DISINFO: Western media are creating a smoke screen about Nord Stream
SUMMARY
There is an explosion of lies about Nord Stream. Western media are working nonstop to generate fog, a smokescreen and chaos, so there is talk of a “pro-Ukrainian group” behind the Nord Stream 2 sabotage. The goal is to distract, create debate, confusion, divert the attention.
RESPONSE
No evidence is provided to support the allegation. This disinformation story is a reaction to the publication of several US and German media stories pointing in a different direction than what US journalist Seymour Hersh had previously stated about the Nord Stream sabotage, accusing US security services of having carried it out following president Joe Biden’s orders. Multiple aspects of the article were quickly debunked or proven false, while Russia has strongly amplified and promoted Hersh’s story (see here for further debunking on this topic).
However, on 07 March 2023 The New York Times published an article quoting anonymous US officials who affirmed that, according to fresh intelligence, an unspecified “pro-Ukrainian group” would have carried out the operation. No evidence was provided to back the allegation. But the same day, a German media consortium led by Die Zeit reported that investigators were following leads about a specific recreative vessel -later identified by Der Spiegel as a yacht called ‘Andromeda’-, and that a group of six people with high-quality forged passports may have taken part in the operation. This was confirmed afterwards by Germany’s Federal Prosecutor Office, while many elements were also verified independently by other media outlets. International investigations by Germany, Sweden, Denmark and other countries remain open.
Nonetheless, Russia has stuck to its previous stance. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov affirmed that “the authors of the attack want to distract attention”, and that “this is clearly a coordinated media blast”, without giving any proof of this claim.
This disinformation narrative appeared in the same story as the claim that “NATO sabotaged Nord Stream to claim itself necessary to protect critical infrastructure”.
See other examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about Nord Stream, such as claims that NATO might disintegrate because of the Nord Stream pipelines explosions, that Joe Biden violated the US Constitution by blowing up Nord Stream, that the US wants to silence the situation about the Nord Stream investigation, or that Joe Biden wanted to freeze Germany by destroying the Nord Stream.