Even as the United States comes under intense scrutiny over the bombing of Russia's Nord Stream gs pipeline in the Baltic Sea in September last year, a new report has said a US reconnaissance aircraft was a the site immediately after the blast.
Flight data provider Flightradar24 said a US P-8A Poseidon aircraft conducted a surveillance mission around Bornholm Island on the morning of September 26, when the massive under-sea explosion took down the pipeline, which was the most important gas transport infrastructure Russia had built up.
Experts said the aircraft was in the area of the explosion in order to monitor the presence of ships and submarines that could have witnessed the blast.
Aircraft Switched Off Transponder
Citing Flightradar24 resource, Sputnik News said the US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane was at the scene exactly one hour after the explosion. "According to the source, the US plane flew from the Atlantic to Bornholm Island after passing over Denmark. Then, the aircraft refueled over Poland from the KS-135R refueling plane," the report says.
The report adds that the US aircraft had hovered over the area of the blast after switching off the transponder.
According to Igor Korotchenko, who heads the Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade, the flight path of the US reconnaissance plane matches with the findings of Seymour Hersh that the US was behind the sabotage. "Taking into account that the route of American P-8A Poseidon was calculated with refueling over Poland and it was necessary to synchronize all these moments, we can say that its arrival at the given time — immediately after the attack — indicates the scheduled flight and, therefore, is another confirmation of the version put forward by American journalist Hersh of the reasons and circumstances of the attack .. This once again proves the involvement of official US government agencies in this sabotage," Korotchenko said, according to Sputnik.
Seymour Hersh Revelation
On Wednesday, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh made the sensational claim that the United States was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in September last year.
Writing in his blog on Substack on Wednesday, Hersh said US Navy divers planted explosives at the pipelines in June last year, under the guise of BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise. The article says that the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline was the culmination of months-long planning and preparations by the US. President Joe Biden and all his top leadership team participated in a series of top secret discussions in the lead-up to the act.
The White House rejected Hersh's detailed investigative report, saying it was cooked up. "This is utterly false and complete fiction," White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. Meanwhile, the CIA and the State Department also denied the US role in the bombing of the key Russian gas pipeline to Europe.
