Ukraine-Russia war: Nord Stream sabotage said to have been backed by senior Kyiv officials
An arrest warrant has been issued for a Ukrainian man over the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, as new details emerge on who else was behind the hit.
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The sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 is said to have been approved by senior officials in Kyiv, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially giving his support.
Speculation has long swirled about who was behind the operation, with both Ukraine and Russia denying any involvement.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukraine’s top military commander at the time, Valery Zaluzhny, oversaw the plan to blow up the pipelines used by Russia to deliver gas to Europe.
The idea emerged during a meeting of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen in May 2022, just months after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Six people were directly involved in carrying out the operation, which cost around $300,000 and was privately financed, the report said.
Using a rented yacht, they sailed out to the area of the pipelines and dived down to lay explosives on them.
Mr Zelenskyy also initially approved the operation. But when the CIA learned of the plan, they asked him to stop it going ahead and he ordered a halt.
But Zaluzhny, who was removed from his post earlier this year in a shake-up, pushed ahead anyway, the WSJ said, citing Ukrainian officials.
Mr Zelenskyy took the military commander to task for going ahead with the operation despite the order to pull the plug, according to the paper.
But the commander replied that once the sabotage team had been dispatched, they could not be called off.
“He was told it’s like a torpedo - once you fire it at the enemy, you can’t pull it back again, it just keeps going until it goes ‘boom,’” a senior officer familiar with the conversation was cited as saying.
Contacted by the Journal, Zaluzhny - now Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain - said he did not know anything about such an operation and any suggestion to the contrary was a “mere provocation”.
The Journal report comes a day after German media outlets had reported that German investigators probing the sabotage were now focusing on Ukraine, and had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man.
Most however did not report approval at the highest levels in Ukraine, apart from Der Spiegel, which mentioned the possible involvement of Zaluzhny.
Nord Stream’s two pipelines had been at the centre of geopolitical tensions as Russia cut gas supplies to Europe in suspected retaliation for Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Four large gas leaks were discovered in September 2022 in the pipelines off the Danish island of Bornholm, with seismic institutes recording two underwater explosions just before.
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UKRAINE LAUNCHES ‘LARGEST DRONE ATTACK’
Ukraine has launched drone attacks on three military airfields in Russia, one of which hosts aircraft that can carry hypersonic missiles, it has been reported.
Some 117 drones targeted at least nine regions across Russia, hitting four crucial airfields in Kyiv’s largest drone attack to date.
As Ukraine carries on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Kyiv is continuing with drone attacks within Russia, often targeting military and infrastructure sites in strikes aimed at hurting Russia’s war machine.
“Long-range drones of the security service of Ukraine and defence forces carried out the largest attack on Russian military airfields of the entire war,” an official in the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, told the Financial Times.
Russian officials frequently say that air defences have intercepted Ukrainian drones, even as images of destruction are shared on social media. On Tuesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry touted success in stopping the attacks by drones and Tochka-U tactical missiles.
However, social-media accounts told a different story. The Astra telegram channel said that Ukrainian drones attacked an airfield in Borisoglebsk in the east of the Voronezh region, posting video footage of what it said showed explosions and gunfire.
Another military airfield in the region, Baltimore, was also attacked, according to the Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU, which is thought to have links to Russian security agencies. “The Voronezh region has been under attack by drones all night,” its post said.
“Residents can hear explosions, several fires are visible,” the post added. “Presumably, one of the targets of the attack was the Baltimore military airfield,” which hosts Sukhoi Su-34 and Su-24M aircraft.
The drone attacks were intended to undermine Russia’s capacity to utilise jets to launch glide bombs onto Ukraine, a Ukrainian security source told Reuters.
An aircraft-type drone was seen in the sky ahead of the strike with a total of ten “arrivals” reported.
UKRAINE’S DARING AMBUSH ON RUSSIAN TROOPS
Meanwhile, dramatic first person footage has shown the moment Ukrainian special forces soldiers went on a daring ambush of Russian troops as they continue to advance deeper inside Kursk.
The footage showed Ukraine’s troops dressed in camouflaged bodysuits as they ran through a rural area tracking Russian soldiers with grenades, guns and rockets.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE
Video posted on social media site Telegram showed the heavily armed soldiers taking fire through the trees as they made their way closer to Russian troops.
The group of at least six men can be seen rapidly shooting at Russian targets and vehicles in the war-torn Kursk region.
Russian troops are then attacked with what appears to be grenades as huge explosions erupt in the fields.
A flash of light can be seen before the Ukrainian Army Reg team moved in.
After making up more ground the troops launched another assault with what looks like a mini rocket launcher.
Footage captured the moment the weapon is used as a bright orange blast shoots towards a Russian truck parked behind some trees.
The truck is set on fire and thick plumes of smoke are sent billowing up into the sky.
The vehicle was “heavily filled with enemy personnel”, says a post from the unit on Telegram.
With the truck still alight the troops finish off the ambush as they clear onto the road and celebrate the strike.
The Ukrainian soldiers said they managed to burn all of the equipment and eliminated the “enemy personnel in four minutes”.
It is unclear exactly where the troops launched their attack.
UKRAINE’S MOVE THAT CAUGHT PUTIN OFF GUARD
Ukraine said that its troops had advanced further into Russia’s Kursk region and now control 74 settlements after launching a surprise cross-border incursion a week ago. Ukrainian forces entered Russia’s Kursk region last Tuesday and have taken dozens of settlements in the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian soil since WWII.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday evening posted footage of a video call with his military chief Oleksandr Syrsky, who said that “as of today, our troops have advanced in some areas by one to three kilometres.”
Over the last day, Syrsky added, “control over 40 square kilometres of territory has been taken” and “74 settlements are under our control”.
Syrsky said earlier Monday that his troops controlled about 1000 square kilometres of Russian territory.
Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov said Monday that 28 settlements had been captured and Ukrainian forces had penetrated at least 12 kilometres deep.
Joe Biden on Tuesday said the incursion was giving Russia’s President Vladimir Putin a “real dilemma,” in the US leader’s first comments on Kyiv’s surprise attack.
According to Ukrainian army spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy, Putin has pulled troops out of southern Ukraine to fend off Kyiv’s incursion.
“Russia has relocated some of its units from both Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine’s south,” Ukrainian army spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy told Politico.
Russia’s defence ministry said Tuesday that its troops “continue to repel” Ukrainian assaults and had “foiled” attacks by “mobile groups in armoured vehicles”.
Ukraine said it would not hold on to Russian territory it had captured and offered to stop raids if Moscow agreed a “just peace”.
Foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said Kyiv was not interested in “taking over” Russian territory and defended Ukraine’s actions as “absolutely legitimate”.“The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace … the sooner the raids by the Ukrainian defence forces into Russia will stop,” he told reporters.
Putin told a televised meeting with officials on Monday that “one of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord” and “destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society”.
Putin also said Ukraine wanted to “improve its negotiating position” for any future talks with Moscow.
More than 120,000 Russians have fled their homes in border areas of Kursk region. Ukraine said it was imposing movement restrictions in the Sumy region along the border due to an “increase in the intensity of hostilities” and “sabotage” activities.
An AFP analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) indicated that Ukrainian troops had advanced over an area of at least 800 square kilometres of Russian territory as of Monday.
Since launching its invasion in February 2022, Russia has captured territory in southern and eastern Ukraine and subjected Ukrainian cities to missile and drone barrages.
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Originally published as Ukraine-Russia war: Nord Stream sabotage said to have been backed by senior Kyiv officials
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