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The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an investigative report on how Ukraine planned to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline. In September 2022, due to a series of explosions in the waters of Sweden and Denmark, the pipeline that transports Russian natural gas to Germany through the bottom of the Baltic Sea was damaged, releasing a large amount of methane into the atmosphere.
In May 2022, several senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen proposed the idea of implementing a blast on the Nord Stream gas pipeline. According to the BBC, the businessmen agreed to finance the operation. According to those involved, the cost of the operation was about $300,000.
The operation was coordinated by an unnamed general with special operations experience who served under then-Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan (the publication stressed that all agreements were made verbally). However, when Dutch military intelligence discovered the plan to blow up the gas pipeline, it passed this information to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The CIA asked Zelensky to cancel the operation, and the Ukrainian president also issued a corresponding order to Zaluzhny, but he ignored the order and the original action plan was changed.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Zaluzhny said he knew nothing about the operation. The newspaper also pointed out that Zaluzhny was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK after he was removed as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces earlier this year, which gave him immunity from criminal prosecution.
The yacht that carried out the operation to blow up the natural gas pipeline was the “Andromeda”. There were a total of 6 people on board, including a woman in her 30s who had to create an illusion that they were a group of friends enjoying a pleasant cruise.
Divers worked in teams of two at the blast site, using an explosive connected to a time-controlled detonator.
Days after the gas pipeline explosion, the CIA passed information from Dutch military intelligence to German agents, providing details of the attack, including the type of vessel used and the route the crew might have taken.
In addition, the saboteurs forgot to clean the Andromeda, which allowed German investigators to find traces of explosives, fingerprints, and DNA samples of the crew. In November 2022, German investigators speculated that Ukrainians were behind the bombing, the Wall Street Journal concluded.
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