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Insider source: How the US and Norway carried out the attack on Nord Stream

The new cold war

  • Citing a source with insight into the Nord Stream attack, award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has given a harrowing account of how the attack on the gas pipelines is alleged to have taken place.
  • At the initiative of the United States, Norway was reportedly chosen as a partner for the operation for a number of reasons, including NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's transparency and contacts following his time as Prime Minister of the country.
  • After months of careful planning, the NATO exercise Baltops in June was allegedly used as a cover for Norwegian and US dive teams to place the bombs just off Bornholm.
  • The final order to detonate the charges on 27 September is said to have come directly from Washington.
Published 13 February 2023
– By Editorial Staff
US President Joe Biden with NATO Secretary General, former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, at a NATO meeting in Madrid in June, a few weeks before the NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea where the bombs were allegedly placed on the gas pipelines by Norwegian and US divers.
8 minute read

Seymour Hersh, previously celebrated for his revelations of US war crimes against civilians in Vietnam and against prisoners of war in Iraq, is in the news with the extraordinary details of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 blasts. His accounts are referred to, in particular, to a source with a good insight into the details of how the US and Norway, working closely together under the NATO umbrella, blew up the gas pipelines with the result that large parts of Europe are now being dragged into an energy crisis and increasingly severe economic depression.


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In December 2021, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is said to have arranged a meeting with a newly formed task force of men and representatives from the CIA, State Department, Treasury Department and US Department of Defense to discuss and ask for recommendations on how best to respond to a supposed invasion by Russia of Ukraine.

According to the source, the secret meeting was followed by further meetings and, on Sullivan’s initiative, a plan was eventually agreed for the destruction of the two Nord Stream gas pipelines – and that it was President Joe Biden who personally asked for this.

After discussing options for the attack, it was suggested, among other things, that the gas pipelines be attacked with submarines or bombs that could be remotely detonated afterwards. The CIA argued that the operation had to be carried out in secret whichever route was chosen – because an attack of this magnitude would be considered an act of war if it could be traced back to the US.

The CIA, headed by former Russian ambassador William Burns, who was also deputy secretary of state during the Obama administration, in turn commissioned a task force to draw up a plan for the covert operation, using deep-sea divers to trigger an explosion along the gas pipelines.

Biden’s security advisor Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns.

Experience in similar operations

It is noteworthy that similar operations have been carried out in the past by American intelligence. In 1971, with the help of divers and submarines, it succeeded in deploying advanced interception equipment at an underwater cable in the Sea of Okhotsk used for communications by the Russian Navy.

The Russians were convinced that their communications were secure and covert and used no other encryption, the US interception was able to continue for a decade before an American civilian NSA employee exposed the whole thing. The interception allegedly provided the Americans with “invaluable intelligence information about the Russian Navy’s intentions and planning“.

One problem seen with this secret deep-sea attack in the Baltic is that the sea is patrolled by the Russian Navy and there are no oil rigs to use as cover for a diving operation.

Biden couldn’t keep quiet

On February 7 – just a few weeks before Russia entered Ukraine, President Joe Biden declared, after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, that the US will “end” Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades.

 

Less than three weeks earlier, the Foreign Ministry’s Victoria Nuland had conveyed the same message at a press briefing.

– I’ll be very clear with you. If Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 will one way or another not be able to go ahead,’ she said at the time

 It was like putting a nuclear bomb on the ground in Tokyo and telling the Japanese that we are going to detonate it, the source says, adding that several people involved in the upcoming attack were upset by the politicians’ public references to the same.

– The plan was that the various options would be implemented after the invasion and not announced publicly. Biden simply didn’t get it or he just ignored it.

According to the source, Biden and Nuland’s “thoughtlessness” also created an opportunity at the same time. Several CIA directors argued that after Biden’s statement, blowing up the gas pipelines could no longer be considered a covert operation – and therefore did not need to be reported to Congress. Shortly thereafter, the President, through CIA Director Bill Burns, gave the go-ahead.

– There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. All they had to do now was just carry it out – but it still had to be secret, he says.

Norway “the perfect partner”

It was decided that Norway was the perfect base for the mission – a country where the US military has greatly expanded its presence in recent years and where it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in facilities for its air force and navy – including advanced radar equipment. A US submarine base in Norway had also recently been completed and, according to the source, the US was already working full-time with its Norwegian counterparts to spy on Russia in the East.

Military cooperation between the countries is also said to have been facilitated by Norway’s former prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who is now secretary-general of the US-led NATO military alliance – and for many years also an outspoken opponent of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

He is the glove that fits the American hand, says the source.

Joe Biden and Jens Stoltenberg meet in Madrid in June. Photo: NATO/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Americans were also convinced that the Norwegians would keep the attack secret – not only because of loyalty to the US, but also because they had a vested interest in the disappearance of Nord Stream because it would allow them to sell more of their own natural gas.

Sometime in March, some members of the team flew to Norway to meet with Norwegian intelligence and the navy,” writes Seymour Hersh, referring to the source who says that one of the key issues to be discussed was exactly where in the Baltic Sea was the best place to plant the explosive devices.

Soon enough, the Norwegian navy found the best place in shallow waters, a few kilometres off Danish Bornholm, where divers operating from a Norwegian minesweeper would most likely be able to dive down and rig bombs on four gas pipelines.

NATO exercise used as cover

Before US military divers, from a base in Panama City, could be flown in and get to work with their Norwegian colleagues, there was another problem to be solved. The underwater activities could possibly be detected by the Swedish and Danish navies, which risked reporting the matter further.

It was concluded that it was necessary that “certain” high-ranking Danish and Swedish officials were informed before the operation “in general terms”.

What they were told and what they knew was deliberately different, the source explains.

To carry out the attack, it was also necessary to camouflage the bombs so that they would not be detected by Russian surveillance technology – and make them look like part of the natural background in the water.

As for the timing of the operation, the suggestion is said to have come from the Norwegian side. Every June for the past 21 years, the US Navy had sponsored a major NATO exercise in the Baltic involving a large number of allied ships.

The Norwegians suggested that this would be the perfect cover for deploying the mines,” the source further explains.

Ship during NATO exercise Baltops 22. Photo: US Navy/CC BY 2.0

The Americans, in turn, persuaded those in charge of the exercise to add a “research and development exercise” to the programme – which was also made public. This was to be conducted off the coast of Bornholm and was said to involve various NATO groups planting mines – as well as competing groups finding and destroying them.

It was both a useful exercise and an ingenious cover-up. The Panama City boys would do their thing and the C4 explosives would be in place by the end of Baltops 22, with a 48-hour timer attached. All the Americans and Norwegians would be long gone by the first explosion.

Biden demanded changes to the plan

Shortly before everything was ready to go, the political leadership in Washington had second thoughts. The bombs would still be planted during the NATO exercise, but the White House worried that only two days between the exercise and the detonations was far too short a time – and that it would be all too obvious that the US was directly involved. Instead, it demanded that the operators find a way to remotely detonate the gas lines at a later stage.

Once again, President Biden’s “indecision” and last-minute changes are said to have caused outrage and frustration within his own ranks – but they had no choice but to go ahead with the specific requests. The C4 bombs attached to the gas pipelines were to be triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by an aircraft at very short notice in a procedure which, according to the source, involved “the most advanced signal processing technology”.

There was also concern that the bombs would be accidentally and pre-emptively triggered by the sound of various ships on the heavily trafficked Baltic Sea – or by underwater drilling, waves or by disturbances from animals in the sea.

To avoid this, the sonar buoy, once in place, would emit a sequence of unique low-frequency sounds – much like those produced by a flute or piano – that would be recognized by the timing device and, after a preset one-hour delay, trigger the explosives.

On 26 September 2022, the Norwegian Navy’s surveillance plan carried out what appeared to be a routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. A few hours later, the bombs exploded and three of the four gas lines were immediately rendered inoperable, and the signal was transmitted underwater – first to Nord Stream 1 and later to Nord Stream 2.

Gas leak after the blast. Photo: Coast Guard

The media were uninterested in the truth

In the immediate aftermath of the pipeline bombing, American media treated the whole thing as an unsolved mystery. Russia was repeatedly singled out as the likely culprit, spurred by leaks from the White House but without ever establishing a clear motive for such an act of self-sabotage, other than simple retaliation.

He points out that no US news media seemed interested in delving into the issue or the earlier threats by Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland that Nord Stream would be “stopped”.

No clarification on why Russia would bomb its own lucrative gas pipelines, rather than just temporarily turning off the tap, ever came. However, Foreign Secretary Anthony Blinken was clear that it was the US that benefited from the whole thing.

– It is a huge opportunity to remove once and for all dependence on Russian energy and thus take away from Vladimir Putin the use of energy as a weapon, Blinken declared, arguing that the blasts offered “enormous strategic opportunities for years to come”.

Victoria Nuland has also openly expressed delight at the attack, saying she is “very pleased” that Nord Stream 2 is now “a pile of metal at the bottom of the sea“.

The source notes that Joe Biden “said he would do it – and he did it” and he describes the extensive planning and cover-up as “beautiful“.

The only flaw was the decision to actually go through with it.

Seymour Hersh, born in 1937, is an American-Jewish investigative journalist who was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize after revealing how American soldiers during the Vietnam War executed hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians - the majority of them women and children.

Considered one of the world's most prominent investigative journalists, Hersh has also revealed how the US tortured Iraqi prisoners at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison and covered the Watergate scandal for the New York Times.

In recent years, he has attracted attention and criticism for questioning the US history of Osama Bin Laden's death, reporting on US plans to assassinate political opponents in Iran and rejecting US claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians.

Among the many awards Hersh has received for his journalistic work, in addition to the Pulitzer Prize, is the George Polk Award - an American journalism prize he has received no less than five times, which is also more than any other person.

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Only 1 in 80 Swedish special shelters meets modern standards

The new cold war

Published yesterday 9:36
– By Editorial Staff
The Igeldamm Garage in Stockholm, Sweden is the only major shelter in Sweden that meets modern standards.
2 minute read

Swedish authorities have intensified their messages in recent years about citizens needing to prepare for crises and war. Meanwhile, an investigation of the country’s own shelters reveals major shortcomings in the maintenance of critical infrastructure.

Of Sweden’s eighty special shelters – intended for nearly 100,000 people – only a single facility has been upgraded to modern standards after decades of neglected maintenance.

The Igeldamms garage in Stockholm, Sweden stands today as the sole example of a completed special shelter, while the remaining 79 facilities still await necessary upgrades, reports Swedish public television SVT.

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has begun modernization work in approximately thirty of the eighty special shelters. The work has cost €7.7 million in the past year alone, but the pace is said to be far from sufficient to meet political ambitions for improved crisis preparedness.

Henrik Larsson, head of population protection at MSB, cannot provide information on when all facilities will be remediated:

— It depends. We need to get into all facilities and see what condition they’re in. In some facilities, quite extensive renovations may be required, and then it becomes very costly.

— If all facilities are in the same condition as here (Igeldamms garage), then it shouldn’t be any problem to do it before 2030, but I suspect we’ll have some facilities that we’ll need to spend time and significantly more money on, he continues.

64,000 shelters to be inventoried

During the Cold War, thousands of shelters were built around the country, but many have been used for completely different purposes for decades without proper maintenance. Now MSB has been tasked with inventorying the country’s total stock of 64,000 shelters between 2025 and 2030.

For the current year, approximately 10,000 minor inspections and around 2,000 major inspections are planned – a pace that MSB itself considers insufficient:

— We need to increase by 500 more per year to go through the entire stock by 2030. We need to be between 12,000 and 13,000 annually, estimates Larsson.

Inadequate protection

In addition to the already approved Igeldamms garage, with space for 1,200 people, two additional facilities are planned to be completed next year – one in Stockholm and one in Gothenburg, Sweden. This means that only three of eighty special shelters will have modern standards before 2027.

MSB’s assessment shows extensive shortcomings in the existing stock: only half of all shelters offer satisfactory protection against shrapnel and bombs, while only about ten percent have reasonable protection against chemical warfare agents.

Since the responsibility for addressing deficiencies lies with individual property owners, MSB cannot provide any timeframe for when the shelters will actually be in functional condition.

About Swedish shelters

Sweden has over 64,000 shelters with space for approximately seven million people. The shelters may be used for other purposes during peacetime but must be ready for use within two days during heightened alert or war. When a shelter is activated, it must have water, heating, ventilation and toilet facilities – however, there is neither food nor hygiene products.

The shelters are built to protect against shock waves and shrapnel from explosions, fire, chemical weapons and radiation from radioactive substances. People should be able to stay in the shelter without interruption for at least three days. It has never been the ambition to build shelters for the entire population, and their placement has been determined based on threat assessments.

During air raid alerts, people should immediately go to the nearest shelter or other protective space such as basements or subway stations. People do not belong to any specific shelter but use the one that is closest.

Source: MSB (Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency)

American special forces shot dead North Korean fishermen during secret mission

The new cold war

Published 8 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The SEAL team was forced to hastily leave North Korea without having completed their mission.
3 minute read

A top-secret military operation to wiretap Kim Jong-un went wrong when American elite soldiers shot and killed a group of unarmed fishermen.

To cover their tracks, the soldiers punctured the victims’ lungs with knives so the bodies would sink to the ocean floor.

Navy SEALs from the US elite forces secretly entered North Korea in early 2019 to plant surveillance equipment targeting the country’s leader. But the mission ended in disaster when the soldiers were surprised by – and opened fire on civilian fishermen who were diving for shellfish, reveals the New York Times.

The top-secret mission was carried out by SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron – the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. President Donald Trump personally approved the operation during his first term in office.

The mission was so sensitive that it required direct presidential approval. If the American soldiers had been captured on North Korean soil, it could have torpedoed ongoing nuclear weapons negotiations or led to a hostage crisis.

— I don’t know anything about it. I’d have to, I could look, but I know nothing about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time, Trump responded when confronted with the information on Friday.

Months of preparation

The New York Times bases its investigation on interviews with two dozen people, including government officials, members of the Trump administration, and current and former military personnel with insight into the operation.

The elite soldiers trained for months under extreme conditions in ice-cold water. The plan was to deploy from a nuclear-powered American submarine and then reach the North Korean coast in two silent smaller submarines.

A team of approximately eight soldiers would swim for hours through four-degree Celsius seawater wearing diving equipment and heated suits. Once at the coast, they would plant the surveillance equipment and then disappear unnoticed – without any support from overhead drones.

Everything went wrong on the beach

In February 2019, the mission got the green light. Trump was scheduled to meet Kim Jong-un in Vietnam later that month, and the intelligence information could be crucial for the negotiations.

But when the soldiers reached the North Korean shore, everything went wrong. A fishing boat unexpectedly appeared in the darkness. Without the ability to communicate with mission command, and fearing discovery, a group leader in the SEAL team opened fire. The others followed suit and all unarmed civilians aboard the boat were killed.

To cover their tracks, the soldiers dragged the bodies down into the water. With knives, they punctured the victims’ lungs so the bodies would sink to the bottom. The surveillance equipment was never planted and the mission was immediately aborted.

American spy satellites shortly thereafter registered increased military activity from North Korea in the area. However, it remains unclear whether North Korean authorities ever actually understood what had happened to the shellfish divers.

Trump met Kim in Hanoi, February 2019. Photo: White House

Congress was not informed

The summit between Trump and Kim was conducted as planned in Vietnam, but did not lead to any agreement. In May of the same year, North Korea resumed its missile tests.

The secret mission has never been publicly acknowledged before. According to experts the newspaper spoke with, the fact that Congress was not informed – either before or after the operation – may constitute a violation of federal law.

— The point is to ensure that Congress isn’t kept in the dark when major stuff is going on, argues Matthew Waxman, law professor at Columbia University and former security advisor under President George W. Bush.

— This is exactly the kind of thing that would normally be briefed to the committees and something the committees would expect to be told about.

Those involved were promoted

When Joe Biden succeeded Trump as president, the North Korea mission was reviewed again. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered an investigation led by a lieutenant general from the Army’s Inspector General’s office.

In 2021, leading members of Congress were informed about the investigation’s results, but this report remains classified.

Many of those involved in the failed mission have since been promoted, according to the newspaper’s sources.

US withdraws military support to Europe’s eastern border

The new cold war

Published 5 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
A group of Estonian soldiers during a US-led military exercise.
2 minute read

The US is phasing out its military security support programs for European countries on the border with Russia. The decision is part of President Donald Trump’s stated strategy to make Europe take greater responsibility for its own defense.

Pentagon representatives informed European diplomats last week that the Americans will no longer finance programs that train and equip soldiers in several Eastern European countries.

The current program, known as “section 333”, has a global budget of over one billion dollars and the cuts are expected to eliminate military support worth hundreds of millions of dollars to countries on Russia’s border.

Between 2018 and 2022, 1.6 billion dollars from the program went to Europe. The main recipients have been the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Already approved funds remain until September 2026, but the Trump administration has not requested new appropriations.

“Europe must take more responsibility”

A White House official tells the Financial Times that the decision aligns with Trump’s ambitions to “reassess and redistribute” foreign aid.

— This action has been co-ordinated with European countries in line with the executive order and the president’s long-standing emphasis on ensuring Europe takes more responsibility for its own defense.

Under pressure from the Trump administration, Europe’s NATO countries also agreed in June to aim to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.

Several European governments were surprised by the announcement and are now trying to get more information from Washington, according to diplomats with insight into the discussions.

— If they are being brutal then it will have big implications, says one diplomat, adding that the military alliance will definitely be affected since parts of the funding are channeled through the alliance.

— It’s causing a lot of concern and uncertainty, states another diplomat.

Increased presence in Poland?

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is very upset about the announcement and describes the cuts as a “misguided move that sends exactly the wrong signal as we try to force Putin to the negotiating table and deter Russian aggression”.

The future of the Baltic Security Initiative, created in 2020 to strengthen NATO countries in the Baltic region, is also uncertain. The White House has not requested continued funding for the program in next year’s budget.

— The loss of US security assistance would be very tough for the Baltic states. The whole idea here is making them capable of defending themselves, argues retired Admiral Mark Montgomery at the think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

While the administration reviews US troop deployments worldwide, Trump assured Polish President Karol Nawrocki on Wednesday that American troops will remain in Poland going forward.

— I am very pleased with the arrangement. We’ll put more there if they want, Trump said about the approximately 10,000 American soldiers stationed in Poland.

Putin and Trump agree on “major points” after summit

The new cold war

Published 16 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The two presidents during the joint press conference following the summit shortly after midnight Nordic time.
2 minute read

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met overnight into Friday for a summit in Alaska, where the situation in Ukraine was at the center of discussions. No concrete ceasefire agreement was reached, but both leaders described the meeting as constructive and indicated that dialogue will continue.

At a joint press conference following the meeting, Trump described the talks as “extremely productive” and explained that the parties had agreed on “several major points,” although no final agreement was signed.

– So just to put it very quickly, I’m going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened. But we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to. There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there, said the American president.

Putin emphasizes bilateral relations

Putin opened the press conference by focusing on the relationship between the US and Russia. The Russian president expressed confidence that Trump will contribute to improved relations between the two superpowers.

– In general, me and President Trump have very good direct contact. We’ve spoken multiple times. We spoke frankly on the phone … Our advisers and heads of foreign ministries kept in touch all the time, and we know fully well that one of the central issues was the situation around Ukraine, Putin explained during the press conference.

Despite the ongoing war, Putin described Ukraine as a “brotherly nation,” which can be seen as an attempt to signal openness to diplomatic solutions.

Meeting concluded after midnight

The summit, which lasted just over two and a half hours, concluded shortly after midnight local time. Around 2 AM Central European Time, Putin headed to his plane for the return journey to Moscow.

Although no concrete results were presented, both leaders hinted that negotiations may continue. Trump’s statement that he will “start making some calls” suggests that diplomatic efforts will continue.

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