Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly sabotaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to escalate the Russia-Ukraine conflict, top intelligence expert John Jordan claims.
During an interview on Newsmax’s “John Bachman Now,” Jordan said that Putin has two goals in mind behind the alleged destruction of the pipelines: disrupting the shipments of weapons to Ukraine and dividing Western countries.
“This is what they’re trying to do: Raise the temperature, increase the fear level in Europe — both in terms of escalation in the nuclear domain — as well as threaten widening the war into the Baltic and threatening to undermine or negate Europe’s efforts to mitigate the loss of Russian natural gas,” Jordan said.
“Because they can’t win on the battlefield, they have to win in these other spheres; and that’s what they’re trying to do,” he added.
Jordan also blasted Fox News’s Tucker Carlson for suggesting that President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military to “blow up” the pipelines despite never saying so.
“If you are Vladimir Putin, you would have to be a suicidal moron to blow up your own energy pipeline. That’s one thing you would never do,” Carlson said Wednesday. “Natural gas pipelines are the main source of your power and wealth — and, most critically, your leverage over other countries.”
“Blowing up Nord Stream does not help Vladimir Putin,” he added. “He would not do that. Why would he? But that doesn’t mean that other countries wouldn’t consider doing it. They would consider it, and we know they have considered it because at least one of them has said so in public.”
The intelligence expert slammed the claim as Carlson doing another “shark-jumping exercise,” noting the anchor’s pro-Russia views.
“The best way to understand this is the Russians’ natural passion for chess,” said Jordan. “In chess, oftentimes you sacrifice a pawn as part of a greater plan. In the case of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the Russians understand in the intermediate to perhaps long term, those are of no value to them.
“They’re not pumping gas into Europe,” he continued. “They’re not selling gas to them. In fact, the Trump administration had sanctioned Nord Stream 2, and the Biden administration had released the sanctions. That said, the Russians know they don’t need them, but they want to send a message — but do so in this classic, Russian, gray zone, warfare way.”
The Trump administration previously placed sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, halting its construction. However, Biden lifted those sanctions last year, allowing its development to continue.
