U.S. intelligence reportedly heard months before three explosions ripped through the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that Ukraine was planning a covert attack on the infrastructure.
The Biden administration received intelligence from a close European ally in June 2022 that Ukrainian special forces operatives being directed by Ukraine’s highest-ranking military official, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, were planning to sabotage the pipelines, according to The Washington Post. The U.S. intelligence document describing the intelligence was part of dozens of documents allegedly leaked online by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira.
The Nord Stream network has long been a point of consternation for Ukraine. The pipelines made Europe more reliant on Russian natural gas while at the same time bypassing Ukrainian pipelines that would have awarded the country some portion of the profits, if used.
The pipelines blew up last September in what international investigators said appeared to be an act of sabotage. The pipelines’ destruction ahead of winter caused widespread concern that Europe would not have enough energy to keep warm when temperatures dropped. Russia, by that time, had severely restricted the amount of fuel it was sending to Europe through the pipelines in what was likely retaliation for Europe’s support of Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.
The plan, given to the CIA, involved a team of six Ukraine special forces members and was being run by Zaluzhny, according to the intelligence. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was to be kept in the dark about the operation.
Investigators have not determined if Ukraine planned and carried out the September attack on the pipeline. The operation outlined to U.S. intelligence three months before the attack shares significant similarities with how German investigators understand the operation to have happened.
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German investigators said in March that a group of six men who used fake passports to rent a yacht and sail around the Baltic Sea are suspected of planting explosives on the pipelines. The plan outlined to U.S. intelligence in June 2022 said six operatives using fake IDs would rent a boat and use a submersible to reach the bottom of the sea and sabotage the pipelines, according to the Post.
U.S. officials said in March that new intelligence pointed to a “pro-Ukrainian group” being behind the attack, The New York Times reported. Those officials reportedly did not have conclusive evidence linking the sabotage to Zelensky or his top lieutenants.
The revelation about the June U.S. intelligence report comes as Ukraine appears to be launching its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russia to reclaim eastern areas of the country still under Russian occupation.