West knew of Ukrainian plot to sabotage Nord Stream 2 ‘months before attack’

The US and Europe knew about a Ukrainian plot to bomb the Nord Stream pipeline months before the attack, it has emerged.

The Biden administration was informed of the plot by the Ukrainian military by a “close” European ally last summer.

The intelligence was among a tranche of classified Pentagon documents leaked by US airman Jack Teixeira on the online gaming platform Discord and obtained by The Washington Post.

It is the first time Ukraine’s military has been convincingly linked to the September 2022 attack, which Nato condemned as an act of sabotage.

The underwater explosions destroyed caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, leaving only one of the four pipelines supplying gas from Russia to Germany intact.

Ukraine has always denied any involvement, even blaming Russia for a “terrorist attack” against the EU at the time.

The revelation is likely to prompt a furious response from Russia after US officials suggested Moscow was responsible for what Joe Biden, the US president, called “a deliberate act of sabotage”.

It will also test the strength of Europe’s commitments to Ukraine, particularly in Germany, which imported half its natural gas from Russia prior to the invasion and had long championed the pipeline.

While Russia’s state-owned Gazprom has a 51 per cent stake in Nord Stream, Western energy companies, including from Germany, France and the Netherlands, invested billions in the project.

Intelligence collected by a European spy agency suggested the Ukrainian military planned for a small team of divers who reported directly to Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, to attack the pipeline.

Mr Zaluzhnyi was put in charge of the plot so that Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, could have plausible deniability, said the intelligence report.

The European agency shared the plan with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June 2022.

It was deemed credible enough for the CIA to share the report with Germany and other European countries last June, according to the Washington Post.

The newspaper said it was not revealing which European country uncovered the plot, as well as some aspects of the intelligence, at the request of government officials.

However, it said the plot was not compiled by rogue operatives, but to be conducted by a six-person team of Ukrainian special forces.

It is unclear whether the Biden administration appealed to Kyiv to halt the bomb plan.

The report was based on information obtained from an individual in Ukraine. While it could not be immediately corroborated, key details of the plot lined up with the eventual attack and revealed the West had evidence to suspect Kyiv for nearly a year.

They include the fact that the Ukrainian special forces planned to use false identities to rent a boat and dive to the floor of the Baltic Sea to damage the pipeline.

In addition to oxygen, the team planned to bring helium, which is recommended for especially deep dives.

An investigation by German law enforcement has reportedly concluded that six skilled divers using fake passports rented a sailing yacht in September, and planted explosives that severed the pipelines.