Ukraine is responsible for Nord Stream explosion? New details revealed in German research

Ukraine responsible for Nordstream explosion, according to German daily

Foreign investigators and secret services from different countries have been asking questions about what happened to the Nordstream pipeline for two years. But now, two years after the crime, it is slowly becoming clear who was behind this surprise attack in the Baltic Sea.

According to an investigation by the daily Spiegel, a Ukrainian saboteur squad was responsible for blowing up the pipelines. The team is said to have consisted mainly of civilians or former intelligence officers.

Four divers, led by former Ukrainian intelligence officer Roman Chervinsky, are said to have carried out the operation. The mission is reported to have cost just under USD 300 000, which was contributed by private individuals.

When investigators began to look into the situation after the attack, Chervinsky initially dismissed the first accusations against him as "Russian propaganda". The former agent worked for Ukrainian intelligence services for many years, but came under fire in 2020 when one of his operations failed^[1].

In April 2023, he was arrested and charged with another failed operation. Subsequently released on bail, he is now under house arrest on corruption charges.

Several explosive devices were planted on gas pipes at depths of up to 80 metres. A total of six divers with false identity documents were involved in the operation. Before launching the operation in the Baltic Sea, the Ukrainians first rented a sailing yacht, the Andromeda, near Rostock, Germany.

According to Spiegel, this investigation's results align with the findings of German investigators and foreign intelligence services. The study also highlights that the sabotage was approved by the then-Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, Valery Salyushny. It should also be noted that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, did not know of these plans and the operation. 

The saboteurs sought to inflict significant damage on the Russian war economy and regarded the pipelines as a legitimate military target. Before the pipelines were blown up, almost 60 billion cubic meters of gas flowed from Russia yearly^[2].

The US reached similar conclusions and blamed Ukraine for the explosion

A US Wall Street Journal report also suggested that Kyiv had prepared a plan to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline. According to the Wall Street Journal report, a small Ukrainian crew was behind the operation under the guise of organizing pleasure cruises.

According to US sources, the operation was devised during a drinking party in May 2022, when the Ukrainian military celebrated the territorial cessation of the Russian invasion. They allegedly wanted to strike another blow against Moscow and developed this plan.

The US publication even reported that journalists had spoken to four high-ranking Ukrainian defense and security officials who were involved in the plot or had direct knowledge of it. They all saw the pipelines as a legitimate target for Ukraine's defense against Russia.

The WSJ also said that a German investigation corroborated some of the sources' accounts. However, after the news broke, German intelligence officials said they doubted whether Ukraine had actually contributed to the sabotage and suggested that it could be a Russian "false flag" operation. The Polish authorities, who sent the Russian suspects' names to German intelligence, also shared this view^[3].

Later, German media reported that the country's prosecutors had issued the first arrest warrant to investigate the attack on Nord Stream. The report identified the suspect as Volodymyr Z and said he had recently returned to Ukraine. The Polish authorities later revealed that they had tried to detain the suspect at his home address in a town near Warsaw, but he had already returned to his home country.

He was not stopped at the Polish-Ukrainian border because the German authorities did not add his name to the wanted persons database.

Meanwhile, German reports also named two other suspects: Svitlana and Yevhen Uspensky, a married couple who run a diving school in Ukraine. They both denied any involvement in the attack, saying that the maximum diving depth they practice is 30 meters, compared to the depth of around 80 meters where the explosions took place.

Ukraine categorically denies links to the explosions

Ukrainian officials deny claims they were responsible for the gas pipeline explosions. As Mikhail Podoliak, Assistant to the President of Ukraine, said, "Ukraine's involvement in the Nord Stream explosions is complete nonsense".

"Such actions made no practical sense for Ukraine. It is obvious that the Nord Stream explosions did not stop the war, did not deter Russian aggression and did not affect the situation on the front line", said the Ukrainian presidential aide.

He added that such an action only significantly strengthened Russia's propaganda capacity^[4].

As a reminder, the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany on the Baltic Sea bed has been under intense surveillance since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In September 2022, several large gas leaks were detected coming from the pipelines and, just before that, seismic institutes recorded underwater explosions. The pipelines were not operational at the time of the leaks, but still contained gas that erupted to the surface and entered the atmosphere.

A gas pipeline explosion or sanctions did not stop Russia

However, neither the destruction of the pipeline nor the widespread, very tough sanctions imposed by Western countries on Russia have so far stopped this aggression against its neighbor.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) 2024 global growth forecast shows that the organization has upgraded the outlook for Brazil, the UK, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain^[5].

Global economic growth is expected to stabilize over the forecast period, reaching 3.2% in 2024 and 3.2% in 2025. Notably, this year the best GDP forecasts are for India, Indonesia, China and Russia. The latter's GDP growth forecast for this year is even better than the overall global forecast against international sanctions and frozen relations with the West.