“While Europe remained dependent on pipelines with cheap natural gas, Washington feared that countries like Germany would not want to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons needed to defeat Russia,” the journalist writes.
He notes that it was at this "turbulent moment" that US President Joe Biden authorized Sullivan to "assemble an interagency team to develop a plan" to destroy the pipes.
The author also stated that US divers planted explosives under the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines under the cover of NATO exercises.
According to him, the Norwegians activated the explosives.
The Times newspaper wrote that German experts investigating the explosions of gas pipelines admit that they could be carried out by one of the Western states.
The Kremlin said that many European countries would be surprised when they were called the perpetrators of the attack on the Nord Stream.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized, such sabotage does not destroy the pan-European energy network.