Former US President Donald Trump suggested he doesn’t believe Russia sabotaged its own Nord Stream pipelines.
Donald Trump has stated that there’s no need for an investigation to determine who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. While not naming the responsible party, he implied Russia was not involved.
In September 2022, explosions damaged three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, which were designed to transport Russian gas to Germany and Western Europe, at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
On Tuesday, a ZeroHedge correspondent, whose outlet now attends White House press briefings, reminded Trump of his previous rejection of the idea that Russia destroyed its own pipelines. The correspondent then asked if Trump planned to launch an investigation to identify the real perpetrator.
“If you can believe it, they said Russia blew it up,” Trump responded. “Well, probably if I asked certain people, they would be able to tell you without having to waste a lot of money on an investigation. But I think a lot of people know who blew it up,” he added.
ZeroHedge interpreted Trump’s remarks as suggesting he knows the culprit based on classified intelligence and that this should end the theory that Russia destroyed its own pipeline for economic and energy benefits.
In February 2023, journalist Seymour Hersh released a report claiming that President Joe Biden ordered the destruction of Nord Stream. Citing a source, Hersh stated that US Navy divers planted explosives on the pipelines during a NATO exercise called ‘Baltops 22’ months before the September 26, 2022, detonation. The White House dismissed the report as “utterly false and complete fiction.”
Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have previously implicated the US as a potential culprit in the Nord Stream explosions. They argued that Washington possessed the technical capabilities and had the most to gain, given that the attack disrupted Russian energy supplies to Europe and promoted a shift to more expensive US liquefied natural gas.
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