Follow us on social

2023-03-07t170001z_2_lynxmpej260py_rtroptp_4_ukraine-crisis-nordstream-mothball-scaled

On NYT Nord Stream theory, German official raises specter of 'false flag'

The timing of a new report suggesting rogue 'pro-Ukrainian group' might be to blame for pipeline blast is questioned today.

Analysis | Europe

Move over Sy Hersh, the White House has its own theory about the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines back in September 2022.

But not everyone, at least right now, is buying it — including German officials, who seem completely taken aback by Tuesday’s New York Times report, which said “new intelligence” suggests a “pro-Ukrainian group” might have been behind the sabotage.

In a German Deutsche Welle (DW) report Wednesday morning, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius “warned against premature accusations of responsibility for the attacks.”

"It may just as well have been a false flag operation staged to blame Ukraine, an option brought up in the media reports as well," Pistorius told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock “echoed the same caution, saying investigations by the relevant authorities must be concluded first,” saying Wednesday that Berlin would not "jump to conclusions" until the federal prosecution's investigation is concluded.

Meanwhile, other German joint reporting by public broadcasters ARD and SWR and Die Zeit have been conducting their own investigation, which in part fleshes out the information offered by the anonymous sources in the NYT story. According to German paper Taggesshau (translated from German):

Specifically, according to information from the ARD capital studio , "Kontraste", SWR and "ZEIT", the investigators succeeded in identifying the boat that was allegedly used for the secret operation. It is said to be a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, apparently owned by two Ukrainians. According to the investigation, the secret operation at sea was carried out by a team of six people. It is said to have been five men and one woman.

Accordingly, the group consisted of a captain, two divers, two diving assistants and a doctor, who are said to have transported the explosives to the crime scenes and placed them there. The nationality of the perpetrators is apparently unclear. (They) used professionally forged passports, which are said to have been used, among other things, to rent the boat.

According to the investigation, the command set sail from Rostock on September 6, 2022

As with the NYT article, there is no confirmation offered on the nationalities of the alleged saboteurs, or any evidence that President Zelensky or his top officials were aware of the plot. Ukrainian authorities, by the way, have been adamant that their government has no ties to the explosions.

The NYT report comes nearly a month to the day that Sy Hersh published his own explosive theory in an extensively reported piece on its Substack newsletter. In it, he alleges that a small group of expert U.S. Navy divers secretly carried out the explosions on behalf of top Washington officials who wanted to take the pipelines offline after the February 2022 Russian invasion. The story was rejected as complete "fiction" by government officials and roundly ignored by the mainstream media.

Interestingly, the NYT report says "the explosives were most likely planted with the help of experienced divers who did not appear to be working for military or intelligence services, U.S. officials who have reviewed the new intelligence said. But it is possible that the perpetrators received specialized government training in the past." (emphasis mine)

The German news investigation claims the boat that was used in the operation was launched from Rostock, Germany. Hersh's report claims the boat (a minesweeper) carrying the U.S. Navy divers launched from Bornholm Island in Denmark. Moreover, while critics of Hersh's report say no minesweeper by Hersh's description was tracked on publicly available radar on the day in question, the NYT says this:

According to a European lawmaker briefed late last year by his country’s main foreign intelligence service, investigators have been gathering information about an estimated 45 “ghost ships” whose location transponders were not on or were not working when they passed through the area, possibly to cloak their movements.

George Beebe, former CIA officer and now head of Quincy Institute's Grand Strategy program suggested the timing of Tuesday's reports didn't quite pass the smell test.

"It is suspicious to me that suddenly this intelligence comes to light — many months after the fact. It’s odd, and it very conveniently serves as an alternative to Sy Hersh's reporting," he tells me. "One could perhaps explain it but it very much begs the question, where did this come from, and why now?"

Foreign policy analysts and reporters had similar reactions on Tuesday. Jack Murphy, a Special Operations veteran, author, and journalist who in December broke a story about CIA-backed, pro-Ukraine saboteurs operating in Russia, seemed incredulous that if it were a pro-Ukrainian group, the U.S. wouldn't know about it.

"Still scratching my head over this one," he wrote on Twitter. "So, I'm to believe we cracked Russian military comms, have sources in the Kremlin, are 3 steps ahead of them, but... We have "limited visibility" into the decision making process of the Ukrainians, and are frustrated by their renegade ops?"

Others puzzled over the idea that a seemingly rogue group could be responsible for a sophisticated operation that investigators said could likely only be pulled off by a state actor — and only a handful of states at that. While investigations have been ongoing, Russia's culpability — which had been suggested from the get-go by American officials, punditry and media — has been all but written off.

If this is some sort of false flag — traces left to suggest Ukrainian involvement — why?

"The Biden administration seems to be recognizing that the story of the Russians blowing up their own pipeline wasn’t holding any water," said Beebe. 

"This doesn’t mean (the NYT story) is wrong, but it sure does raise questions in my mind as to what is going on here. They didn’t show any evidence to the New York Times reporters, they simply said, ‘we have this new intelligence. Trust us.”


FILE PHOTO: A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the water following incidents in the Baltic Sea, in this handout picture released September 29, 2022. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS
Analysis | Europe
Emmanuel Macron,  Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz
Top image credit: TIRANA, ALBANIA - MAY 16: France's President Emmanuel Macron, Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz speak during a Ukraine security meeting at the 6th European Political Community summit on May 16, 2025 at Skanderbeg Square in Tirana, Albania. Leon Neal/Pool via REUTERS

In twist, Europe appears to be deliberately undermining Iran talks

Europe

In a dangerous echo of past miscalculations, the E3 — France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — are once again escalating tensions with Iran, this time by threatening to trigger the reinstatement of U.N. Security Council sanctions (the so-called “snapback”) if U.S.-Iran nuclear talks collapse.

The E3 sees such a step as deploying leverage to force concessions from Iran on its nuclear program. However, it risks derailing diplomacy entirely and plunging the Middle East into deeper crisis.

Leading this charge is France, reprising its role as the E3’s most hawkish voice, reminiscent of its hard line in the JCPOA negotiations in 2015. At a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting on proliferation at the end of April, French Foreign Minister Jean Noël Barrot exemplified this combative turn, saying that if the U.S. – Iran talks do not bear fruit, France and its European partners “will not hesitate for a second to reimpose all the sanctions that were lifted 10 years ago.”

keep readingShow less
Zelensky
Top photo credit: Volodymyr Zelensky (Shutterstock/Dmytro Larin)

The 2026 bill for the Ukraine war is already in the mail

Europe

Ukraine is already asking for more money to continue fighting into 2026, a sure sign that President Volodmyr Zelensky has no plans to end the war.

With the battlefield continuing to favor Russia, European leaders have their collective heads in the sand on who will pay. How long before President Trump walks away?

keep readingShow less
Why Trump must not walk away from Ukraine War talks
Top photo credit: The President-elect of United States of America Donald Trump at the Elysee Palace for an interview with Emmanuel Macron and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, December 7, 2024. (Shutterstock/Frederic Legrand-COMEO)

Why Trump must not walk away from Ukraine War talks

Europe

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.