SOFIA, February 8. /TASS/. The United States’ role in orchestrating the terrorist attack on Russia’s Nord Stream gas system is not a bombshell story, because some indications surfaced immediately after the act of sabotage, Bulgarian expert on foreign relations Boyan Chukov said in an interview with TASS.

"The investigation carried out by American journalist Seymour Hersh is not sensational news. It was clear to experts almost immediately after the terrorist attack that a major state with financial, technological and military resources was behind the explosion on the gas pipeline, and there were some publications on this issue as well," Chukov noted.

"The question was if the United States or the United Kingdom had committed it alone or with their partners’ help. And the unequivocal response came from former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, a member of the European Parliament, who posted a statement on Twitter thanking the United States for damaging the Nord Stream pipelines, but later deleted it. Everyone, including Germans, Swedes and Danes, were well aware of what had happened."

"An act of terrorism like this one is a declaration of war, and that may explain why it took so long for the truth about the incident to come out after the investigation, albeit an investigative report, which points the finger at the United States," the expert stressed.

"Now, the severity of the circumstances associated with the gas pipeline blasts has faded away from the public spotlight, although a symmetrical response might still follow," Chukov said.

"I believe that there will be no meaningful response to this revelation from the position of the Europeans, and the topic will soon be shelved," Chukov said. "The European media are likely to do the same, as they are unlikely to write much about the situation. It could never have happened during the Cold War, since an appropriate response would have followed promptly," he maintained.

American investigative reporter’s revelations

Earlier on Wednesday, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article alleging that "last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning." Hersh said that US President Joe "Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community," which included National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.

The White House and CIA have dismissed these allegations.

On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage," which had been inflicted on three lines of the Nord Stream pipelines the previous day. Swedish seismologists recorded two explosions along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. On November 18, 2022, the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office said that the blasts along the pipelines were an act of sabotage. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case on charges of international terrorism.