U.S. officials who have been briefed on the intelligence are divided about how much weight to put on the new information. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence and matters of sensitive diplomacy.

Oh, but when Hersh used anonymous sources that was Discredited Journalism. Got it.

pro-Ukranian group

The CIA?

"U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains."

Just trust us bro

New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months.

U.S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.

...

The pipelines were ripped apart by deep sea explosions in September, in what U.S. officials described at the time as an act of sabotage. European officials have publicly said they believe the operation that targeted Nord Stream was probably state sponsored, possibly because of the sophistication with which the perpetrators planted and detonated the explosives on the floor of the Baltic Sea without being detected. U.S. officials have not stated publicly that they believe the operation was sponsored by a state.

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.

U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations. The review of newly collected intelligence suggests they were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation. U.S. officials declined to disclose the nature of the intelligence, how it was obtained or any details of the strength of the evidence it contains. They have said that there are no firm conclusions about it, leaving open the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services.

The article does actually mention Biden's ominous comments at the start of 2022 about Nord Stream and promptly dismisses them as Biden pinky promised he didn't order the attack. Surprisingly it also mentions Hersh by name, and his report, though it takes the journalists a good long while to get to that point - and also, of course, dismisses it.

Last month, the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article on the newsletter platform Substack concluding that the United States carried out the operation at the direction of Mr. Biden. In making his case, Mr. Hersh cited the president’s preinvasion threat to “bring an end” to Nord Stream 2, and similar statements by other senior U.S. officials.

U.S. officials say Mr. Biden and his top aides did not authorize a mission to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, and they say there was no U.S. involvement.

Ah! Well, that settles it then!

So all the article is actually saying is that it's not Russia (I guess even they have to admit that that's too flimsy a claim to work anymore) but doesn't actually give a single shred of evidence or narrative or anything as to who did it. Sure, Hersh's report doesn't name sources either, but he does at least point a finger towards a country and the narrative seems to fit a lot of facts and answers a lot of questions. The initial story that Russia was behind it was too unbelievable. Not for your average Westerner, they'll believe absolutely anything, but for politicians domestic and abroad, who are the actually important people here.

Not a single theory of how this attack happened is plausible unless you can explain how the attackers managed to do this and escape without being caught in the middle of a sea tightly controlled and monitored by NATO. There are only two plausible answers to me at least: that NATO's monitoring systems don't work very well, or that a group backed and given permission by NATO was behind it. That's the hurdle your theory must jump over before it's even worth considering. The article's throwaway lines on this are:

The pipelines themselves were not closely monitored, by either commercial or government sensors. Moreover, finding the vessel or vessels involved has been complicated by the fact that the explosions took place in a heavily trafficked area.

I think this is very naive, personally. The Baltic Sea is neither particularly large nor particularly deep, especially the entrance which I assume is extremely tightly monitored.

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.

The idea that it was a pro-Ukraine group but not controlled by the Ukrainian government or military command that had the ability and means to dive and place explosives without being caught doesn't seem to pass the hurdle, especially given that we know about patrols by NATO ships in the hours and days before the explosion right over the explosion site, and the "ghost ships" which would have been around.

As you say, I suspect this was a hastily cobbled narrative together once China and Russia took the report and started taking it seriously and asking question to the United States about it in front of the rest of the world.

What's tangentially quite interesting is the article's implications for support for Ukraine. In fact, the article explicitly spells it out for us:

Any findings that put blame on Kyiv or Ukrainian proxies could prompt a backlash in Europe and make it harder for the West to maintain a united front in support of Ukraine.

Further up:

Officials said there were still enormous gaps in what U.S. spy agencies and their European partners knew about what transpired. But officials said it might constitute the first significant lead to emerge from several closely guarded investigations, the conclusions of which could have profound implications for the coalition supporting Ukraine.

Any suggestion of Ukrainian involvement, whether direct or indirect, could upset the delicate relationship between Ukraine and Germany, souring support among a German public that has swallowed high energy prices in the name of solidarity.

U.S. officials who have been briefed on the intelligence are divided about how much weight to put on the new information. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence and matters of sensitive diplomacy.

The intention of this is to ensure that Germany remains firmly on board with the United States by attributing the attack to a country that can be freely jettisoned once this conflict is over - but the Cold War will resume for decades.

And:

Despite Ukraine’s deep dependence on the United States for military, intelligence and diplomatic support, Ukrainian officials are not always transparent with their American counterparts about their military operations, especially those against Russian targets behind enemy lines. Those operations have frustrated U.S. officials, who believe that they have not measurably improved Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, but have risked alienating European allies and widening the war.

The operations that have unnerved the United States included a strike in early August on Russia’s Saki Air Base on the western coast of Crimea, a truck bombing in October that destroyed part of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Russia to Crimea, and drone strikes in December aimed at Russian military bases in Ryazan and Engels, about 300 miles beyond the Ukrainian border.

But there have been other acts of sabotage and violence of more ambiguous provenance that U.S. intelligence agencies have had a harder time attributing to Ukrainian security services.

One of those was a car bomb near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist.

Kyiv denied any involvement but U.S. intelligence agencies eventually came to believe that the killing was authorized by what officials called “elements” of the Ukrainian government. In response to the finding, the Biden administration privately rebuked the Ukrainians and warned them against taking similar actions.

The explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines took place five weeks after Ms. Dugina’s killing. After the Nord Stream operation, there was hushed speculation — and worry — in Washington that parts of the Ukrainian government might have been involved in that operation as well.

This is absurd. We know about how drones that Ukraine uses have been modified with the help of NATO. We know that the British have been involved in training teams for operations in Ukraine. The idea that these major acts have not been okayed by NATO - and thus, the US - at every juncture is unbelievable. The Russians and Chinese absolutely aren't gonna buy it. This is merely an extension of the bizarre insistence that the US has that they aren't a party to the war in Ukraine despite their weapons and money going there and their officials being behind operations to help Ukraine.

This feels remarkably similar to other American coverups. The 1960 U-2 plane that crashed in the USSR was initially covered up by an elaborate creation of a narrative, such as the US quickly painting a U-2 plane in NASA colors to prove that it wasn't a spy plane, and grounding all U-2 planes for inspections of oxygen systems as oxygen difficulties was the official excuse as to why the pilot crashed the plane. Then :corn-man-khrush: came along and humiliated the fuck out of Eisenhower by showing that the pilot was still alive and in USSR custody. Hoping Putin/Xi comes along with proof that the Americans did it.

deleted by creator

It's amazing how everything that has come out about the pipelines converges towards the most obvious conclusion. From US officials talking about doing it beforehand, to the lack of consistent accusations towards Russia while they constantly throw out all sorts of accusations, to the establishment trotting out all the old critiques of Hersh's methods, to them fabricating a story of a couple Ukrainians somehow secretly getting 100 kgs of dynamite worth of explosives planted deep in the Baltic sea. Short of the US outright saying they did it, they couldn't have made it anymore obvious.

Their only saving grace its that it was such an immensely stupid thing to do that it beggars belief amongst the terminally transatlantic European elites. For now.

makes you think why they didnt have this prepared in advance