On September 29th, Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, the host at Sezoni TV, claimed that the North Stream gas pipelines were blown up by the United States of America. As an argument, Mzhavanadze noted that before the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Joe Biden said that if Russia invaded Ukraine, he would blow up the North Stream.
Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Lawyer: North Stream 1.2 was blown up by the US. Before the pipeline blew up, Biden said that if there was a war, he would blow it up, he said it directly, and this old recording of his statement was published. Now they deny it, saying they didn’t do it, they meant something else… The only one who could do it was the United States of America, in whose interests it is; Europe wouldn’t do it because Europeans don’t like freezing in winter. It was not in the interests of Russia either, because it supplies Europe with gas.
The claim that Biden said in February that if Russia started a war in Ukraine, the US would blow up the North Stream pipeline is disinformation. In fact, Biden said that military aggression from Russia would be the end of Nord Stream 2, meaning that the project would be terminated. Biden never mentioned the pipeline explosion or damage.
On September 26th, the Russian gas pipelines “North Stream 1” and “North Stream 2” became non-operable. The incident is being investigated; however, the European Union has already assessed the incident as sabotage. European and American officials have indicated that if the sabotage was orchestrated by Russia, its purpose was to show the vulnerability of Europe’s energy lifeline.
The claim that Biden made a statement about the potential explosion of the North Stream pipeline before the start of the war is false. In fact, before the emergence of the conflict, on February 7th, 2022, Joe Biden announced in a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that if Russia invaded Ukraine, it would be the end of “Nord Stream 2”, although Biden did not mention blowing up or damaging the pipeline in any way.
Excerpt from Biden’s quote:
Olaf Scholz received questions related to the topic as well. To the question whether Germany would agree to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Scholz stressed that that Germany and the US are united, they will not take different steps, and these steps will be very hard for Russia.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson voiced a similar claim in his original program (Tucker Carlson Tonight). According to Carlson, Vladimir Putin must be a fool to blow up his own pipeline. Carlson aired Biden’s February statement and, ignoring the context of the period, interpreted Biden’s words as a quote, “We’re going to blow it up.”
According to INSIDER, the assertion that the North Stream pipeline was blown up by the US, together with the Russian propaganda media, was actively spread by American far-right “influencers”, even though there is no reliable evidence to support the claim.
On September 28th, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about this issue at the briefing. According to Jean-Pierre, Biden said in February that Nord Stream 2 would not be launched and that the US would work with Germany on this issue, which he was right, because Germany really took a step in this direction when it suspended the certification process for the gas pipeline on February 22nd. This step followed Russia’s declaration of independence of two regions of eastern Ukraine – Luhansk and Donetsk.
Excerpt from Jean-Pierre’s quote:
North Stream 1, which goes 100 meters deep in the Baltic Sea, was put into operation in 2011; however, the supply of gas to Europe through it has been suspended since August 2022. As for North Stream 2, its construction was completed in 2021, but it has not yet been put into operation.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions
