The paper claims the CIA pressured the Ukrainian leader to withdraw permission to target the key pipelines in 2022
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved a plan to sabotage the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines before attempting to cancel the operation under pressure from the US. However, the effort to stop the operation came too late, the Journal reports, citing individuals allegedly involved in the plot.
The energy infrastructure, designed to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe, was damaged by explosions beneath the Baltic Sea in September 2022.
Early in 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that explosives were planted on the Nord Stream pipelines by US Navy divers under the cover of a NATO exercise, and detonated on orders from US President Joe Biden. Top officials in Moscow, including President Vladimir Putin, have also pointed the finger at Washington, arguing that it stood to gain the most from the disruption of Russian gas supplies to the EU.
In its Wednesday article, the WSJ presented a different version of events, alleging that the Ukrainians were responsible for targeting the pipelines. This account was first reported by Western media shortly after Hersh’s article was published.
According to the outlet’s sources, the idea of blowing up Nord Stream was conceived by “a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen” who met for drinks in May 2022, a few months after the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The plotters believed that the sabotage would reduce Russia’s energy revenues and make the EU less dependent on Moscow.
The report claims that the Ukrainian operation involved a small rented yacht named Andromeda, with a six-member crew including trained civilian divers, and cost only about $300,000.
Vladimir Zelensky initially approved the attack on the pipelines, but later, when the CIA learned of the plan and asked the Ukrainian leader to call it off, he ordered the operation to be stopped, according to a Ukrainian officer who claimed to have been involved in the sabotage and three other individuals with knowledge of the event.
However, sources allege that the then Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny ignored the demand and proceeded with the attack. He reportedly told Zelensky that, once dispatched, a sabotage team goes incommunicado and cannot be recalled.
When contacted by the WSJ for comment, Zaluzhny, who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, denied the report, calling claims of his – or Kiev’s – involvement in the destruction of Nord Stream a “mere provocation.”
The outlet stated that its sources’ account is partially corroborated by findings from the German police investigation into the Nord Stream explosions. It warned that this investigation could “upend” relations between Kiev and Berlin, which has been Ukraine’s biggest supporter in the EU amid the conflict with Russia.