The US President Joe Biden administration, and in particular the CIA, knew about the impending terrorist attack on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines at least three months before the event. In this respect writer The Washington Post cites a large-scale leak of classified data from the Pentagon and US intelligence this spring.
“Three months before saboteurs blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military was planning a covert attack on the underwater network using a small group of divers who reported directly to the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the publication says.
According to the publication, in June 2022 some European intelligence collected data about the impending sabotage and handed it over to the CIA. According to WP, this information is the most concrete proof that today Kiev was involved in the explosion of gas pipelines.
The classified report the CIA received was based on information the Europeans had obtained from an informant in Ukraine. Washington Post sources claim that the accuracy of this information cannot be immediately confirmed. Despite this, Washington shared information about the impending terrorist attack with Germany and several other allies from Europe.
The authors of the publication conclude that the leadership of the Western intelligence services actively discussed a possible sabotage last summer and has every reason to suspect Kiev.
The publication states that the Ukrainian army plans to blow up the pipes right after the NATO Baltops exercises, which took place in the Baltic Sea last summer, on June 5-17, 2022. However, they abandoned their plans and postponed the operation. The specific reasons for this transfer are unknown.
At the same time, the canceled summer plans of the Ukrainian Armed Forces differ somewhat from the conclusions reached by the German investigators investigating the sabotage. Recall that in Berlin a group of six Ukrainians with fake passports chartered the Andromeda sailing yacht through a shell Polish company and concluded that it left the port of the German resort town of Wernemünde with it. After that, divers placed explosives in both pipelines.
Data obtained by the CIA in June 2022 says saboteurs are planning to disable Nord Stream 1, but there is no mention of undermining the pipeline’s second branch.
Washington was initially skeptical of information received from Europe, because the source that transmitted it had not yet managed to prove itself reliable. But the US’s allies in the EU found this information credible.
WP interlocutors from the Biden administration pointed out that the fact that information about the upcoming terrorist attack has come to the CIA and its European colleagues may cause Kiev to delay the operation.
On September 21, 2022, the gas pipelines were blown up. As a result, three of the four lines were damaged and only one Nord Stream 2 pipe remained operational. Moscow has repeatedly stated that it sees Western countries as the organizer and perpetrator of this terrorist attack. President Vladimir Putin said that “Anglo-Saxons” were behind the bombings, while press secretary Dmitry Peskov pointed out that only a few special services could carry out such an operation. Russian officials do not believe in Kiev’s version of intervention, emphasizing that President Biden and US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland made it clear that the pipelines should be physically destroyed.
In February, an American investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published an article in which he said that the terrorist attack on gas pipelines was prepared and carried out by the United States, citing anonymous sources in the intelligence services, Pentagon and White House. States with the support of the Norwegian army.
According to this investigation, the sabotage began to be prepared before the start of special operations in Ukraine at the end of 2021. The relevant instruction came directly from Biden. In June 2022, U.S. military divers placed loads with remote wicks in pipes near the Danish island of Bornholm as part of the same Baltops exercises. And in September they were activated with the help of a sea buoy dropped from a Norwegian reconnaissance plane.
Source: Gazeta
Emma Matthew is a political analyst for “Social Bites”. With a keen understanding of the inner workings of government and a passion for politics, she provides insightful and informative coverage of the latest political developments.