On September 26, 2022, Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were hit by major explosions that put both pipelines out of operation. I use the term “operation,” advisedly because, due to the diplomacy surrounding Putin’s War in Ukraine, both pipelines had been shut down. It became quickly apparent that the cause of the explosions was sabotage. I covered the attacks on the pipelines in this story; Sanctions and US Opposition Couldn’t Stop Nord Stream and Russian Gas, but Sabotage Might Have Done the Job.

The obvious question was, who did it? Four suspects emerged: the United States, Ukraine, an undetermined party probably involving Poland, and Russia. But, as stated in Putin’s PR Machine Throws up Smoke as the Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion Investigation Begins, my personal view is that Russia was the most likely culprit.

1. The pipelines were not producing income; they were costing money to operate.
2. The war forced Nord Stream customers to find other sources, and it was unlikely that Nord Stream would operate again.
3. It made it clear to Germany what the price was for helping Ukraine.
4. It avoided breach of contract financial penalties that would hit Gazprom if Germany desired to re-open the pipeline, and Russia refused.
5. The repair cost of the pipelines was insured.
6. Breaching the pipelines at the deepest part means that the shortest area would be flooded, and the damage would be the cheapest to repair.

In my view, the bonus was that the explosions took place in Scandinavian fishing grounds, and the first explosion was in the vicinity of a new Norway-Poland pipeline which gave it a “nice pipeline you’ve got there, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it” flavor.

As the Danes investigated, word started to seep out of Washington that maybe Russia was not the culprit; see Story on Russia Blowing up Its Own Pipeline Begins to Shift.

In February, fabulist Seymour Hersh came out with a highly improbable story. He claimed to have evidence that the US blew up the pipeline. I posted on the story at the time, Seymour Hersh’s Claim That the US Blew up the Nord Stream Pipelines Is Some Weak Stuff, but Congress Must Investigate.

According to Hersh, US Navy divers working from a Norwegian vessel planted the charges. They were later detonated by signals from a sonobuoy dropped from a Norwegian Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol plane.

Literally, nothing in Hersh’s article was plausible. Here are some examples.

During his introduction of Norway, Hersh makes a very strange remark about NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg implying that he has worked directly with the US intelligence community since the Vietnam War. Jens Stoltenberg was born March 16th 1959. The US involvement in the Vietnam War ended April 30th 1975, meaning Jens had just turned 16 when Saigon fell to the PAVN troops.

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Hersh states that one of Norway’s main motivations is financial, “The destruction of Nord Stream—if the Americans could pull it off—would allow Norway to sell vastly more of its own natural gas to Europe.)” Norwegian gas production has remain steady since the destruction of Nord Stream.

Hersh says the explosions were near each other. The two Nord Stream 2 explosions were about 3.5 miles apart, and the Nord Stream 1 blast was nearly 50 miles away.

Hersh says the explosions were in the shallowest part of the Baltic; they were in some of the deepest parts.

Hersh claims the explosives were put in place in June and not detonated until October.

Hersh says the divers used a Norwegian Alta-class minesweeper to conduct the mission; none of those vessels were used in the BALTOP22 naval exercise Hersh claims was a cover for the operation. Furthermore, the one Norwegian minesweeper in the exercise did not operate near the blast areas. This link takes you to a thorough debunking of the Norwegian minesweeper story.

Hersh claimed the divers used scuba gear with a Heliox mix. The depth of the explosions would require scuba divers to decompress by controlled ascent for at least one hour and up to three hours.

Hersh claims the explosives had to be camouflaged to blend in with the salinity of the seawater to keep Russian submarines from discovering the explosives; wtf?

The Norwegian Navy doesn’t operate the P-8 Poseidon aircraft Hersh claims helped detonate the explosives.

What makes the whole “US and Norway did it” story so implausible is that the only evidence of any motive is Joe Biden threatening to “shut down” the Nord Stream pipelines, and that had already happened before the explosions. Leave aside the bizarre corollary that Biden’s public pronouncements are Gospel, there is no reason why the US and Norway would choose waters claimed by Denmark, in a fishing ground, near Norway’s own pipeline for the strikes rather than someplace in international waters.

In early March, the New York Times got into the act claiming that a shadowy Ukrainian group was behind the explosion; see NEW: U.S. Officials Say Ukrainian Group Blew up Nordstream 2. This claim was investigated by the Germans as the 51-foot yacht allegedly used was owned by a German company.

Naval officials from several countries have debunked various parts of this story based on the difficulties in stocking the small sailing ship with the necessary diving equipment, the several tons of explosives needed for the attack (one of the Nord Stream 2 blasts used an estimated ton to ton-and-a-half of explosives), and the difficulty a boat this size would have in maintaining a dive station for the time it would take to carry out the mission. There is no evidence that German authorities are still pursuing this case.

Now another wrinkle has appeared. In the days immediately after the blast, several news outlets reported that there were Russian Navy vessels in the area of the Nord Stream explosions shortly before the blasts; see Seymour Hersh’s Claim That the US Blew up the Nord Stream Pipelines Is Some Weak Stuff, but Congress Must Investigate.

I stick by my original assessment that this was a Russian operation. Unlike the theory of planting explosives three months before the attack, Russian Navy diving support ships were tracked in the area of both explosions days before the event.

Now we have proof that not only were Russian Navy vessels in the area of the blasts four days before the explosions but that one of them was the submarine rescue vehicle SS-750.

CREDIT: Russian Ministry of Defense photo

Onboard, the SS-775 was a Project 1855 Priz-class deep-submergence rescue vehicle.

CREDIT: Russian Ministry of Defense photo

The SS-750 was not among the Russian Navy ships known to be in the area because it was traveling with its Automatic Identification System, roughly analogous to an aircraft transponder, turned off.

This information about the presence of the SS-750 came to light when the Danish Navy released, pursuant to a public records request (Danish source, if you are using either Chrome or Edge as browsers, a right click will get you a translation), 112 images taken by the Danish patrol boat P-524 Nymfen of Russian vessels in the area of the Nord Stream blasts in the days prior to the explosions. Those included the SS-750 with the DSRV on its deck.

The Russian special vessel SS-750 was near the Nord Stream pipes four days before the pipes were blown up on September 26 last year. The special vessel is designed to conduct operations under the sea and has an AS-26 Priz mini-submarine on board.

In a response to a public access document, the Defense Command confirms that 26 photos of the Russian vessel were taken from a Danish patrol boat that was in the area east of Bornholm on September 22, 2022.

“It’s incredibly interesting. The SS-750 is a special vessel designed precisely for underwater operations,” says Swedish researcher, Russian expert and intelligence expert Joakim von Braun.

Jacob Kaarsbo, a senior analyst at Think Tank Europe who previously worked for 15 years in the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, believes the information “sheds light on what happened in the area in the days before.”

“The SS-750 is the most interesting vessel to confirm, because we know that it has the capacity to carry out such an operation,” says Jacob Kaarsbo.

Information has previously revealed that the Defense Command is in possession of 112 images of Russian vessels in the area. But this is the first time the Armed Forces have confirmed that it is the specific Russian vessel SS-750 with the mini-submarine on board.

At the same time, the Defense Command refuses to give access to the images of the Russian special vessel, as the images are “of an intelligence nature” and “part of the intelligence work.”

A German outlet, T-Online, adds more information. On the same day SS-750 departed Kaliningrad, two other Russian Navy ships also left port.

The German outlet also pointed out that between 00:00 and 01:00 on the same day, two other Russian ships set sail from Kaliningrad: the rescue tugs “SB-123” and “Alexander Frolov” . T-Online noted the following about both ships: “Each of them has deck loading cranes that would be capable of lowering hundreds of kilograms of heavy explosive devices or mines into the water” . T-Online adds: “Although they initially turned off AIS, they sent position data once to the west in the afternoon, indicating a heading towards Bornholm and a speed of nine knots By then, the ships were only five hours away from the sites of the subsequent attack.”

The revelation that the Russians had three ships in the area that were tailormade for operating in 100 meters plus water depth and moving large weights…like 3,000 pounds of explosives…and also traveling with a DSRV offers a plausible and verifiable means and opportunity to go along with Russia’s existing motive. Against that, we have Hersh’s journalistic equivalent of an LSD flashback and the patently implausible New York Times story that was investigated by one of the best police forces in Europe.

This by no means closes the case on the Nord Stream explosions. However, it does provide a method of carrying out the attack that doesn’t require a lobotomy to believe it.