Report Says Zelensky Initially Approved Nord Stream Bombing

Russia says the West is trying to 'absolve itself' of responsibility for the sabotage attack

A report published by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday alleges that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved a plan to bomb the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, which connect Russia and Germany.

The report said Zelensky called off the plan after the CIA warned him not to do it, but Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, who was Ukraine’s commander-in-chief at the time, went ahead with the sabotage attack anyway.

In response to the report and Germany issuing an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian suspected of being involved in the Nord Stream bombings, Russia suggested Western countries were trying to shift the blame.

“The West’s key task is to absolve itself of any responsibility for sabotaging the Nord Streams,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Russia has previously blamed the US and its NATO allies for the attack on the pipeline. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report last year that said President Biden ordered the bombing and that US Navy divers planted explosives on the pipeline in June 2022, which were set off in September 2022. The US also had a clear motive for the attack since it had been trying to stop Nord Stream 2 with sanctions for years.

But Hersh’s report hasn’t been confirmed by other sources, and since it was published, Western officials have been pinning the blame on Ukraine. According to The Wall Street Journal report, the explosives were planted on the pipeline by a group of six Ukrainians who rented a small yacht in Germany.

The report said the plot was thought up in May 2022 by a group of Ukrainian officials and businessmen during a night of drinking. Sources told the Journal that the sabotage team initially studied a plan to blow up Nord Stream that was drafted by Western officials and Ukrainian intelligence officials back in 2014, but it was too costly and complex.

The report said the German investigation of the attack is now focused on Zaluzhny, who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK. “An attack of this scale is a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defense clause of NATO, but our critical infrastructure was blown up by a country that we support with massive weapons shipments and billions in cash,” a German official said.

A senior Russian diplomat in Berlin dismissed the German investigation, saying the findings were “fairy tales worthy of the Brothers Grimm.”

In response to the Journal report, Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Zelensky, denied Ukraine was involved in the Nord Stream bombings and pointed the finger at Russia. “Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources… and who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia,” he said.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.