Ukrainian officers deliberate Nord Stream assault ‘throughout heavy boozing’

Senior Ukrainian military officers hatched the daring plan to blow up Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines during ‘a night of heavy boozing’, an investigation has claimed. 

The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

The blasts wrecked three out of four pipelines, which had become a controversial symbol of German reliance on Russian gas in the wake of Moscow‘s invasion of Ukraine, and triggered wild speculation over the possible culprit – not to mention a continental energy crisis. 

But now, a Ukrainian military officer allegedly involved in the operation told the Wall Street Journal the sabotage was pulled off with a single yacht, a six-person crew, rudimentary diving and navigation equipment and a set of light explosives. 

He took particular delight in declaring the idea of destroying Nord Stream and triggering a continental energy crisis was dreamt up by a few Ukrainian military men amid an alcohol-fuelled bash.

‘I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,’ the officer 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.’ 

One officer who participated and three other sources familiar with the plan told WSJ it was initially approved by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but said that former armed forces commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny instructed the team to forge on with the attack when Zelensky got cold feet.  

The Ukrainian suspects are accused of transporting the explosives used in the attack in a 50ft sailing yacht called the Andromeda, according to investigations conducted by Germany and revealed by German media 

A mixed military and civilian team of five men and one woman chartered the yacht from the German port of Rostock on the Baltic Sea to carry out the operation.

In June 2023, Zelensky insisted Kyiv knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines.

‘I did nothing like that. I would never do that,’ he said in an interview with Germany’s BILD.

But sources told the WSJ that Zelensky was fully aware of the plan and initially gave it the green-light, only to back out later.

General Zaluzhny, his commander-in-chief at the time and now ambassador to the UK, allegedly defied Zelensky’s orders and told the crew to carry out the attack anyway.

Zaluzhny himself dismissed these claims made by the WSJ as ‘a mere provocation’.

Disgruntled officials involved in the investigation declared the sabotage operation had put Germany in a difficult position.

‘An attack of this scale is a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defence clause of NATO,’ the official told WSJ in alarming comments.

‘But our critical infrastructure was blown up by a country that we support with massive weapons shipments and billions in cash.’

Meanwhile, government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner sought to make it clear that the investigation would not interfere with Germany’s support of Ukraine in its war against Russia, nor would it harm bilateral relations.

‘Investigations are being carried out according to the law regardless of who is concerned and which results they lead to’.

He said the results of the probe ‘of course do not change anything about the fact that Russia is waging an illegal war of aggression against Ukraine… The procedures have no bearing on what the Chancellor (Olaf Scholz) has described as the support of Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s illegal war of aggression, as long as necessary.’

It comes as Poland yesterday received a European arrest warrant issued by Berlin for a Ukrainian suspect named as Volodymyr Z who is thought to have participated in the historic attack.

German investigators believe Volodymyr Z, a Ukrainian diving instructor, was part of a team that planted the explosives.

Polish National Public Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Anna Adamiak said German authorities sent a European warrant to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw in June for Volodymyr Z in connection with proceedings conducted against him in Germany.

‘Ultimately, Volodymyr Z was not detained because at the beginning of July he left Polish territory, crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border,’ she told reporters.

‘Free crossing of the Polish-Ukrainian border by the above-mentioned person was possible because German authorities… did not include him in the database of wanted persons, which meant that the Polish Border Guard had no knowledge and no grounds to detain Volodymyr Z.’

A married couple, a man and a woman – also Ukrainian diving instructors – have also been identified in Germany’s investigation into the sabotage but so far no arrest warrants have been issued for them, according to SZ, Zeit and ARD.

The woman told broadcaster Welt on Wednesday that neither she nor her husband were involved, and that she was in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, at the time of the pipeline attack.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The German federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the media reports.

Germany, Denmark, and Sweden all opened investigations into the incident, and the Swedes found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the explosion site, confirming the blasts were deliberate acts.

But the Swedish and Danish investigations were closed this February without identifying any suspect.