No, Ukrainians bombed it for their own reasons and not on behalf of the US.
The exact reasons aren't entirely clear, originally they hated NS because it allowed Europe to ignore Ukraine in the gas trade which left them more exposed. By the time of the full scale war I would bet the reason was more "fuck Russia" than anything more carefully reasoned.
Anything that makes it harder for Russia to make foreign currency and decrease the demand for Rubles is a strategic win for Ukraine.
If it significantly harms the people helping them or curries disfavour towards Ukraine then it could be strategically misguided.
(Not saying that's the case here, all considered)
Those are smaller second order effects. Gutting the income to the Russian war machine is the first order effect and a clear win for Ukraine.
Nord Stream 1 started operations in 2011. For 11 years money was flowing and the Russian army was in terrible shape in 2022. Now, without the Nord Stream money, it is in better shape.
When the pipeline was sabotaged, no gas and no money were flowing anyway, which makes it even more absurd. There is a very high likelihood that the front lines would be in the exact same place if Nord Stream had not been sabotaged.
Except of course, the EU would have had more leverage in negotiating LNG deals with the US and Qatar rather than making emergency deals.
EDIT: Downvoted while the Ukrainian transit pipelines were open from 2014-2025 and yielded Russian transit fees. And while Nord Stream was built partly because Ukraine stole Russian transit gas in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
On the other hand: there's a global superpower doing horrific war crimes to Ukraine. I think they're justified in doing whatever it takes even if you don't like it.
Nord Stream money is being replaced by China in the new gas deal:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-china-bless-v...
So Russia can now export gas, get foreign currency, and buy weapons with the money. I do not see any strategic wins here.
Additionally, China gets an economic boost. That is a sublime strategy.
Three points there:
1. Power of Syberia 1 throughput is not fully utilized.
2. China pays half of the EU price.
3. Power of Syberia 2 not be build in the near future. It's not the deal to actually do something. It's too continue further discussion.
The devil is in the details. The conditions that China wants aren't very lucrative to Russians, and the second pipeline, if it is even built, will take about a decade to build, so not "now".
Russian negotiating position is weak and Beijing knows that.
Russia selling gas to China is completely orthogonal to Nord Stream issue.
The strategic win in bombing Nord Stream was that Ukraine finally got Europe on their side. Before NS was blown up many countries, especially Germany were sitting on the fence, reluctant to give Ukraine any help. They were hoping for Ukraine to lose the war quickly, then they would give Putin some slap on the wrist punishment, and return to "business as usual" with Russia. Nord Stream being destroyed removed the biggest incentive for doing that.
Is there some credible reason to actually believe this?
That Ukrainians did it?
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/ukrainian-man-ar...
That they did it for their own motivations?
It seems at least as plausible that they did it because wanted to hurt Russia as it does that Washington ordered them to do it, to put it mildly. Washington has been supporting Ukraine during the war but has been rather reticent to support attacking Russian assets that are outside the territory of Ukraine.
The wonders of propaganda make it so that "Ukrainians bombed it" is given as an irrefutable fact, and not something that needs a lot of evidence.
Nobody remembers anymore that Pres. Biden himself said, “If Russia invades ... there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” [°] Nor that the very next day, a EU parliament member, and now Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski thanked the US for the sabotage [^]. Nor that the same day, a competing natural gas pipeline has opened, the Baltic Pipe [_].
None of this matters, because "Ukrainians bombed it". Because WaPo and WSJ said so. In a waterway that is heavily controlled by all kinds of NATO vessels. Where NATO had an exercise 3 months before that, called BALTOPS. Come on.
[°] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8
[^] https://archive.ph/20220927190022/https://twitter.com/radeks...
[_] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe
And let’s not forget the crazy analysis of Dr. Braun.[0]
0. https://hansbenjaminbraun.ch/nordstream.html
It's not only WaPo and WJS but investigations in Sweden and Germany. Read the reports.
"Nord Stream sabotage: Berlin issues arrest warrant for Ukrainian man"
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/14/n...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-is-known-about-nor...
My, admittedly layman, understanding is that it was a very difficult thing to do from a technical perspective. And that there are very few countries that have technical capabilities to accomplish this. Ukraine is not one of them.
> it was a very difficult thing to do from a technical perspective
Why would you conclude this where every intelligence and law enforcement agency that has looked into it and published a report has found the opposite?
I have no basis to conclude anything in this matter. I saw multiple news reports/interviews to that effect. True/not - you get to decide based on news you hear.
Do you have a basis to conclude that "every intelligence and law enforcement agency that has looked into it and published a report has found the opposite"? You exhaustively went through all Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies and read their reports? So you are quoting other news articles/interviews. Apparently their views differed. Ok.