Nord Stream pipeline explosions

Seymour Hersh reported that an insider told him that the US used explosives to wreck the Nord Stream pipelines.

I did not believe that Putin did so. He got more power by shutting the pipelines and keeping the option to open them again, than by shutting them irrevocably.

This can be compared to burning the bridges or boats which your army could have used to retreat. An undamaged Nord Stream pipeline would have offered the EU a way to retreat from its boycott of Russian fossil fuel.