The US Central Intelligence Service CIA appealed to Ukraine in June of last year that Ukraine would not blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Dutch public broadcaster According to NOS The United States received information about Ukraine’s plans from the Dutch intelligence and security service.
The matter became clear when NOS investigated the case in cooperation with the German broadcasting company ARD and the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
According to the intelligence collected by MIVD, the Dutch intelligence and security service, the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces would have been responsible for the attack planned for June Valery Zaluzhnyi. A few divers were supposed to carry out the attack using a small sailboat. The attack was intended to be done completely in secret by the president From Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to the public broadcaster, MIVD’s role in the case is significant, as it managed to collect detailed information about Ukraine’s intentions before others. However, MIVD has never agreed to comment on the matter.
Ukraine finally decided to abandon the attack planned for June, possibly because of a warning from the United States. According to the sources of the Dutch Broadcasting Corporation, the CIA was not aware that Ukraine had planned a new attack at a later date.
The undersea gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany were finally blown up last September, three months after the US warning.
There have been numerous theories about the attacks
It is still not certain who is behind the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines. Numerous different theories have been put forward about it. We present the theories here.
1. Russia?
At first, Russia was suspected of the attack. The claim is supported by a report made by the Nordic broadcasting companies, according to which Russian ships were close to gas pipeline explosion sites at least three times in the months before the explosion. The last visit to the area took place less than a week before the explosions.
At that time, a vessel was spotted in the area, which is used as a support and rescue vessel in submarine operations.
2. The United States?
In February, a US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh argued, that the CIA had carried out a secret operation commissioned by the White House to sabotage gas pipelines. According to Hersh, Norway would have assisted the United States in the operation.
Before the war of aggression began, the President of the United States Joe Biden stated that the Nord Stream project is a thing of the past if Russia attacks Ukraine.
– I promise that we have the means for it, Biden threatened at the time.
3. Ukraine?
Recently, in the investigation of the explosions, there have been more and more indications that Ukraine was somehow involved in the case.
In March, the newspaper New York Times reported that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions. The newspaper’s information was based on official sources who spoke anonymously.
German police later claimed to have identified a vessel used to transport explosives and divers to the Nord Stream gas pipeline. The ship was chartered by a Polish company owned by two Ukrainian citizens.
The German broadcasting company ARD also reported in May that investigators had succeeded in tracing the boat that moved near the site of the attack through covert companies to Ukraine and its army.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi has vehemently denied all allegations of Ukrainian involvement.
Expert: the new information doesn’t change anything
Sweden has led the investigation into the Nord Stream explosions together with Denmark and Germany.
A Swedish intelligence expert who closely followed the investigation of the Nord Stream explosions Joachim von Braun believes that the information spread by NOS about Ukraine’s plans to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines is true.
– I consider the new information very reliable and believable.
However, according to Von Braun, the new information does not change his understanding of the events.
Both the United States and Ukraine may have had their own interests that could have seen them benefit from blowing up the pipelines. The United States has sought a stronger foothold in the European energy market, and the country has received increased gas exports to the European continent as a result of the war of aggression. In an article published in February, Seymour Hersh claimed that Joe Biden was worried that the Baltic Sea gas pipelines would reduce Europe’s dependence on the United States as an energy supplier.
Zelenskyi, on the other hand, has opposed the Nord Stream 2 project from the beginning and said that the project is a threat to the whole of Europe.
However, Von Braun believes in the guilt of Russia, not Ukraine or the United States.
– At the time of the explosions, the export of gas through the pipes had already stopped, and I believe that Zelensky understood that there was no point in carrying out the operation.
– After the gas deliveries stopped, the project worth billions of euros had become worth trash to Russia, and the blowing up of the pipes in itself did not cause them much damage. I believe that by blowing up the pipes, Russia wanted to show that it is capable of blowing up other things if necessary.
Von Braun reminds us that the vast majority of the world’s network cables run in one sea, the North Atlantic. If Russia were to decide to cut the cables in question, it could cut off network connections to almost the entire world.
In addition, Russian military and civilian ships are known to have surveyed the critical infrastructure of the seabed in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, such as gas pipelines, telecommunications cables, and wind farm electricity cables.
– Russia is the only country in the entire world that has submarines capable of carrying out various operations at a depth of up to six kilometers, von Braun reminds.
Von Braun also wants to remind you of other things that point to Russia’s culpability in the Nord Stream attacks.
– At the time of the NATO exercises preceding the explosions, six Russian ships were spotted in the Baltic Sea. It is likely that the countries that participated in the exercises got distracted following the movements of the Russian ships, in which case Russia used a sailboat rented from Poland to carry out the operation.
Von Braun also commented on information from the German police, according to which two Ukrainian citizens were involved in renting the sailboat used in the Nord Stream operation.
– The woman who owned the company that rented the boat was indeed born in Ukraine and was thus a citizen of the country. Later it turned out that he has also been a citizen of Russia for a long time. As far as I know, another person connected to the case also has a strong connection to Russia.