Nearly six months after the sabotage on the Russia-to-Germany pipelines, there is no accepted explanation as to what happened. And a series of unconfirmed reports are filling an information vacuum as investigations into the blasts continue.
WASHINGTON — It's a major international mystery with global consequences: Who was behind the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year in the Baltic Sea?
Nord Stream 1 was completed and came online in 2011. Nord Stream 2 was not finished until the fall of 2021 but never became operational due to the launch of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Despite those concerns and over the objections of the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, the German government under former Chancellor Angela Merkel moved ahead with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 project. The Biden administration waived sanctions against German entities involved in Nord Stream 2 after securing a pledge from Germany that it would allow backflows of gas into Ukraine and would act to shut the pipeline down should Russia try to use it to force political concessions.
The depth of the pipeline and the complexity of using underwater explosives lent credence to the idea that only a state actor with the expertise to handle such an operation could be responsible. But no one claimed responsibility. That report, based on a single, unidentified source, has been flatly denied by the White House, the CIA and the State Department, and no other news organization has been able to corroborate it. Russia, followed by China, however, leaped on Hersh's reporting, saying it was grounds for a new and impartial investigation conducted by the United Nations.
World News Germany cautious over Nord Stream pipeline attack reports WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES FOR THOSE FOUND RESPONSIBLE?The implications of a determination that Ukraine was behind the explosions are not entirely clear. It's unlikely it would result in an immediate loss of Western support for Ukraine in the war with Russia, but it might dampen enthusiasm for future assistance if it was found that Ukraine or its agents carried out such an operation in European waters.
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