It's impossible to completely rule out some sort of US sponsored covert action, but that seems highly unlikely. The risks outweigh any possible rewards. If the operation went wrong and got exposed the political fallout would be catastrophic.

Right now the US is the only country really "winning" the war in Ukraine so there's no need to do anything so crazy.

> If the operation went wrong and got exposed the political fallout would be catastrophic.

No worse than the US blatantly overthrowing numerous democratically-elected governments. There was zero fallout for any of that.

The US has long considered itself immune to criticism when it comes to crimes against humanity, such as this.

Watching Americans fall over themselves to deny this fact is not fun, at all. It seems we are indeed destined for further fallout as a result ..

The US has done terrible things nonstop the past decades and it hasn’t suffered from any kind of political fallout.

Ah, this analysis is in the same ballpark as misinterepting what Bill Gates said about vaccines and lowering the rate of population growth in Africa as "Bill Gates wants to lower the population in Africa!" and then concluding that Bill Gates started Covid so he can vaccinate and kill people, "see, he even stated so!".

Nord stream 2 had already been halted; Biden already got what he wanted. Far more likely IMO is that Putin did it hoping to blame it on the US to divide NATO.

NS2 was completed and ready for use, in spite of the US' worst efforts over the years to prevent its completion. The only issue keeping NS2 from usage was policy, and there is a great risk that the US' will not get its way, policy-wise, over Europe.

So destruction ensured the NS2 would not be used for peaceful energy economy between Russia and Europe.