The CIA Warned Ukraine Not to Blow Up the Nord Stream Pipeline: Report
After learning of a plot by the Ukrainian military to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline last summer, the CIA warned the embattled nation’s government not to move ahead with its plans, according to new reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
The Nord Stream—a partially Russian-owned pipeline that formerly funneled natural gas across the Baltic sea to a diversity of European energy markets—exploded last September, in what was surely an act of well planned sabotage. The explosion ruptured large stretches of the pipeline and released a historic amount of methane into the atmosphere, temporarily threatening Europe’s energy supply and economic stability. It left international onlookers wondering just what had happened and who was responsible.
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Last week, the Washington Post reported that—three months before the pipeline blew up—the U.S. government uncovered a plot by the Ukrainian military to destroy the energy project. This supposed plot involved a number of Ukrainian special operations officers assuming false identities, renting a yacht, and then using it to dive to the bottom of the Baltic sea, where they would plant explosives on the pipeline. The Post notes that some of these details match the conclusions previously arrived at by the German government, which is one of several countries currently investigating the project’s destruction.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied that it had anything to do with the Nord Stream explosion. However, according to new reporting from the Journal, the CIA previously reached out to the country and confronted it about whether it was “mounting an attack” or not. It’s unclear how the Ukrainian government responded but, not long after that encounter, the CIA reportedly received word that Ukraine was calling off its plans. Approximately a month before the pipeline was destroyed, the CIA communicated to a number of allied governments in Europe that it thought the “threat level from such an operation” had receded, and that the U.S. “no longer believed Kyiv would undertake such an attack.” Shortly after that, however, the pipeline blew up.
At this point, most news emerging about the Nord Stream should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. No news story in recent memory has been subject to so many fluctuations and wild-eyed speculations. In addition to Ukraine, the other nations that have been accused of having something to do with the pipeline’s destruction include the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Russia. That said, recent reporting from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, all seem to point the finger at Ukraine as being the prime suspect behind the attack.
Given the gravity of this incident, you’d think that the international community would be champing at the bit to find out who did this... but, ehhh, that doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case. The United Nations Security Council recently declined to adopt a resolution that would have formed an international committee to investigate the pipeline’s destruction. Currently, three countries are looking into the pipeline’s sabotage—Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Those countries have a territorial basis for their involvement, as the pipeline exploded in the waters closest to their shores. Russia, meanwhile, has accused the investigating countries of instigating a “cover up” on behalf of the U.S.
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