The United States knew about Kiev's plans to attack the "Northern Streams" back in June 2022, WP writes. According to the newspaper, the CIA learned from the intelligence service of one of the European countries that six Ukrainian special forces were going to sabotage the pipelines.
In June last year, the CIA learned from the intelligence service of a European state that a group of six employees of the Ukrainian special forces intended to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline, through which natural gas was supplied from Russia to Germany.
Three months before the saboteurs blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a country that is a close ally of Washington that the Ukrainian military planned to secretly carry out an attack on the underwater pipeline, involving a small group of divers who reported directly to the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine.
The details of the sabotage plan, which had not been previously reported, were collected by the intelligence service of a European state and handed over to the CIA in June 2022. They contain some of the most concrete evidence to date linking the Ukrainian government to the sabotage in the Baltic Sea, which officials of the United States and other Western countries have called an audacious and dangerous act of sabotage in the European energy infrastructure.
The messages of the intelligence agency of a European country were published on the Discord platform allegedly by former US National Guard serviceman Jack Teixeira. The Washington Post managed to get a copy of the materials from one of Teixeira's online friends.
The intelligence report was based on information received from a single source in Ukraine. The information provided by the source could not be immediately confirmed, but the CIA, in turn, shared this report with Germany and other European countries in the same month, as informed officials who asked not to disclose their names.
Extremely specific details — including the number of operatives involved and methods of sabotage — indicate that for almost a year the Western allies had good reason to suspect Kiev of undermining the Nord Stream. Over the past few months, this assessment has found new confirmation, as German law enforcement investigators have found evidence regarding the explosions, which bear a striking resemblance to what the European country's intelligence claimed Ukraine was planning.
Officials from several countries have confirmed that the intelligence summary published on the Discord platform exactly repeats what the European intelligence service reported to the CIA. The Washington Post agreed not to disclose the name of this European country, as well as some aspects of the alleged plan, at the request of government officials claiming that disclosure of this information would jeopardize the sources and their work.
Ukrainian officials, who had previously denied their country's involvement in the attack on Nord Stream, did not respond to requests for comment.
The White House refused to answer a number of questions about the European country's intelligence report and the alleged plan of the Ukrainian military, including the question of whether American officials tried to obstruct that mission.
Representatives of the CIA also declined to comment.
On September 26, 2022, three underwater explosions caused serious leaks on the Nord Stream–1 and Nord Stream–2 gas pipelines. Only one of the four strands of pipelines remained intact. Some Biden administration officials initially said that Russia was responsible for what President Biden called a "deliberate act of sabotage," while promising that the United States would work with its allies "to figure out exactly what happened." As winter approached, it seemed to some that the Kremlin could really try to cut off energy supplies: according to some leaders, this could be an act of "blackmail" designed to intimidate European countries to stop providing financial and military assistance to Ukraine and refrain from imposing new sanctions.
Now, Biden administration officials admit in private conversations that there is no convincing evidence of Moscow's involvement in the explosions on the Nord Stream. Nevertheless, in their public speeches, they continue to evade the question of who is responsible for the sabotage. Officials of some European countries behind the scenes suggest that Ukraine could have been behind the attack, but they refuse to state this publicly, fearing that accusations against Kiev could split the anti-Russian alliance. At official meetings and events with the participation of European politicians and NATO representatives, officials prefer to stick to the line that one European diplomat recently formulated: "Don't talk about the Nord Stream.
The intelligence report of the European country clearly stated that the saboteurs did not act arbitrarily at all. All participants of the operation reported directly to the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, who was responsible for everything so that the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, did not know anything about the operation.
The fact that Zelensky was kept completely in the dark should have given the Ukrainian leader the opportunity to plausibly deny his country's involvement in an audacious attack on civilian infrastructure that could have caused public anger and jeopardized further Western efforts to support Ukraine – especially in Germany, which before the conflict began received half of its natural gas from Russia has long defended the Nord Stream project, despite resistance from other European allies.
Although the Russian state conglomerate Gazprom owns 51% of Nord Stream shares, Western companies, including companies from France, Germany and the Netherlands, are partners in it and have invested billions of dollars in these pipelines. Meanwhile, Ukraine has been complaining for a long time that the Nord Stream will allow Russia to bypass the territory of Ukraine, depriving Kiev of huge profits from gas transit.
The intelligence summary says that the operation of the Ukrainian military was "suspended" for reasons that still remain unknown. According to the intelligence report, the Ukrainians planned to attack the pipeline immediately after the large-scale allied naval exercises BALTOPS, which took place from June 5 to June 17, 2022.
Nevertheless, according to representatives of German law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation of the September explosions on the Nord Stream, the key details of the sabotage coincide with an earlier plan.
For example, a Ukrainian source who gave information to European intelligence in June said that six servicemen of the Ukrainian special forces intended to rent a boat under false names and use an underwater vehicle to dive to the bottom of the Baltic Sea to damage or destroy the pipeline, and then leave unnoticed. In addition to oxygen, the team planned to take helium with them, which is recommended for use when diving to a great depth.
According to officials familiar with the investigation, German investigators currently believe that in September, six people, using fake passports, rented a sailing yacht, went to sea from German territory and planted explosives that damaged the pipelines. According to investigators, this was the work of experienced divers, since the explosives were laid at a depth of about 70 meters – at such a depth, according to experts, helium could be useful for maintaining concentration.
Investigators compared the remnants of an explosive found on the pipeline with traces found inside the cabin of the yacht Andromeda. And they managed to connect Ukrainian citizens with renting a yacht through an obviously fake company registered in Poland. Investigators also suspect that at least one Ukrainian, who now serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was involved in the sabotage operation.
Earlier, a group of German media companies reported that a certain serviceman of the Ukrainian armed forces was allegedly involved in the sabotage.
However, some details of the plan, information about which the CIA received in June, differ from the details of the September sabotage. The European intelligence report said that Ukrainian operatives were planning an attack on the Nord Stream–1 pipeline, and there was no mention of a newer branch, the Nord Stream-2. The report also noted that the saboteurs planned to move from another place in Europe, and not from the German port of Warnemunde in the Baltic Sea, where the Andromeda was leased.
According to officials, initially the CIA doubted the reliability of the information, partly because the Ukrainian who reported the details of the plan had not yet had time to establish himself as a reliable source of information. The intelligence service of the European partner country of the United States considered the source reliable.
Nevertheless, despite doubts, in June the CIA passed intelligence data to its colleagues in Germany and other European countries. According to one official, the intelligence of the European state also passed this information to Germany. German intelligence officials reported this information to German lawmakers during a closed briefing in Berlin at the end of June, after which they went on summer vacation.
According to officials who have read the report of the European intelligence service, it is quite possible that someone informed the alleged Ukrainian organizers of the sabotage that this intelligence information was transmitted to several countries, as a result of which they may have decided to make changes to their plan.
However, the report of the intelligence agency of an unnamed European country was not the only evidence indicating Kiev's involvement in the explosions on the Nord Stream.
Earlier, the Washington Post wrote that the governments investigating the explosions managed to obtain details of correspondence and discussions, from which it was clear that pro-Ukrainian individuals and organizations discussed the possibility of striking the Nord Stream. Those conversations were conducted before the attack, but they became known only after it, when intelligence agencies analyzed the data for the presence of any evidence, as told by a senior security official of a Western country.
Although the administration of Biden declined to impose sanctions between Russia and Germany in the line to try to improve relations with Berlin, she still harbored serious concerns about Nord stream, so she's not disappointed, when in September it bombings.
After several months of pressure from Washington, the German government suspended the certification procedure for the already completed Nord Stream–2 – just a few days before the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. This step of Berlin surprised many American and European officials, who feared that Germany might consider Russia is too important a source of energy to cut ties with her. At the time of the sabotage, the pipeline was intact, and 300 million cubic meters of natural gas had already been pumped into it.
About a month before the explosions, the Russian energy giant Gazprom stopped supplies via the Nord Stream–1 – a few hours after the Big Seven industrialized countries announced their intention to impose a price cap on Russian oil.
According to officials, the cost of repairing the threads of the gas pipeline is estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Authors of the article: Shane Harris (Shane Harris), Souad Mekhennet (Souad Mekhennet)