The claim by a discredited journalist that the US secretly blew up the Nord Stream pipeline is proving a gift to Putin

• Once-celebrated journalist Seymour Hersh made unproven claims the US blew up the Nord Stream pipelines.
• Hersh won a Pulitzer in 1970, but his more recent work has come under sharp criticism.
• But Russia pounced on his claim, swiftly endorsing it despite there being no current evidence of its truth.

A journalist's heavily disputed claim on Wednesday that the US government blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipelines sparked a flat rejection from the White House — and glee from the Kremlin.