If this report by Bojan Pancevski in the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, the mystery of who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline has been solved:
In May of 2022, a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen had gathered to toast their country’s remarkable success in halting the Russian invasion. Buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervor, somebody suggested a radical next step: destroying Nord Stream.
After all, the twin natural-gas pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe were providing billions to the Kremlin war machine. What better way to make Vladimir Putin pay for his aggression?
Just over four months later, in the small hours of Sept. 26, Scandinavian seismologists picked up signals indicating an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption hundreds of miles away, near the Danish island of Bornholm. They were caused by three powerful explosions and the largest-ever recorded release of natural gas, equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Denmark.
One of the most audacious acts of sabotage in modern history, the operation worsened an energy crisis in Europe—an assault on critical infrastructure that could be considered an act of war under international law. Theories swirled about who was responsible. Was it the CIA? Could Putin himself have set the plan in motion?
Now, for the first time, the outlines of the real story can be told. The Ukrainian operation cost around $300,000, according to people who participated in it. It involved a small rented yacht with a six-member crew, including trained civilian divers. One was a woman, whose presence helped create the illusion they were a group of friends on a pleasure cruise.
“I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,” one officer who was involved in the plot said. “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 President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three people familiar with it. But later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, he ordered a halt, those people said.
Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, who was leading the effort, nonetheless forged ahead.
If true, this raises a number of issues. For one thing it illustrates the increase in personal empowerment that modern technology and increasing wealth have produced, a subject I’ve posted on here from time to time. What might have taken a whole navy to do can now be done by a handful of rich guys. That makes the world an increasingly dangerous place. That’s a jinn that cannot be put back into the bottle.
But also the sabotage was an act of war by Ukraine against a NATO country. That’s food for thought.
I don’t see how a non-functioning pipeline can be considered “critical infrastructure.” Particularly since the German Chancellor said “[i]f Russia invades … Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Critical to whom? The dramatic style of the report?
So from my comment a year ago, we were at
“the Ukrainian military did it without President Zelensky being involved and the American intelligence knew and told the Germans”
and now we are pretty much at:
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of another NATO nation (Poland) ….” — reading the lines, the Poles were at the very least turning a blind eye or hindering German investigators.
Although personally the story is lacking a lot of details on the planning; suggesting there are more saucy things to reveal.
But I was more right then I imagined when I suggested would be eventual last version of this story.
“the Ukrainian military did it with the assistance of NATO (Poland and US) through the CIA and the White House, the President was looped in but he doesn’t recall because of his age and signs of dementia”