have made financial sense for Ukraine, particularly in a time of war, its capability to pull off such a feat is unclear. Ukraine does not have a Baltic port and its only known submarine was captured by Russia in 2014.

NY Times (archived)