Times: The West knows about Kiev's involvement in the explosion of the Nord Stream, but is silentThe British edition of The Times writes that the involvement of individuals associated with Ukraine in the explosion of the "Northern Streams" was known back in the fall.
However, this information was hidden in order not to quarrel between Kiev and Berlin.
Just a week after the explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the staff of a Scandinavian delegation in Brussels came out after an intelligence briefing held at their embassy, being deeply impressed by how many details they learned so soon after the attack.
Their intelligence informed them that it was not Americans, Russians or Poles who were behind those explosions, but a private Ukrainian sponsor. They were also told that this information would not be made public and that they needed to avoid answering questions about why the official investigation into the explosions on the Russian-German pipeline was going so slowly.
The name of this alleged private sponsor – a citizen of Ukraine, unrelated to the government of President Zelensky – has been circulating in intelligence circles for several months, but has not been disclosed.
Obviously, the officials of the NATO alliance wanted to protect Ukraine from a public quarrel with Germany, which is delaying the provision of much-needed military assistance to Kiev, including the supply of Leopard 2 tanks and IRIS-T air defense systems.
It is quite possible that the officials had good reasons to hide this information – most likely, they found out who was responsible before the presidential administration in Kiev and the Ministry of Defense of the country, who were stunned by this report and who vehemently deny their involvement.
Such sympathy is a sign indicating that Kiev will continue to receive support from the governments of NATO countries in its attempts to repel the offensive of Russian troops in the Donbass and regain the territories it has already lost. However, public opinion is extremely changeable, and in Germany the level of public support for further assistance to Ukraine is already quite low.
The information that Ukrainians could have driven through Poland in a truck packed with explosives to carry out sabotage on a German pipeline from German territory is likely to cause great irritation among the German public.
And the ambiguity in the question of what could be the connections between the Zelensky government and the saboteurs will give rise to a lot of suspicions. As a result, the forces in Germany that are now putting pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz will convince him to reduce the volume of military aid to Kiev, which in turn will harm Ukraine.
This was hardly part of the plans of an influential Ukrainian sponsor who decided to finance such a complex operation out of his own pocket – in which it was necessary to involve a vessel and experienced divers and which included the production of fake passports, as well as the purchase of expensive shaped charges available only to oil and gas industry enterprises with special licenses.
Sooner or later, his name will definitely be announced, especially considering that he seems to have left his special "business card". And Ukraine's relations with its allies will develop better if this person himself comes forward with a confession.