Nord Stream terrorist attack: all evidence points to the US (and Poland)

English translation of a talk on the background and current status of the Nord Stream attack by Florian Warweg, editor of the German independent news magazine NachDenkSeiten, which I highly recommend even if you don’t speak German (just use an automatic browser translator).

The economic motives of the US

Until a few years ago, the US LNG (liquefied natural gas) industry was in dire straits. The fracking boom of the late 2010s had created a massive surplus of natural gas, causing the spot market price at the US Henry Hub to fall below €5 per megawatt-hour by the early 2020s. In comparison, as of mid-December 2024, the spot market price for natural gas in the EU ranges from €43 to €50 per megawatt-hour.

The US fracking industry — funded to the tune of billions of US dollars by the financial sector — and, as a logical consequence, significant parts of the US financial system were on the verge of bankruptcy in view of this price development. This is because, as is typical in large US business ventures, these investments were made with minimal equity but large amounts of debt.

The only way to prevent this impending collapse was to expand into the EU market, particularly targeting Germany, the largest natural gas importer in the region with an annual demand of around 100 billion cubic metres. However, before the onset of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia, US LNG was roughly seven times more expensive than Russian pipeline gas flowing into Germany, leaving Germany and its industrial sector with little incentive to choose American gas. Under normal, rational decision-making, such a switch would have been entirely illogical.

As journalist Jens Berger, a specialist in energy issues, has extensively documented, it was only after the escalation of the Ukraine war and the accompanying EU sanctions against Russia that the price of fracked gas reached levels allowing US energy companies to turn a profit — a stark contrast to the significant losses of prior years.

However, even this development rested on an unstable economic foundation until the summer of 2022. It was the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines that ultimately paved the way for the EU, and particularly Germany, to become long-term buyers of US natural gas surpluses, ensuring prices remained profitable for US fracking gas producers. This newfound energy dependency of their EU “partner” also aligns seamlessly with the US’s global strategic dominance agenda. According to a study by the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI), by 2030, the US is expected to hold a dominant position in gas exports to Germany, covering roughly 40 percent of its needs, a role Russia once held before the Ukraine conflict.

So much for the “reduction” of the EU’s energy dependence, which is supposedly so important to Washington.

A case for US involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage?

Many indicators suggest the US had a hand in the Nord Stream sabotage. On February 8, 2023, renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an explosive article titled “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”. Most of you are likely familiar with this article. Citing a whistleblower, Hersh provided detailed accounts of how the US and Norway allegedly carried out the pipeline bombings. Predictably, the CIA dismissed the allegations as “completely and utterly false”. However, the uncritical repetition of the CIA’s narrative by German mainstream media is another issue altogether.

Regardless of whether the US is directly responsible for the Nord Stream attack, it is undeniable that it stands as the primary economic beneficiary. Against this backdrop, outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks just days after the incident take on new significance. During a press conference on September 30, 2022, Blinken called the destruction of Nord Stream a “tremendous opportunity” for the US:

We’re now the leading supplier of LNG to Europe… This is a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy… That’s very significant and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come.

Currently, approximately 20 LNG tankers leave the US for Europe each week. Each tanker carries 1.4 terawatt-hours of LNG. Natural gas in the US costs about €9 per megawatt-hour. Liquefaction and transport add another €10-15 per megawatt-hour. The gas is then sold to Europe at prices between €40 and €50 per megawatt-hour. This translates to roughly €1 billion in weekly profits for the US gas industry — a dramatic turnaround from years of losses, transforming it into a goldmine thanks to European and, particularly, German buyers. Furthermore, this situation has granted the US industry an unprecedented competitive advantage over its European counterparts.

Poland’s underestimated role in the Nord Stream saga

The decision to build Nord Stream 1 came at the beginning of the Polish election campaign in 2005 and was used accordingly, in particular, by the right-wing conservative Law and Justice party (commonly known as PiS). The ruling Catholic-national camp literally called the German-Russian pipeline project a “threat to its existence”. In this context, the Kaczyński brothers spoke of a “Schröder-Putin pact”, in direct reference to the “Hitler-Stalin pact” of 1939.

Poland’s opposition to the Nord Stream project was likely driven less by security concerns and more by concrete financial interests — primarily the fear of losing the multimillion-dollar transit fees that Warsaw received annually from Moscow. While Poland aspired to reduce its dependency on Russian gas imports for its own consumption, it still had a vested interest in maintaining high volumes of Russian gas transit through its territory, which generated substantial fees. This explains why Poland did everything in its power to block the Baltic Sea Nord Stream pipeline while simultaneously advocating for the expansion of the land-based Yamal pipeline, supplied by Russian gas, with a second branch that would naturally run through Poland.

Secondly — ​​and probably even more relevant — are the plans that had been nurtured in Warsaw for years and had largely already been implemented, as the taz explained in an article from early February 2022 entitled “Poland hopes for gas business” . As the article noted:

Poland, together with the US, wants to reorganise the central European gas market and take over Germany’s previous transfer business. For this purpose, Poland has purchased extensive gas fields in Norway, is currently building the Baltic Pipe through the Baltic Sea, and has already constructed gigantic gas tanks along the Baltic coast, where liquefied natural gas from the US will be regasified and primarily exported. However, this long-planned business will only become truly profitable if Nord Stream 2 does not go online and no affordable gas flows to Europe.

These immense Polish investments in gas infrastructure, explicitly supported by the US, only made economic sense if Nord Stream 2 did not become operational. This venture would only yield significant profits if Nord Stream 1 also ceased operations.

It is telling that on September 27, 2022, just one day after the sabotage of Nord Stream, representatives from Poland, Denmark and Norway inaugurated the Baltic Pipe, explicitly designed as an alternative pipeline to Russian gas. At the inauguration, Polish prime minister Morawiecki stated:

This gas pipeline marks the end of the era of dependence on Russian gas. It is also a pipeline of security, sovereignty and freedom, not only for Poland but also for many others in the future.

This statement underscores the core of Poland’s vehement opposition to the Nord Stream project.

Interim conclusion: a broader strategic game

While German and Russian economics and politics had a clear and understandable interest in strengthening their energy partnership starting in the early 2000 and in establishing a pipeline like Nord Stream to bypass unreliable transit countries with their own agendas, the situation in the US and Poland was starkly different. Both Washington and Warsaw had, for decades, watched increased cooperation between Berlin and Moscow with great suspicion and had sought to thwart it by any means necessary.

In the past, when threats did not work, violence was also used. A case in point is the explosion of the Soviet Chelyabinsk pipeline in the summer of 1982 due to a CIA operation with manipulated software. This disrupted the settings of pumps, turbines, and valves in such a way that the pipeline exploded. The explosion is said to have had an explosive force of four kilotons. Previously, in February 1982, the US had threatened the Federal Republic of Germany with severe consequences if it did not cancel the 1981 industrial agreement with the Soviet Union for pipeline construction and the delivery of Siberian natural gas, amounting to 16 billion marks annually.

The difference to today? Back then, chancellor Helmut Schmidt resisted intimidation, stating to the US:

Others can quack all they want, the deal stands.

I am far from idealising Helmut Schmidt, but the contrast to the reaction of the current chancellor is striking.

The primary justification by the US Congress for its displeasure over the pipeline deal in the 1980s was illuminating:

Our businessmen will be out of the eastern market.

This sentiment ties directly to the economic and strategic consequences of the Nord Stream sabotage and the sanctions regime against Russia. It is evident that the entire US fracking business model and Poland’s substantial LNG infrastructure investments in the years leading up to the bombing only made economic sense if the respective stakeholders assumed from the outset that they would soon gain control of the German and broader EU gas markets. This goal was achievable only if Washington and Warsaw succeeded in ousting Russia as a central and established exporter. What many experts previously dismissed as a US and Polish pipe dream (no pun intended) has, following the events of February 24 and September 26, 2022, become reality.

The icing on the cake is, of course, the revelation at the end of November that prominent US investor Stephen P. Lynch (as first reported by the Washington Post) had submitted a request to the US Treasury to purchase the remaining segment of Nord Stream 2. Lynch’s argument to the US Treasury Department and US senators was that this was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity for American and European control over European energy supply for the rest of the fossil-fuel era”.

Lynch had already applied for and received a license from the US Treasury in February 2024, allowing him to negotiate with companies currently under US sanctions regarding the pipeline’s purchase. The backdrop is the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings against Nord Stream AG, based in Switzerland, which owns Nord Stream 2.

Swiss insolvency law sets a “hard deadline” of January 2025, after which the liquidation and auction of Nord Stream 2 will take place. Lynch’s argument to the Treasury emphasises that after the war ends, it will be “tempting” for both Russia and former German and European customers to restart the pipeline, regardless of its ownership.

In Washington’s political circles, there is speculation that Donald Trump might be interested in the purchase, particularly as a bargaining chip for negotiations with Moscow. When I recently asked German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit in a press conference how the German government plans to respond to this US purchase plan, he replied:

I have to find out more about that. I have read reports about what you are mentioning, but I don’t have any current information, so I have to find out more about that.

It is probably unnecessary to add that Hebestreit did not provide any follow-up information.

Media and political investigation (or lack thereof) in the Nord Stream case

This brings us to the media and political investigation (or lack thereof) in the Nord Stream case. To begin with, it is striking that, apart from the Left Party, and later BSW and the AfD, no other party in the Bundestag has shown any interest in investigating the Nord Stream incident. Relevant questions to the federal government only come from these smaller opposition parties. Most of these inquiries from MPs, such as requests for radar recordings from the German Navy, are simply left unanswered by the federal government, citing “security interests” or “threats to the welfare of the state”. The largest opposition faction in the Bundestag, the CDU/CSU, has not submitted a single question to the current federal government about Nord Stream.

The Greens, despite the fact that their Federal Ministry for the Environment acknowledged in response to an inquiry that the gas leakage from the pipelines likely resulted in emissions equivalent to 7.5 million tons of CO2, have shown no interest in clarifying the incident either.

A telling example of the coalition government’s stance is the statement made by SPD Bundestag member Timon Gremmels during a session convened to discuss the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. On September 28, 2022, he stated on behalf of the coalition government:

It is completely irrelevant whether Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are leaking, how these leaks came about, whether these were attacks or who is behind the attacks, because no gas has ever flowed through one pipeline, and no gas has flowed through the other for weeks. This is completely irrelevant.

This statement — essentially declaring the question of responsibility for a suspected terrorist attack on civilian infrastructure “irrelevant” — is remarkable. And to this day, the coalition government has maintained this attitude.

The judiciary has behaved in a similarly indifferent manner. For instance, in October 2022, the Russian prosecutor general’s office requested Germany’s cooperation in investigating the Nord Stream attack. In what can only be described as a diplomatic provocation, the German Ministry of Justice initially ignored the request for three months before finally issuing a letter rejecting the cooperation request. The stated reason: “Impairment of the essential interests of the Federal Republic”. This stance has remained unchanged. The highly revealing correspondence between German and Russian authorities regarding the Nord Stream investigation can be found in the United Nations document system. Incidentally, the German Foreign Office was reportedly “outraged” that this correspondence was published.

The media’s interest in the attacks does not look any better. For months, German mainstream media showed a complete lack of interest in investigating the terrorist attack on one of Europe’s most expensive civilian infrastructure projects. This changed dramatically when, on February 8, 2023, Seymour Hersh published his investigative report alleging that US special forces, under direct orders from president Joe Biden, carried out the explosions. Afterward, there was a flurry of activity. Initially, efforts were made to discredit Hersh and his research. Then, “alternative investigations” were presented. No “theory” was too far-fetched, as long as it shifted attention away from the US as a potential perpetrator.

You are likely familiar with the Andromeda yacht theory promoted by Tagesschau and Die Zeit as “investigative journalism”, which had to be quickly revised immediately after publication when readers pointed out that the described route through the Bodden near Wieck am Darß was physically impossible due to the boat’s draft of 2.3 meters and the area’s maximum water depth of 2 meters. Nevertheless, the “Andromeda theory”, complete with “explosive residue left on the yacht’s table”, remains the dominant narrative in mainstream media. Allegedly, the findings of the federal prosecutor general also support this narrative.

The most absurd explanation came from Süddeutsche Zeitung in March 2023. Citing “Nordic intelligence services”, the paper claimed that a Ukrainian oligarch had indulged in the terrorist act (single-handedly organising and financing it) as a birthday present for himself on September 26. Notably, the only known Ukrainian oligarch with a birthday on that date is former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. Shortly afterward, starting with t-online, Nordic intelligence sources once again pointed the finger at Russia, alleging the presence of “Russian warships” near the crime scene. This story was headlined: “Traces of the attack lead to Russia”.

When Seymour Hersh followed up in late September 2023 with a report based on CIA sources, claiming that chancellor Olaf Scholz was “fully aware” of secret US plans to destroy the pipeline, the German press largely returned to silence.

In response to my questions on this at the federal press conference, I received the standard answer that the federal government was not responsible and that I should contact the prosecutor general, who was in charge of the investigation. This was the response regardless of the question — including those clearly within the federal government’s remit, such as whether the government supported China’s proposal to conduct an international investigation under UN oversight into the Nord Stream incident. If one points to the US role and merely asks whether the federal government has any information that rules out US involvement, the reply is that this allegation is rejected with “disgust and indignation”.

Meanwhile, other journalists have surprisingly refrained from asking about Nord Stream altogether, despite raising critical questions on topics like the Gaza conflict.

Conclusion

The handling of the Nord Stream attack sheds a disturbing light on the state of Germany’s media landscape. ARD, ZDF, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel — essentially the entire spectrum of German mainstream media — allowed themselves to be used as tools for disseminating “information” leaked by intelligence agencies and other state entities without any critical examination. In fact, these media outlets even had the audacity to present these evidently unverified leaks from “investigative circles” (e.g., the “Wieck am Darß” example mentioned above) as their own “exclusive investigative research”.

That intelligence agencies and government bodies have their own agendas and might exploit journalists for these purposes seems to have completely escaped the attention of these usually reputation-conscious editorial teams in Berlin, Hamburg or Munich. However, one must ask oneself whether this is mere naivety or if a significant portion of the media knowingly allowed itself to be instrumentalised.

Thomas Fazi is a columnist for “UnHerd” and “Compact”.