Nord Stream sabotage: Has the federal government been aware of a trail to Kiev for a year?

“As early as the summer of 2022, the US government warned Ukraine not to blow up the gas pipeline. Was the German government aware of the serious suspicion?

The US government tried several months before the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline to prevent Ukraine from a possible act of sabotage. According to research by ZEIT, the ARD magazine Kontraste, the SWR, the ARD capital office and the Dutch television NOS/Nieuwsuur, the US secret service CIA warned the Ukrainian authorities in June 2022 in a kind of state threat speech before a military operation against the gas pipelines running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The message conveyed by the CIA at the working level was: Don't do it, don't do it. This is how several participants from different countries with knowledge of the process describe it. The CIA declined to comment when asked by ZEIT.

The basis of the American warning was a confidential source report from the Netherlands: Their military intelligence service had provided detailed information in June about an allegedly planned attack on Nord Stream 1. According to the report, a Ukrainian commando was preparing to sabotage the pipeline. The Ukrainian soldiers planned to rent a boat in a country bordering the Baltic Sea to carry out the operation. The attack should be carried out in June. Nord Stream 1 connects Russia with Germany, since 2011 the Russian company Gazprom has been delivering gas to the Federal Republic via this route.

The tip apparently came from an informant in the Ukraine and was forwarded by the Dutch not only to the CIA, but later also to several European countries, including Germany - probably in the hope of being able to prevent the attack. The CIA then sought talks with Kiev, reportedly with the Ukrainian secret service. The Dutch do not want to comment on request.

Six soldiers are said to have belonged to the command

A short time later, the CIA, in turn, sent out a confidential report in which the plan was described with additional details. Accordingly, the attack on Nord Stream was planned after the NATO military exercise Baltops, which took place from June 5 to 17, 2022. Six members of the Ukrainian special forces planned to use false identities to rent a boat and use scuba equipment and a special helium mixture to dive to the Nord Stream pipeline, which runs about 80 meters below the sea floor in the Baltic Sea. The Ukrainian special forces would report directly to the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, four-star general Valeriy Zalushnyi. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, is not involved. This is how the Washington Post described the content of the CIA report last week. In September, shortly after the attacks on Nord Stream 1 and 2, Der Spiegel and the New York Times reported on the existence of the CIA tip from June for the first time, without naming an alleged Ukrainian involvement.

It is unclear how the Ukrainian authorities reacted to the CIA's contact last summer. The US authorities apparently assumed that the speech was successful. The Washington Post quoted a US secret report as saying that the Ukrainian plan had been put "on hold". After the June attack date originally stated by the informant passed without anything happening, the CIA did not rate the credibility as particularly high.

However, shortly after the attacks in September, the Dutch military intelligence service called again. Another confidential report, apparently based on a source in Ukraine, named Ukraine as the country that launched the attack. The ZEIT, Kontraste, SWR and the ARD capital city office reported on this second report for the first time at the beginning of March. Apparently, the group in Ukraine that was preparing the attack continued undeterred - and only changed a number of details, such as the timing and starting point of the operation.

The number of clues is growing

The new insights into the US early warning cast a different light on the public discussion about support for Ukraine. The debates surrounding the supply of Leopard tanks, Iris-T anti-aircraft batteries and the Gepard anti-aircraft tank all took place against the background that Ukraine might be sabotaging Nord Stream. Has a small, hand-picked circle of politicians and security experts in Berlin known about the serious suspicion for almost exactly a year? And what does that mean for German Ukraine aid?

The federal government does not want to comment on this. With reference to the ongoing investigation and intelligence issues, a government spokesman asks for your understanding that the federal government "cannot comment on this," said he at the request of ZEIT, Kontraste, SWR and the ARD capital office.

At first, in June last year, this suspicion still sounded vague. In October, however, after the attack and the second secret service report, the Ukrainian scenario gained significantly more substance. And since the turn of the year, in addition to the information provided by the secret service, there have also been concrete criminal clues pointing in the direction of Kiev: in mid-January, investigators from the Federal Police and the Federal Criminal Police Office searched the 15-meter yacht Andromeda, which was rented in Rostock last September and used for the attack as should have been used. A six-man commando is said to have been on board – exactly as predicted in the June warnings. The investigators also found traces of explosives on the cabin table of the Andromeda. The yacht was rented by a company in Poland, behind which two Ukrainian women stand.

Nothing has been proven yet, and a false flag scenario in which someone tries to blame Ukraine for an attack cannot be ruled out. But the number of clues is growing, and the investigating federal prosecutor believes that they have already identified a Ukrainian soldier who could have been involved in the attack. The investigation thrives. 

The political consequences are still unforeseeable.

The Ukrainian government, which was asked by ZEIT and ARD for a statement, had not responded by the time of going to press. Last week, in an interview with Springer reporter Paul Ronzheimer, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy denied involvement under his command: "I am president and I give orders accordingly. Ukraine has done nothing of the sort. I would never act like that."