A top Ukrainian general ignored President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s orders and went ahead with a plan to blow up a Russian gas pipeline — an operation born out of a “heavy boozing” session by officials, several Ukrainian officials and people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.
Speculation has surrounded the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, an underwater pipeline system carrying gas directly from Russia to Germany, which suffered mysterious explosion damage in 2022. While no perpetrator has been officially named by the U.S., four senior Ukrainian defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the WSJ that they had participated in or had direct knowledge of the destruction of the pipeline in an operation that both Zelenskyy and the CIA tried to stop, but failed.
“I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,” one officer involved in the operation told the WSJ. “The whole thing was born out of a night of heavy boozing and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the guts to risk their lives for their country.”
Ukrainian military officers and businessmen gathered at a bar in May 2022 to celebrate their country’s success in stonewalling Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and came up with the idea to destroy the pipeline, having considered it a legitimate military target, according to the WSJ. The businessmen agreed to fund the operation, which would end up costing $300,000, and top Ukrainian Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy would lead the effort.
Zelenskyy greenlit the plan within days, the four officials told the WSJ. But the CIA learned of the plot after being tipped off by a European intelligence agency the following month and quickly warned Zelenskyy’s office to stop the operation, U.S. officials and people with direct knowledge of the matter told the WSJ.
Zelenskyy subsequently ordered Zaluzhniy to put a halt to the plan, but Zaluzhniy ignored Zelenskyy and carried on with the operation, according to Ukrainian and Western officials familiar with the conversation who spoke to the WSJ. Zaluzhniy tasked special operation officers to help craft the plan, which was modified to cut down on costs and complexities.
Zaluzhniy and the team rented a small yacht in September 2022 and recruited military and civilian divers to plunge hundreds of feet underwater, plant high-ordnance explosives on the pipe and blow it open, according to Ukrainian officials and people with direct knowledge of the matter. The plan was successfully carried out on September 26, 2022.
The fallout from the sabotage of the pipeline resulted in soaring energy prices across Europe and quickly prompted accusations of sabotage from Russia and the West. Zelenskyy privately berated Zaluzhniy but was met with indignance as Zaluzhniy claimed it was impossible to stop the operation once it was in motion, according to three people familiar with the discussion speaking to the WSJ.
“He was told it’s like a torpedo—once you fire it at the enemy, you can’t pull it back again, it just keeps going until it goes ‘boom,’ ” a senior officer familiar with the conversation told the WSJ.
A senior officer in Ukraine’s intelligence agency told the WSJ that Kyiv had no part in the sabotage and that Zelenskyy “did not approve the implementation of any such actions on the territory of third countries and did not issue relevant orders.” Zaluzhniy, who was fired from his military post this year and is now a diplomat for Kyiv, told the WSJ that he knew nothing of the operation and the suggestion that he was involved was a “mere provocation,” adding that Ukraine’s armed forces weren’t allowed to conduct operations overseas to begin with.
Germany, which was informed by the U.S. of the plan around the same time the CIA warned Zelenskyy against it, has been carrying out a two-year investigation into the matter, pouring over physical and digital evidence and potential witness testimony, according to several officials and people familiar with the probe. Germany’s federal prosecutor quietly filed an arrest warrant in June against a Ukrainian diving instructor for his involvement in the plot, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ.
Public reports of the arrest warrant against the diving instructor emerged on Wednesday. He has not yet been arrested because he traveled to Ukraine in July, according to Politico EU.
Kyiv publicly maintains that it had no role in the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.
“Ukraine’s involvement in the Nord Stream explosions is absolute nonsense. There was no practical sense in such actions for Ukraine,” presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak told Agence France-Presse (AFP), according to Barron’s.
Featured Image Credit: DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders
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