Putin's Getting What He Wants

A recent story saying the United States was behind September's attack on Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines could give Russian President Vladimir Putin something he's likely been wanting in the form of bad publicity for the U.S., according to some analysts.

The story about the alleged U.S. role in the attack was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and published Wednesday on his Substack. The details of Hersh's report could not be independently verified by Newsweek.

According to Hersh, who cited an unnamed source, President Joe Biden ordered specialized U.S. Navy divers to attach explosives to the Nord Stream pipelines that are designed to carry Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The bombs were later detonated, which caused large gas leaks in what became a global incident.

Putin hopes the report will "advance the narrative that the U.S. had an interest in damaging the pipelines in order to damage Russia, and that the Hersh story will create tension between the U.S. and Germany in particular," Mark N. Katz told Newsweek.

Moscow's objective would be that such tension would then "undermine German military support for Ukraine," Katz, a professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, added.

Hersh's story has been called "utterly false" by a White House spokesperson. However, Russia immediately seized on the report and has used Hersh's claims as a major talking point.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov were among the Russian officials who have publicly called on the U.S. to address the claims made in the story.

In his remarks, Peskov praised Hersh and noted Russia had previously said the U.S. or United Kingdom was likely behind the attack on the pipelines, according to the Russian state-owned outlet RT. Peskov also said the story should "provoke the acceleration of the international probe."

"It's classic information warfare," political science professor at Northwestern University William Reno told Newsweek.

Reno continued, "Critical and inconvenient interventions such as Hersh's story are inherent in a free press and are 'vulnerabilities' that authoritarian adversaries don't possess. Putin is leveraging that advantage, as he does with Tucker Carlson's statements."

"I think for the target audiences for Putin, which is to say for Western Europeans, this is definitely useful," Catholic University of America history professor Michael Kimmage said to Newsweek about the Hersh story.

However, Kimmage noted that Hersh's article may only have "limited value."

"Putin is still living under a mountain of bad press. All the imagery that comes from the war, the war crimes—he would need a lot more than this particular story," Kimmage said.

"At the very least, what it does for Russia is it changes the subject. So people are not talking about what's happening on the territory of Ukraine," Kimmage added. "They're talking about the U.S., U.S. overreach and U.S. mischief, and that's greatly valuable to Russia."