American intelligence found a Ukrainian trace in the sabotage at Nord Stream

Undermining the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in September 2022 could have been carried out by a Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian group, The New York Times (NYT) and Die Zeit reported. Experts believe that this version is implausible and is aimed at diverting attention from the US role in the incident.

On March 7, the NYT newspaper reported, citing US officials who studied new US intelligence data, that a pro-Ukrainian group had blown up Nord Stream. According to the publication, the perpetrators were opponents of the policy of the President of Russia, but the United States intelligence has no evidence that the group is somehow connected with the Ukrainian leader or his team.

Also, American intelligence failed to find evidence of Russia’s involvement in the incident and to identify the people who led the operation.

At the same time, NYT sources note that citizens of Ukraine or Russia may be involved in the explosion, while citizens of Great Britain and the United States are not involved in the incident, the newspaper writes, citing US officials. According to intelligence, experienced divers associated with the military and intelligence services or undergoing special training could have carried out the sabotage.

On the same day, the German newspaper Die Zeit reported that a German investigation had identified a vessel that could have been involved in the explosion. The newspaper writes that it is a vessel rented in Poland, owned by a company owned by two citizens of Ukraine. Die Zeit writes that the ship was rented with forged documents, traces of explosives were found on it. According to investigators, six people took part in the sabotage – the captain, two divers, two of their assistants, and a doctor were on the ship – their citizenship is not specified. The newspaper also reports that the intelligence of one of the Western countries informed European partners about the possible involvement of a pro-Ukrainian group in the incident in the fall of 2022.

The British newspaper The Times reported on March 8 that in the West, a week after the Nord Stream bombing, it was known that it was not Russia or the United States that were behind the sabotage, but a private Ukrainian enterprise. The publication claims that the name of the alleged private “sponsor” of the sabotage, who is Ukrainian, has been “circulating in intelligence circles” for several months, but has not been disclosed. At the same time, this person is allegedly not connected with the government of Volodymyr Zelensky.

Newspaper reports were reacted to in Kyiv and Moscow. In his Twitter account, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, said that the Ukrainian side had nothing to do with undermining Nord Stream.

Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, in a conversation with RIA Novosti, called publications about explosions on gas pipelines a coordinated stuffing in the media – in his opinion, in this way the “authors” of the terrorist attack want to divert attention from themselves.

The same position is shared by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. After these publications, she called on Western countries to respond to official requests from the Russian side, and not allow leaks with anonymous stuffing. According to Zakharova, leaks in the media are needed in order to “divert the attention of the audience from the facts.” She noted that stuffing is allowed by those “who do not want to conduct an investigation in the legal field.”

On February 8, American journalist Seymour Hersh published an investigation into the Nord Stream incident, in which he accused the United States and Norway of being involved in the undermining – according to him, Washington initially considered the pipelines as a threat to Western dominance. The journalist noted that the explosives were installed on the Nord Streams during NATO exercises in the Baltic Sea in the summer of 2022 and were activated by a sonar buoy dropped from a Norwegian naval aircraft.

The White House and the European Commission denied this information, but on March 7, Hersh told Izvestia that he would publish a new investigation into the gas pipelines next week, and also questioned the NYT’s claims.

What happened to “flows”

The incident on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines occurred on the night of September 26, 2022. Then, in both pipelines, the design capacity of each of which is 55 billion cubic meters. m per year, the pressure dropped.

Leaks were later discovered that were in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Sweden and in the EEZ of Denmark. In early October, the Swedish State Security Service announced the completion of the investigation at Nord Stream. Investigators said they were “increasing suspicions of gross sabotage”, but they also did not name those responsible for the incident.

In Moscow, the damage to gas pipelines was described as a “terrorist attack at the state level.” On September 30, 2022, during his speech in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West of sabotage on the Nord Stream highways and the destruction of the European energy structure.

At the end of December 2022, at a press conference, Putin said that those who were interested in supplying Europe with Russian gas only through the territory of Ukraine were guilty of undermining. According to him, the Russian side was able to inspect the sites of the explosions only once and there is no full-fledged investigation into this incident.

On March 2, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in India, called for an “honest and quick” investigation into the undermining of Nord Stream. He stressed that Russia should participate in the proceedings.

Economic interest

Pavel Zavalny, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Energy, notes that there is certainly economic sense in sabotage on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea for Ukraine. “Ukraine has always opposed Nord Stream 2, wanting the transit of Russian gas to depend on it and the Ukrainian government to have the opportunity to blackmail the West,” the deputy said.

Under the current contract with Ukraine, under the “pump or pay” condition, Russia must supply 40 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe through the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS). m of gas per year (approximately 109.5 million cubic meters per day). The transit contract, signed at the end of 2019, expires in 2024.

But transit dropped sharply in May 2022, when Kyiv refused to accept applications for pumping fuel through the Sokhranovka gas measuring station (GIS) in the Rostov region, from where gas enters the territory of the LPR. Since then, transportation has been carried out only through the Sudzha GIS in the Kursk region, from where the fuel enters the pipeline in the Ukrainian-controlled Sumy region. Early May 2022Gazprom» exported 92–99 million cubic meters in transit through Ukraine m of gas per day, after the blocking of applications for GIS “Sokhanovka” daily pumping fell by more than half to 41-43 million cubic meters. m.

Igor Yushkov, a leading analyst at the National Energy Security Fund, recalls that under the contract, Gazprom must pay about $1.25 billion a year for transit, regardless of the volume of transportation. If Gazprom now pays only for the actual volumes of pumping, then the cost of transit can be estimated at 40% of this amount, the expert says. He clarifies that in 2023, actual payments may be even lower, since in January-February, transit volumes were less than 40 million cubic meters. m per day.

Zavalny draws attention to the fact that the volume of gas transit through Ukraine is now small and the United States and Norway benefited much more economically from the termination of supplies via Nord Stream (Norway carries out pipeline gas supplies to the EU, and the United States exports liquefied natural gas (LNG). – “Vedomosti”). According to the calculations of Vygon Consulting, cited by RIA Novosti, in 2022 the United States increased LNG exports to Europe by 2.4 times to 30 million tons.

Yushkov adds that at the time of the sabotage, Nord Stream was not working (Nord Stream 1 completely stopped at the end of August due to a malfunction of gas pumping equipment Siemens and sanctions that make it difficult to repair, Nord Stream 2 was never launched). That is, the logic of sabotage for Ukraine, in his opinion, could only be if it expected the launch of gas pipelines, which could make Ukrainian transit unclaimed.

At the same time, the analyst draws attention to the fact that Ukraine imports gas from the EU pegged to prices on the European spot market. “The performers should have been aware that the disruption of Nord Stream would increase the cost of gas on the European market. Ukraine has reduced gas consumption, but imports continue, and price increases are unprofitable for the country,” says Yushkov. He also points out that payments for the transit of Russian gas are made through the companies Naftogaz Ukrainy and the GTS Operator of Ukraine, and only a part of this amount goes to the country’s budget in the form of dividends.

The version with a Ukrainian trace in undermining the Nord Streams is most convenient for the West, notes Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian Council on Foreign Affairs: divert attention from the US.

At the same time, Western leaders also do not want to shift the blame to official Kyiv, in connection with which it was about unnamed Ukrainian private individuals who acted without instructions from their government. “The option that the undermining of the Nord Streams was carried out in the interests of Kyiv, but not at the behest of the authorities, and it is not clear by whom, suits the West quite well,” sums up Kortunov.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, also believes that although Hersh’s publication did not meet with a strong response in the West, it became an application to strengthen the version of US involvement in the explosions. “After that, they probably decided that it was impossible to completely pretend that nothing was happening, and the response was a coordinated campaign to redirect responsibility in the other direction,” he says.

The current version is optimal for the West, since it is possible to explain the motivation of the Ukrainians, but at the same time, President Zelensky defends himself, the expert says. According to Lukyanov, this version looks implausible.