Russian intelligence has launched an information campaign to accuse the United States of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which testifies to the scale and duration of Moscow’s infiltration of the Western media space.
In February 2023, Russian propagandist Olga Skabeeva complained on her show that it is the warm winter that saved Europe from freezing to death. Thus, there is no doubt that the Kremlin was interested in artificially creating a shortage of gas supplies in order to provoke public unrest in the region, forcing national governments to lift Russia sanctions and reinstate energy dependency on Russia.
Propagandist Skabeeva once again promotes a doomsday scenario in Europe by claiming that Germans are stocking up on candles because of expected blackout, while in the UK, people are eating animal food and women are engaging in prostitution in exchange for food and heating.
The information spin has been organized by an acclaimed American journalist Seymour Myron (Sy) Hersh, who gained fame after publishing a series of articles about the war crimes of the U.S. Army in My Song, Vietnam, in 1969. At the same time, he was also working on a piece covering the build-up of chemical and bacteriological weapon stockpiles in Vietnam. AP editors edited the article so extensively that Hersh eventually resigned from the agency. This fact could indicate that the piece was ordered by a third party and that editorial board had no trust in allegations put forward by Hersh. Later, Hersh became a pundit focused on conspiracy theories.
In 2004, Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker describing mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib. The Abu Ghraib topic was then exploited by Russia to discredit the United States at the international level.
In February 2023, he alleged that the U.S. and Norway stood behind the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. In his version of the incident, the mains were blown up by the U.S. military, who planted bombs on the pipes under the guise of exercises in the Baltic Sea. The piece, based on the testimony of a single source, was published on Substack, one of the open access resources that are typically used in psyops when cited sources are in fact too dubious, which would not allow the inquiry to be published by any reputable outlet. However, this particular article penned by Hersh was immediately picked up by a media group affiliated with Russian military intelligence. It is significant to note that the said Substack account was created just hours before the article was posted.
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In September 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the United States of being involved in blowing up the pipes. On September 30, Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, voiced a similar allegation, albeit indirectly. Thus, all versions of U.S. involvement in the blasts came from the Kremlin, while Hersh’s article is consistent with Russian narratives tailored for this story.
In the 1970s, Hersh wrote about the covert bombing of Cambodia, as well as extensive CIA surveillance efforts targeting the anti-war movement. Thus, the topisc of Hersh’s pieces was consistent with the targeted Soviet propaganda and information operations run by the KGB, aimed at tarring the United States. Only a fraction of Hersh’s articles can be classified as anti-war or leftist.
In 2013, Hersh published an article titled “Whose Sarin?” in which he justified the Assad regime and tried to challenge the accusations against the Syrian dictator by shifting them onto the United States. Major outlets, such as the Washington Post and NYT, refused to publish his articles due to insufficient argumentation and fact-checking, as well as some dubious sources.
Hersh doesn’t run social media accounts.
In 2015, The Washington Post published an op-ed accusing Hersh of abusing the use of anonymous sources without providing additional evidence to back their claims.
According to Robert Miraldi, Hersh’s biographer, the journalist is vulnerable to money and the very opportunity to get a high pay for his work. This was especially evident during Watergate as Hersh was outraged by failing to make a fortune off his book.
Thus, it’s highly likely that Hersh has not been aware that he is being exploited by Moscow, being fed topics that ensured more spotlight for himself.
Hersh’s signature on investigations has for 40 years served as a guarantee that the probe would be noticed and actually read. This made Hersh an attractive candidate to run psyops unbeknownst to their actor involved.
