As I said before, Russia had nothing to gain. The US had everything to gain.
In surprising bit of candid investigative reporting out of mainstream media, The Times asked the question this week: who attacked the Nord Stream pipelines? In an honest and objective fashion, the premier British paper writes, “In this global whodunnit, the US, Russia and even Britain have all been suspects.”
Naturally, the collective West rushed to blame Russia for sabotaging its own natural gas delivery infrastructure in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 26 blasts underneath the Baltic Sea.
The most important twist to the West’s narrative that is featured in the Timesreport concerns Germany. Its officials say they are now “open to theories” that the sabotage attack was conducted by a Western country “with the aim of blaming it on Russia.”
The key passage comments on the ongoing German investigation, deemed to have made little progress for lack of evidence as to who was behind the three blasts that disabled the pipelines. Germany, writes The Times, has “yet to uncover any compelling evidence” pointing to Russia, and it remains that the German investigation is “open to theories that a Western state carried out the bombing with the aim of blaming it on Russia.”
Additionally, European officials were cited in the report as lamenting that failure to provide transparency in the probes could encourage “dangerous conspiracy theories” and “wild speculations.”
One Western analyst was quoted as saying the utter lack of anything definitive is itself suspicious: “This was a major infrastructure attack. It’s strange that we’ve heard very little,” the person said.
Russia this week seized on recent comments of the Biden administration’s Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland to formally charge Washington with being behind the pipeline sabotage. The US ‘directly participated,’ he alleged, though without providing new evidence. He referenced Nuland’s Senate testimony from last week:
“The other day, speaking in Congress, Ms. Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state, said openly that like many senators, and she personally, the State Department as an organization is happy that the Nord Stream pipelines have turned into metal junk on the Baltic Sea floor. It’s an amusing admission,” Lavrov said.
Here is a clip of the Senate testimony in question.
Aaron Maté on Twitter: “At a Senate hearing, top US diplomat Victoria Nuland celebrated the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing: “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.” pic.twitter.com/KS5OM4N165 / Twitter”
At a Senate hearing, top US diplomat Victoria Nuland celebrated the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing: “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.”