I am aware of that story. I'm also aware of Seymour Hersh's story.

The reason I lean towards the USA explanation is because I fully expected the USA to do it for at least a year prior to it happening. In fact I said many times when other events happened in that area that "Oh, that's just a USA excuse so they can bomb the nord stream like they've been drooling about for years". It was very clear the USA wanted it gone. The USA sanctioned German companies that worked on it. The USA spoke bitterly about it (especially Victoria Nuland). They even said that if Russia invaded, they would blow it up. I don't forget these things. I'm not going to just believe some story about 6 Ukrainians after all that lead up that very clearly implicates the USA in any future (now past) bombing of the Nord Stream.