(Daily Mail) Senior Ukrainian military officers hatched the daring plan to blow up Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines during ‘a night of heavy boozing’, an investigation has claimed.
The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
The blasts wrecked three out of four pipelines, which had become a controversial symbol of German reliance on Russian gas in the wake of Moscow‘s invasion of Ukraine, and triggered wild speculation over the possible culprit – not to mention a continental energy crisis.
But now, a Ukrainian military officer allegedly involved in the operation told the Wall Street Journal the sabotage – pulled off with a single yacht, a six-person crew, rudimentary diving equipment and a set of light explosives – was dreamt up by a few Ukrainian military men amid an alcohol-fuelled bash.
‘I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,’ the officer said.
‘The whole thing was born out of a night of heavy boozing and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the guts to risk their lives for their country.’
One officer who participated and three other sources familiar with the plan told WSJ it was initially approved by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but said that former armed forces commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny instructed the team to forge on with the attack when Zelensky got cold feet.
Gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 leak reaching surface of the Baltic Sea in the area shows a disturbance of well over one kilometre in diameter near Bornholm, Denmark, September 27, 2022
A video shared by Norwegian underwater drone company Blueye shows extensive damage to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline following the attack in September 2022
Ukrainian general Valery Zaluzhny, former armed forces commander-in-chief and now ambassador to the UK, allegedly told the crew to carry out the attack on Nord Stream even after Zelensky got cold feet
The Andromeda, a 50-foot Bavaria 50 Cruiser recreational sailing yacht, is the vessel German investigators believe was used by the crew who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines
Ukrainian suspects are accused of transporting the explosives used in the attack in a 50ft sailing yacht called the Andromeda, according to investigations conducted by Germany and revealed by German media.
The WSJ investigation revealed that, having agreed their intention of blowing up Nord Stream, the Ukrainian officers studied an old plot conceived by Ukrainian intelligence and Western experts to attack the pipelines following the annexation of Crimea, but they quickly dismissed this approach due to its high cost.
Instead, a simpler plan was devised involving a six-person team who would use a small sailing boat – the Andromeda – to carry out the mission, supposedly with help from a Polish travel agency linked to Ukrainian intelligence.
The team included an experienced military skipper and several divers, who were equipped with their diving gear and explosives, along with sonar and maps of the sea bed.
Two of the divers were husband and wife, with sources telling WSJ the presence of a woman on board made the crew’s disguise as friends on a yachting holiday more plausible.
Setting out from the Baltic Sea port of Rostock, poor weather forced the crew to make a brief stop at the Swedish port of Sandhamn, where one diver accidentally dropped an explosive device into the sea.
The team considered aborting the mission but decided to press on once the weather cleared, successfully navigating the Baltic Sea’s dark, icy waters to reach the pipelines where they planted powerful HMX explosives.
In June 2023, Zelensky insisted Kyiv knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines.
‘I did nothing like that. I would never do that,’ he said in an interview with Germany’s BILD.
But sources told the WSJ that Zelensky was fully aware of the plan and initially gave it the green light, only to back out later after the CIA got wind of the mission and asked him to pull the plug.
The CIA was reportedly informed about the monumental sabotage mission by Dutch intelligence agency MIVD, which sources claim had developed a robust intelligence-gathering capacity in Ukraine due to its involvement in the investigation of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.
General Zaluzhny, his commander-in-chief at the time and now ambassador to the UK, allegedly defied Zelensky’s orders and told the crew to carry out the attack anyway.
Zaluzhny himself dismissed these claims made by the WSJ as ‘a mere provocation’, as Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak denied his country’s involvement and instead pointed the finger at Russia.
‘Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources… and who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia,’ Podolyak said.
Meanwhile, Dr Huseyn Aliyev, an expert in conflict and security in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union at the University of Glasgow’s Central and Eastern European Studies, cautioned that the claims raised in the WSJ investigation were ‘based on anecdotal evidence’ and described them as ‘difficult to believe’.
‘It is difficult to believe that, if Ukraine indeed planned this operation at the highest level, no communication took place with the German side.
‘I also find it difficult to believe that operation of that scale and magnitude was allegedly handled by the Ukrainian Army Chief Gen Zaluzhny, rather than the Military Intelligence (GUR) or Security Services (SBU), which to this date were in charge of all sabotage activities against Russia,’ he said, though noted that a former SBU agent was reportedly involved in planning the attack.
This handout picture taken and released on September 29, 2022 shows the release of gas emanating from a leak on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
Aerial photo provided by the Swedish Coast Guard on Sept. 27, 2022 shows the gas leak from Nord Stream in the Baltic Sea
