Russia’s response to Seymour Hersh’s exposition of the Nordstream explosion as a military operation designed, implemented, and executed by President Biden has sent shockwaves throughout the country.

Published on February 8th, 2023, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s article entitled “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline,” which implicates the United States’ Navy in a mission—planned before the Russian invasion of Ukraine—to destroy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, serves to elucidate Washington’s role in instigating Russia and NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Even before the publication of Hersh’s article, American politicians and US officials who expressed satisfaction with the pipeline’s destruction, hinted at the possible culprit.

In congressional testimony as early as January, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, for instance, stated, “I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

Valued at over $20 billion, the destruction of the pipeline released more than the equivalent of 14.6 million tons of C02, while simultaneously causing a significant rise in the price of gas.

In an analysis published by Sarah Miller, “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in September led to a further surge of natural gas prices that were already six or more times pre-crisis levels.”

“Nord Stream was blown up in late September. German gas imports peaked a month later, in October, at 10 times pre-crisis levels. Electricity prices across Europe were pulled up, and governments spent as much as 800 billion euros, by some estimates, shielding households and businesses from the impact. Gas prices, reflecting the mild winter in Europe, have now fallen back to roughly a quarter of the October peak, but they are still between two and three times pre-crisis levels and are more than three times current US rates.”

On February 16th, 2023 the Press Secretary for the Embassy of the Russian Federation on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., Igor Girenko, described Edward Price, the Spokesman for the State Department, as engaged in a diversion with respect to his comments regarding Seymour Hersh’s exposition of the Nordstream’s explosion in the Baltic Sea.

In Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has sought tirelessly to maintain ties with his Western “partners,” the impact of Hersh’s conclusion is starting to be felt throughout Putin’s ruling circles.

Responding to a press conference in which Edward Price, the spokesman for the Department of State, sought to divert any blame for the Nordstream’s explosion away from Washington, Girenko, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, is quoted as calling Price’s response as “extremely revealing.”

Later, in an official announcement made in the Embassy of the Russian Federation’s Telegram channel, Girenko categorized the incident as an act of “international terrorism.”

“We classify the incident as an act of international terrorism, necessitating a full and independent investigation.”

In his article, Hersh noted that only six out of the eight bombs worked. In response, Girenko noted that absolutely nothing is known about the remaining unexploded bombs on the bottom of the sea near the pipeline, hinting that any attempt to repair the pipeline may be cause for Washington to detonate those remaining bombs.

In terms of foreign relations, Hersh’s article has completely transformed Russia’s outlook on Scandinavia, especially Denmark and Sweden. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, for instance, called Denmark’s and Sweden’s failure to issue a response to Mikhail Mishustin’s letter requesting an investigation into the Nord Stream 2’s explosion “despicable,” as these countries’ silence “reveals just how quickly their attempt to cover for the West and the United States has completely collapsed.”

“Silent like fish on ice for more than half a year, neither Sweden nor Denmark have responded to Mikhail Mishustin’s letter who politely offered to appoint an envoy for conducting a conversation [regarding the incident], since the incident occurred within the territorial waters exclusively under the jurisdiction of Sweden and Denmark and the pipelines are the property of a Russian company.”

Lavrov echoed Girenko’s description of the incident as a terrorist act.

“I think this is despicable. But this despicable-ness reveals how the attempt to obscure responsibility of the collective West, led by the United States, has failed to conceal this terrorist act.”

The Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation opened a case of “international terrorism” shortly after the explosion, although at the time the details of the incident were not yet known. It appears that the Prosecutor General is now planning legal action against the United States.

After Gazprom, a Russian conglomerate, completed an investigation of the incident’s site, the head of the investigation, Aleksey Miller, presented his findings to Vladimir Putin, the head of the Russian Federation. At the time Putin described the explosion on the pipeline as an obvious terrorist act.

Press Secretary for the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, is one of the few Russian politicians to comment directly. Peskov’s comments are revealing.

“The article, which, on the one hand, may be the subject of dispute for some of its points, while, on the other hand, requires proof for some of its other points, is remarkable for the depth of its analysis, the harmony of its presentation, etc… Let’s just say that no one can ignore [Hersh’s] article, especially Germany, which, as a result of this terrorist act, has lost access to [Russian] gas.”

Russia media commentators have derided the media blackout and failure of many leading publications to report on Seymour Hersh’s article and his conclusion.

Vladimir Kornilov, a political commentator for the Russian Information Agency, derided the responses of editorial boards at Reuters, the Los Angeles Times (hereinafter LAT) and Britain’s Daily Mail.

In his derisive article, the author notes how Reuters described Hersh as engaged in promotion “controversial” theories, and mentions how the LAT completely disregarded the content of Hersh’s article and repeats sarcastically how the LAT author described Hersh’s claims of Jens Stoltenberg working closely together with American intelligence as “absurd.” He notes how the author of an article on the explosion in Britain Daily Mail called the explosion a “leak.”

Kornilov’s limited criticism of the American media is far in a way removed from the freedom of expression journalists are allowed to enjoy in Russia. While in the United States the right to express oneself freely without retaliation is checked by the Espionage Act of 1917, which is exploited now as a basis to expand America’s intelligence agencies’ ability to execute campaigns of bureaucratic cruelty, the most disgusting example of which is the continued torture of Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange, freedom of the press is, nonetheless, extremely restrained in Russia. It is unlikely that Kornilov could engage in an exposition of Russia’s secret operations in much the same way that Hersh has.

Kornilov’s point is an exposition of the self-imposed censorship leading media commentators exhibit throughout the press. It is certainly odd for a major leading media commentator from the LAT to discredit Hersh’s claim that of Jens Stoltenberg working closely together with American intelligence. Stoltenberg’s primarily role is to do just that.

Kornilov, however, doesn’t mention the blackout in Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Recently, the New York Times decided to break the silence. In its first comment ever on the explosion, the New York Times, which failed to comment specifically on Hersh’s article, went, however, far beyond breaking self-imposed censorship. It actually laid out its pages for the sake of a fully formed cover-up.

The result is the New York Times’ articles on March 8th, 2023. Published on the front-page as, “Clues Emerge In Bid to Solve Pipeline Attack,” the article, which later ran a headline on the inside as, “Pipeline Inquiry Points to a Pro-Ukraine Group, U.S. Officials Say,” the New York Times, merely parrot U.S. officials uncritically: “U.S. officials say Mr. Biden and his top aides did not authorize a mission to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, and they say there was no U.S. involvement.”

In his response to the New York Times’ March 8th cover-up article, Hersh lambasted the Biden Administration for “[continuing] to conceal its responsibility for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.”

Hersh wrote:

“Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction.”

Hersh continues: “I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system.”

The entire March 8th article, from beginning to end, reads like a piece of blatant propaganda rather than investigative journalism. It buries in abstractions such as “the president’s preiavasion threat “to bring an end” to the Nord Stream 2,” or, what the newspaper generalizes as “similar statements” without a point-by-point examination of any aspect of Hersh’s argumentation, let alone those of Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.

It is reflection of a deeply concerted effort to obfuscate the mounting fallout, whose impact has already sent shockwaves throughout Russia’s ruling elite. It is clear why “[a] spokeswoman for the C.I.A. declined to comment,” as the article is sufficient in and of itself as a mouthpiece for the intelligence agency. She needn’t speak for the agency, as the New York Times speaks for it!

The CIA’s meddling in the media is extremely well-documented, especially among veteran journalists like Hersh, as evidenced in Unamerican Activities: The Campaign Against the Underground Press published by City Lights Books in 1981. The CIA’s design to “pulse the system,” as Hersh notes, is an effort to discount Hersh’s claim against the Biden administration. It is clearly an act in furtherance of subversion and censorship, a major expansion of its unending campaign against the underground presses or freedom of the press generally.

These actions are tantamount to a violation of the First Amendment. The framers of the Constitution, especially among the Anti-Federalists such as James Madison, prevailed upon the hardline Federalists to ensure the inclusion of several “codicils” such as the amendments in the Bill of Rights within the ratification of revolutionary document. First and foremost among these is the First Amendment.

The First Amendment, which outlaws censorship, centered not only the freedom of speech but the right to a free press. Ratified on December 15th, 1791, censorship forever after became an inalienable right, yet the right continues to be alienated.

Karl Marx, who initiated his career as a politician in and through journalism, championed the cause for freedom of the press. Having published his first few articles on freedom of the press in the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx later established the fight for socialism as inexorable from the fight for freedom of the press.
Workers, who formulated the Soviet organization in response to Gapon’s failed march on January 9th ended in bloodshed, waged a battle for the freedom of the press throughout Russia during the heydays of the October uprising in 1905.

Leon Trotsky, whom workers throughout Russia deputized as the head of the Petersburg’s council of workers in the wake of Gapon’s failure, spearheaded the workers’ battle. In his book, 1905, Trotsky dedicated a special chapter to “Storming the Bastilles of Censorship.”

In his chapter, Trotsky stated: “The Petersburg Soviet wages a splendid campaign—well organized, politically perfect and victorious—in defense of the freedom of the press.”

Throughout the October uprising, workers took over presses, requiring their owners to consent to the publication of the revolutionary newspaper, Izvestia, the official organ of the Petersburg Soviet. Izvestia, which published the minutes of the Petersburg Soviet, reached a wide readership with unparalleled speed.

As Trotsky notes, “the Soviet as a whole, in its origins and in all its tactics, [became] the organized embodiment of the supreme rights of the revolution.” The struggle for socialism accelerates the liberation of the press and cannot be divorced from the struggle for socialism.

To continue the “splendid campaign in defense of the freedom of the press,” workers throughout the United States and Russia need to think beyond their borders to celebrate the Petersburg Soviet in manifestations and demonstrations and ensure that workers’ power is solidified in fraternal solidarity rather than advance the censorship regime, the Russophobia of the United States and its NATO allies or Russia’s pro-war campaign of silence.