Wall Street Journal: Ukrainian President Zelensky Approves Attack on Nord Stream Pipeline

The bombing that destroyed the Nord Stream gas pipeline on the bottom of the Baltic Sea on September 26, 2022, was carried out by Ukrainians with the support of the highest levels of the state and military, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on August 14, citing several anonymous sources within the Ukrainian military.

U.S. President Joe Biden shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris, Friday, June 7, 2024. (AP photo/Evan Vucci)

According to the WSJ report, President Volodymyr Zelensky personally approved the attack. However, at the insistence of the American CIA, he withdrew and ordered the operation to be terminated. The now-deposed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, ignored the order and carried out the attack to the end.

The WSJ The report came a day after German newspapers reported that German Chief Prosecutor Jens Rommel had already obtained an arrest warrant for a suspect in June. Ukrainian diving instructor Volodymyr Z., who is trained as a deep-sea diver, is said to have been a member of the six-man crew who rented the sailing yacht “Andromeda” in September 2022 and, according to investigators, set up and detonated the explosive charges.

Although the European Arrest Warrant was sent to the authorities in Poland in June, where Volodymyr Z. is now officially staying, they did nothing and let him leave for Ukraine. He had apparently been warned in advance.

However, with the arrest warrant against a Ukrainian suspect, it became clear that after almost two years of investigation, the Ukrainian state and party leadership were also among the suspects.

The investigations have been delayed and dragged out by all parties so far. Sweden and Denmark, on whose territory the attack took place, did virtually nothing and stopped the investigation after a year and a half. Poland sabotaged the investigation and Ukraine refused to cooperate. In both countries, the attack is celebrated as a heroic act.

But the United States and Germany, the country hardest hit besides Russia, also put the brakes on the investigation.

The US had a clear interest in destroying the pipeline that made Germany dependent on Russian gas supplies. President Joe Biden even openly threatened an attack two weeks before the war in Ukraine began. “If Russia invades,” he said at a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “Nord Stream 2 will no longer exist. We will put an end to it.”

Germany, in turn, feared that the identification of the real perpetrators would have consequences for its war offensive against Russia, which it is conducting with arms shipments worth billions of euros and the largest rearmament since Hitler.

“The findings could upend relations between Kiev and Berlin, which has supplied much of Ukraine’s financing and military equipment, after the US,” the WSJquoting a German official familiar with the matter: “An attack of this magnitude is sufficient reason to trigger NATO’s collective defense clause, but our critical infrastructure has been blown up by a country we support with massive arms shipments and billions in cash.”

The article, which also covers joint research by German public broadcaster ARD, is published daily South German newspaper and news magazine The timepaints a damning picture of Ukrainian responsibility for the attack. Although it was reportedly funded by private businessmen and carried out by a mixed team of soldiers and civilians, the Ukrainian military was clearly in charge: “A serving general with experience in special operations would oversee the mission, which one participant described as a ‘public-private partnership.’ He would report directly to the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, four-star general Zaluzhniy.”

In addition, the WSJ reported: “The general in charge of commanding the operation recruited some of Ukraine’s top special operations officers with experience orchestrating high-risk covert missions against Russia to help coordinate the attack. One of them was Roman Chervinsky, a decorated colonel who previously served in Ukraine’s main security and intelligence agency, the SBU.”

Not only the CIA, but also the German foreign intelligence service BND knew about the plans for the attack, but did nothing. They were warned by the Dutch secret service, which is extremely active in Ukraine after the downing of flight MH-17 in which numerous Dutch people died. A few days after the attack, the BND received a detailed report about the incident from the Dutch military intelligence service, which the investigating police were not allowed to read.

These findings were completely hidden from the public. Instead, the media and politicians spread the absurd claim that Russia itself destroyed the pipeline, which earned it billions of dollars a year and which belongs to half of the state-owned company Gazprom.

The WSJ‘s article, despite the revelations, is an attempt at damage limitation. It acknowledges what is already known, reveals what can no longer be hidden, and at the same time strives to remove those primarily responsible from the firing line.

The article states that Zaluzhny, now in London as Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, is primarily responsible for protecting Zelensky. The claim that the CIA deterred Zelensky from the attack plan and that Zaluzhny opposed it is absurd. Like Zelensky, Zaluzhny could not take any steps without US permission.

Zaluzhny was actually a special confidant of the US. When Zelensky fell out with him and wanted to remove him, Washington resisted for a long time. The Ukrainian army was rebuilt, trained and armed by the US after the Maidan coup. Zaluzhny had regular telephone contact with US Chief of Staff Mark Milley. “I talk to him every week, sometimes twice, sometimes three times a week,” Milley told CBS News.

The WSJ‘s story that the plans were hatched spontaneously by a handful of officers and businessmen over a drinking party four months before the attack is also absurd. Such plans have been around for a long time. The US has been pressuring Germany for years to shut down Nord Stream 1 and not activate Nord Stream 2. Biden’s previously cited threat was just one of many.

The true role of the US and German governments in the Nord Stream attack remains a mystery. But one thing is now clear: the attack, which caused billions in damage and drove energy prices to dizzying heights, came not from an outside source, from Russia, but from within Ukraine and NATO itself.

The bombings expose for all to see the predatory nature of the war that NATO is waging against Russia in Ukraine. The methods of the war correspond to its goals. It is not about freedom and democracy for Ukraine, which is being bled white and destroyed by the war, but about the conquest and division of Russia’s vast resources. That is why NATO partners are also fighting among themselves with methods that resemble mafia clans.