There are "more and more signs" that the United States is "responsible" for the sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, believes ex-Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud.
Poland and Ukraine may be the culprits as well, as countries that vehemently lobbied for the transit of gas through their territories and opposed the pipeline to begin with, the former NATO adviser said on French radio station Courtoisie's program, Ligne Droite.
However, the United States also made no secret of its vested interest in rupturing all ties between Russia and European countries, Baud added.
Jacques Baud, who was a Colonel in the Swiss Army and formerly worked for the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service, earlier stated that since the Second World War, it had always been US policy to prevent Germany and Russia or the USSR from working more closely together.
Baud, who formerly was head of “Policy and Doctrine” in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York, underscored in a spate of interviews that “nobody cares about Ukraine” in the West, and NATO, the EU and its allies have “instrumentalized Ukraine for the purpose of US. strategic interests."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted on Friday that the United States had nothing to do with the recent attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. During a joint press conference with his Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly, he stated:
"I really have nothing to say to the absurd allegation from President Putin that we are, or other partners or allies are somehow responsible for this, but we will get to the bottom of what happened, and we'll share that information as soon we have it, but I don't want to get ahead of the investigation."
Blasts rocked the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines on September 26, with the Kremlin calling the incident an act of terrorism, while Russian intelligence has pointed to a Western trace.
Operator Nord Stream AG called the destruction on the offshore gas pipelines “unprecedented”, adding that it was “impossible” to calculate the amount of time needed to rectify it.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said on Wednesday it was investigating the pipeline blasts as an act of international terrorism. On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the US and its allies were are no longer satisfied with sanctions targeting Moscow and had begun to destroy the pan-European energy infrastructure. Putin spoke as he expressed his full support for the incorporation of the Donbass and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions into Russia, and signed a decree to that effect.
Boasting a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, the 1,224-kilometer (760 miles) main gas supply route to Europe, Nord Stream 1, had earlier been suspended since the end of August. Problems with the repair of turbines had plagued the pipeline as fallout from western sanctions on Russia in response to its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.
The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, stretching from the coast of Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, was completed in September 2021, however the German government stopped its certification in February. After Russia recognized the sovereignty of the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR), German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated that "the project is actually frozen."