CIA operatives and “Ukrainian sabotage specialists” met in Kyiv in spring 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to discuss a Ukrainian proposal to blow up the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines linking Russia and Germany along the Baltic Sea floor, reports Der Spiegel, citing “long-verified” sources in Ukraine, According to the newspaper, by sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines, Kyiv hoped to cut off Moscow’s gas revenues from Europe used to finance the war.
The magazine says this was the first - but not the only - meeting between the US intelligence agency and the organizers of the Nord Stream attack. In spring 2022, the Americans “received the plans favorably,” according to the report. Subsequent meetings focused on technical details of the operation.
CIA denies the US knew of plans to blow up Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2
A CIA spokesperson rejected the claims as “completely and utterly false,” without specifying which elements were inaccurate, Der Spiegel reports. The outlet relays the leading theory of German investigators: six men and one woman carried out the sabotage, traveling to the blast site near Denmark’s Bornholm Island on a small sailing yacht, the Andromeda.
One of the operation’s participants and leaders - former Ukrainian serviceman Serhiy K. - is currently in pre-trial detention in Hamburg, the authors note.
According to an arrest warrant issued by Germany’s Federal Court of Justice and published in mid-January, the pipeline explosions were “with a high degree of probability” directed at the state level, the report says. “Ukraine is implied - that is, the very state to which the German federal government has provided many billions of euros in support since Russia’s invasion,” the journalists add.
“And now it emerges that US intelligence personnel apparently knew about the attack plan at an early stage and initially did not object. Only later, according to investigations, did they change their minds and warn the Ukrainians about the consequences - but unsuccessfully,” the report states.
Operation “Diameter” to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines
The sabotage operation was codenamed “Diameter,” Der Spiegel writes.
In Ukraine, it was approved by then–Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the magazine’s sources say. President Volodymyr Zelensky was allegedly not informed.
According to Ukrainian interlocutors cited by the German journalists, the Americans met with Kyiv’s representatives at various stages and endorsed their plans. The article claims that after the second meeting, the CIA even gave a green light for the operation. Moreover, “the Ukrainian side even got the impression that the Americans might help finance the operation.”
In the end, however, the money came from “a private individual from Ukraine,” who covered most of the operation’s roughly $300,000 cost.
In response to Der Spiegel’s inquiry, the CIA said the journalistic investigation was “highly inaccurate” and could not be relied upon as factual information. In 2022, the US aimed to support Ukraine as much as possible. Why would it approve a terrorist attack on the infrastructure of its ally, the agency asked.
Investigations by other media outlets, including The New Yorker, also suggest Ukrainians at least notified the US of their plans, Der Spiegel reports.
