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The United States had information on a detailed Ukrainian plan to attack the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines three months before it was bombed, the Washington Post reported on June 6, citing the leaked information published on Discord. The newspaper reported that the CIA learned via a European spy agency last June that a six-person Ukrainian special operations forces team intended to sabotage the Russia-to-Germany natural gas project.
The Russian gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2, responsible for exporting gas to Europe, were attacked on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden did not rule out the possibility of targeted sabotage at the time.
On February 8, US journalist Seymour Hersh released his version that the explosives in the gas pipelines were planted by US specialists, supported by Norwegian divers, under the cover of the BALTOPS 2022 exercise of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which took place in June 2022. He believes the operation was carried out under direct orders from the White House.
However, in May of this year, Spiegel magazine reported that investigators had found metadata linking Ukraine to the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines following the booking of the Andromeda yacht.
Now, the Washington Post is the latest media outlet to provide evidence of Ukrainian complicity in the Nord Stream attacks by citing a plan collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. As the newspaper reported, the plans “provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.”
“The intelligence report was based on information obtained from an individual in Ukraine. The source’s information could not immediately be corroborated, but the CIA shared the report with Germany and other European countries last June, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence operations and diplomatic discussions,” the article continues.
The report shows that Germany had ample warning about the sabotage attack and makes a mockery of Washington’s accusation that Russia is responsible. It is recalled that US President Joe Biden called the Nord Stream attack “a deliberate act of sabotage” and promised to work with US allies “to get to the bottom of exactly what … happened.” Russia was also accused at the time of wanting to strangle the flow of energy with the winter approaching to “blackmail” European countries into withdrawing their financial and military support for Ukraine and not imposing further sanctions.
For these reasons, it is unsurprising that Ukrainian officials, the White House, and the CIA declined to comment on questions made by the media about the leaked document. For his part, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby dodged the question on June 6.
“I think you know there are three countries conducting an investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage — and we called it sabotage at the moment — Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. Those investigations are ongoing and again the last thing that we’re going to want to do from this podium is get ahead of those investigations,” Kirby said.
According to the Washington Post,
“Biden administration officials now privately concede there is no evidence that conclusively points to Moscow’s involvement. But publicly they have deflected questions about who might be responsible. European officials in several countries have quietly suggested that Ukraine was behind the attack but have resisted publicly saying so over fears that blaming Kyiv could fracture the alliance against Russia. At gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm; as one senior European diplomat said recently, ‘Don’t talk about Nord Stream.’”
German investigators believe six individuals used fake passports, rented a sailing yacht in September, and embarked from Germany to plant explosives on the pipelines. Investigators matched explosive residue found on the pipeline to traces found inside the cabin of the Andromeda. The investigators have also linked Ukrainian individuals to Andromeda via a Polish front company.
This demonstrates that the US has successfully subdued Germany to serve its interests since the European country is now suffering from an immense economic and energy crisis. The European Commission announced in May that Germany would be among the eurozone’s slowest-growing economies in 2023 due to high energy costs and the EU’s carbon prices. However, despite this economic crisis, Germany remains undeterred in supporting Ukraine even though the war-torn country is directly responsible for sabotaging energy flows, security, and prices by attacking the Nord Stream pipelines.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Featured image is from InfoBrics
