'US must tell the truth about Nord Stream explosions,' says China foreign ministry

In September of last year, explosions rocked three of the four pipelines of Nord Stream 1 and 2, critical infrastructure for transporting 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe each year. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched independent investigations into the incident. In February of this year, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report alleging that during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022, US Navy divers planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines.

According to the report published on Substack, Norway activated the explosives three months later. Hersh's report also claimed that US President Joe Biden had decided to sabotage the Nord Streams after nine months of confidential discussions with the national security team. Now, China is demanding explanations from the US. According to a report from Sputnik news, Wang Wenbin, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said today that "the so-called US intelligence [on the supply of Chinese weapons to Russia] is nothing more than a fabrication, slander and defamation of China." He went on to add that the US should provide information about how the Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed. 

A glimpse at Nord Stream 1 and 2 

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are two natural gas pipelines that run from Russia to Germany, passing through the Baltic Sea.

Nord Stream 1: Nord Stream 1 was built and became operational in 2011. It consists of two parallel pipelines, each with a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year, for a total capacity of 55 bcm per year. The pipeline runs from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany, and bypasses traditional transit countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland.

The project was led by Gazprom, Russia's state-owned natural gas company, and involved several European energy companies, including Germany's E.ON and Wintershall, France's ENGIE, the Netherlands' Gasunie, and Austria's OMV. Nord Stream 1 was controversial since its inception, with critics arguing that it would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas and undermine Ukraine's role as a transit country for gas exports from Russia to Europe.

Nord Stream 2: Nord Stream 2 is a second pipeline that was proposed as an expansion of Nord Stream 1. It is owned by the same consortium of companies as Nord Stream 1. Nord Stream 2 was designed to have a capacity of 55 bcm per year, the same as Nord Stream 1, and would also run from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea.

The project was even more controversial than Nord Stream 1, with many European countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe, strongly opposing the pipeline. They argued that it would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas and give Russia too much control over the continent's energy supply.

The United States also strongly opposed to Nord Stream 2, arguing that it would undermine Europe's energy security and give Russia too much geopolitical leverage. Many analysts have asked what Russia would gain by destroying its own leverage. If any nation had anything to gain by destroying the pipelines, it'd be US and some eastern European nations, Hersh said in an interview with Democracy Now. Jeffery Sachs of Columbia University also suggested the same in an interview with UnHerd.