The operation targeting the Nord Stream gas pipeline that led to its destruction was "very covert", American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told a media outlet in an interview, noting that he might expose further details about how the act was carried out.

The planning of the sabotage operation was “kept pretty separate” from the decision makers and it was "very covert".

“In other words, the president only learned [that] ‘we can do it’,” Hersh said. “I’ll probably write more about the mechanism.”

The prominent journalist added that it was Norway that pointed out to the United States the location of where the underwater pipeline was closest to the surface to facilitate the US' operation.

He stressed that Washington's act led to more support for Russian President Vladimir Putin by his citizens.

Earlier this month, Hersh said that US Navy divers planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines last year.

"Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning," Hersh wrote in his Substack newsletter on February 8.

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Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov criticized a day later the sloppy handling of the news by Western media by saying that the article by investigative writer Seymour Hersh about Washington's complicity in the Nord Streams explosions did not make the rounds in Western media, which is surprising.

The White House responded and dismissed the claims as "false and complete fiction."

Read more: US military aircraft circled Nord Stream incident site in September

Such an incident might happen again

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Saturday that Europe will suffer more if the war in Ukraine continues, stressing that as the conflict is carried further, the Nord Stream scenario is likely to happen more frequently.
 
"We understand the concern of European countries about the Ukrainian crisis. As the crisis drags on, Europe suffers more and more damage and incidents like Nord Stream explosions are prone to happen from time to time," Wang told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC).
 
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