BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) — “I increasingly believe that the incident that led to the rupture of the gas pipeline was the result of an action by the United States,” a Spanish political expert said Monday, noting that the aim was to break Germany’s dependence on Russian gas.
Josep Puigsech, an expert on Russian affairs and professor of contemporary history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, shared his thoughts with Xinhua on the Nord Stream pipeline incident that occurred last September.
“Since there is a clear gain to be made by the United States and at the same time a strengthening of its geopolitical influence over Germany, and given the international dimension of the conflict, I am increasingly convinced that this was an action by the United States,” he said.
“There were NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) operations in the Baltic Sea in 2022 and a few months later this incident occurred, so the general perception is that this was an action that probably had something to do with NATO maneuvers rather than the Russian Federation, Puigsech said, dismissing initial reports that Russia was responsible for the incident.
The professor insisted that the damage to the pipeline was a severe blow to Russia and its relationship with Western Europe.
“What is clear is that the honeymoon between cheap Russian gas for the benefit of Germany and other Western states and Russia’s export capacity that generated significant economic resources for the Russian state has definitely been broken,” he said.
According to Puigsech, the consequences of the Nord Stream incident are long-term: while increasing Germany’s dependence on the United States, the latter also forced Russia’s energy out of Europe. And Russian energies would “very possibly” be reoriented to Asia.
After leaks were reported in the Nord Stream pipeline, which was built to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, Sweden and Denmark, in whose jurisdiction the leaks occurred, said the pipelines were deliberately sabotaged, although they did not say who was responsible for the attack.
Since then, speculation that the United States may have been behind the blasts has grown, culminating this month in a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who claimed the bombing was ordered by whites. House.
The Joe Biden administration has denied the allegations, but Puigsech believes that the US has the most to gain from the destruction of the pipelines, arguing that one of the main benefits for the US is that it can sell the natural gas from fracking to Germany.
Source: sn.dk
