The black and white image of gigantic bubbles of gas bubbling in the middle of the Baltic Sea continues to fascinate. While the Nord Stream gas pipelines have become the symbol of Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, the trap laid by Vladimir Putin and German blindness, their anonymous sabotage on September 27, 2022 constitutes a central mystery of the war in Ukraine. An investigation by American journalist Seymour Hersh, published on February 8 on his own platform and accusing the United States of having carried out the coup with the help of the Norwegians, delighted Moscow, Beijing and their trolls.
The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov took it up at the last G20 in India, saying he was “scandalized” and calling for “an impartial international investigation”. Chinese diplomatic spokesman Wang Wenbin agreed. On March 8, three serious German media (the weekly Die Zeit, public television ARD and the regional channel SWR) relied on the investigation of the federal prosecutor’s office in progress to describe the sabotage operation by a commando of six people who rented a boat to Ukrainians. THE New York Times, informed by the American services, put forward a similar hypothesis. One thing is certain: Germany, put on the dock in the Nord Stream affair, is more than others obliged to truth and transparency. The federal prosecution will not play.
Who benefits from the crime?
The question “who benefits from the crime?” is never enough to designate a culprit. There are innocent people who benefit from crime, guilty people who do not benefit from it. In this case, the sabotage of Nord Stream benefits both all suspects and none. To all, because both the United States, and Russia, and China, and Norway, and Ukraine, and Poland, and the United Kingdom could find an interest in its explosion. None, because the final discovery of the nationality of the commando in charge of the operation will bring its sponsor more trouble than benefit… except for Russia. Innocent or guilty, and even if the investigations end up proving that she had nothing to do with it, Putin is the only one to have everything to gain in this affair.
Among the analyzes issued in each camp, the most far-fetched consists in saying that Russia would have “no interest in blowing up its own infrastructures”. Firstly because Vladimir Putin never acts according to his economic interests – hence the war in Ukraine – and the destruction of his own property has been part of his tactics since the true-false attacks organized by his services in Moscow to justify the war in Chechnya.
Then, admitting that the state company Gazprom, owner of Nord Stream, is tempted by the financial benefit, the sabotage offers it a sizeable one: the possibility of not paying several billion dollars in compensation to its European customers. not supplied with gas. In 2019, Russia had already had to pay Ukraine $ 2.9 billion for abusive rupture: a cozy sum, compared to the several hundred million dollars that a possible repair of the pipes would require. Finally, Russia loses nothing, since the pipeline was already out of service, and the war doomed it for good. On the other hand, out of the four pipes of Nord Stream 1 and 2, one oddly survived. By mistake, or to allow him to serve again? Vladimir Putin himself said that it was up to the Europeans to decide whether to restart gas exports “via the intact part of the Nord Stream 2 line”…
Ideal scenario for the Russians
And the United States, then? Admittedly, they were opposed to Nord Stream 2 for geopolitical reasons. Admittedly, the net stoppage of European imports of Russian gas favors, as for Norway, their exports of liquefied gas. But why would they take the delirious risk of a sabotage likely to ruin their reputation, which brings them nothing but what they already had? Seymour Hersh’s thesis relies on real NATO maneuvers to construct a scenario that does not convince. There remains the pro-Ukraine commando, whose transit rights Nord Stream had plundered. Possible, but then, what nonsense! The support of the allies, so essential, would be compromised. No, really, the Russians could not have dreamed of better than this sabotage, whoever the author: it spreads the fog of fake news and suspicion on America, exposes NATO to its vulnerability and creates a diversion. At the right time.