In an interview with RT, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in order to make sure Germany could not change its mind about sanctions against Russia and weapons shipments to Ukraine.

"It's not going to help the war. What he was doing it for, was to prevent Germany and Western Europe, in case the winter came quickly, from opening up the pipeline," Hersh told RT's program "Going Underground" on Saturday.  

In the interview, Hersh also claimed that the U.S. intelligence community hatched the plan "in late 2021," before the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine.

When Biden and Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland both publicly spoke about "stopping" and "ending" Nord Stream 2, however, Hersh claimed the intelligence community was upset, "because it was supposed to be a covert operation."

"The people who did this thing in the intelligence community, they initially thought it was a great idea," Hersh said.

According to his story, the bombs were planted in June, during the scheduled BALTOPS 2022 naval exercise off the Danish island of Bornholm. The bombs went off in late September, as Ukraine was facing "a serious issue" on the battlefield.

Earlier in February, Hersh wrote in a self-published report on his page on Substack that the U.S. and Norway were to blame for the series of explosions that disabled both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the pipelines under the Baltic Sea built to supply Western Europe with Russian natural gas. 

The veteran journalist also revealed that he had reached out to the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for comment, with both firmly rejecting the claims in the report.

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson described the report as "complete fiction," while a CIA spokesperson called the report "completely and utterly false."

Asked about Hersh's claim that Oslo supported the operation, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said "these claims are false."

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U.S. rejects report claiming involvement in Nord Stream blast

(With input from agencies)