Zelenskyy initially approved Nord Stream blast, but then tried to cancel it after CIA intervention - WSJ
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved the operation to blow up "Nord Stream", but later tried to cancel it.
This is stated in the material of The Wall Street Journal, Censor.NET reports.
"In May 2022, several high-ranking Ukrainian military and businessmen gathered to celebrate their country's extraordinary success in stopping the Russian invasion. Buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervour, some suggested the next radical step: to destroy the Nord Stream," the publication writes.
Subsequently, an agreement was allegedly reached that businessmen would finance and help implement the project, as the army did not have the funds.
The Ukrainian operation cost about $300,000, according to people involved. It was a small rented yacht with a crew of six, including trained civilian divers. One was a woman whose presence helped create the illusion that they were a group of friends on a pleasure cruise.
"I always laugh when I read in the media speculation about some huge operation involving special services, submarines, drones and satellites. All of this was born out of a night of heavy drinking and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the courage to risk their lives for their country," said one of the officers involved in planning the operation.
Initially, President Zelenskyy approved the plan verbally, according to several sources, but later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the president to stop the operation, he ordered it to be halted.
At the same time, according to the newspaper, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, who allegedly oversaw the operation, decided to move forward with the plan.
He allegedly engaged the best Ukrainian special operations officers with experience in organising risky covert missions against Russia to coordinate the attack. One of them was Roman Chervinsky.
Zaluzhnyi told Zelenskyy that the sabotage team remained incommunicado after departure and could not be recalled, as any contact with them could compromise the operation.
Initially, Chervinsky and the sabotage team explored an older, more elaborate plan to blow up the pipeline. However, this idea was rejected due to its high cost and complexity. So they settled on using a small sailboat and a six-person crew.
One crew member was a military officer who had participated in combat operations and was an experienced captain. Four were deep-sea divers.
The divers had only diving equipment, satellite navigation, portable sonar and open seabed maps showing the pipelines' positions. The divers worked in the pitch black of the icy water with powerful explosives known as NMX, which were connected to timed detonators.
Due to bad weather, the crew had to stop in the Swedish port of Sandhamn. One diver accidentally dropped the explosive device on the seabed. The crew discussed aborting the operation due to bad weather, but the storm later subsided.
The publication spoke to four senior Ukrainian defence and security officials who were involved in or aware of the operation. All of them said that the pipelines were a legitimate target in Ukraine's defensive war against Russia.
Zaluzhnyi, who is currently Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, told the newspaper in an email that he had no knowledge of such an operation and that any suggestion to the contrary was ‘a simple provocation’.
He added that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not authorised to conduct foreign missions, and therefore he did not take part in them.
Undermining "Nord Stream"
As a reminder, at the end of September 2022, four leaks occurred on two lines of the "Nord Stream" gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm. An investigation showed that the pipelines were blown up by underwater explosives, but it remains unknown who was behind the explosions.
At the same time, Western media outlets have reported suggesting that non-governmental groups, including Russians and Ukrainians, could have been behind the explosion of the "Nord Stream" gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
Denmark, Sweden and Germany launched their own investigations into the incident.
The EU has not officially accused Russia of involvement in the gas pipeline explosions, but has not ruled out this possibility.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the United States, Ukraine, and Poland the beneficiaries of the sabotage of the "Nord Stream" pipelines, and before that, he accused the "Anglo-Saxons" of blowing up the pipelines.
In February 2024, Denmark announced that it was suspending its investigation into the 2022 explosions on Russian "Nord Stream" gas pipelines transporting gas to Germany due to a lack of evidence.
Earlier in February, Sweden suspended its investigation into the explosions, saying it had no jurisdiction over the case, but handed over the evidence to German investigators, who have yet to publish any conclusions.
On 14 August 2024, the media reported that Germany had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian suspected of blowing up "Nord Stream".
At the same time, the Polish prosecutor's office said that the suspect had left for Ukraine.
