The Americans or the Ukrainians? Who blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines?

This WSJ’s account differs from the one published by the veteran American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh last year. Hersh reported that the explosions that destroyed the undersea pipelines were carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a covert operation at the direction of the White House.

What does the WSJ report say?

The report, by The WSJ’s Chief European Political Correspondent Bojan Pancevski, said the operation involved “a small rented yacht with a six-member crew”, and “cost around $300,000, according to people who participated in it”.

These included Ukrainian soldiers and trained civilian divers, and comprised a woman “whose presence helped create the illusion they were a group of friends on a pleasure cruise”, the report said.

The operation was funded by a handful of businessmen, and was overseen by a serving army general, who reported to Ukraine’s then commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

The plan was initially approved by President Zelenskyy, but he withdrew his consent after the CIA got wind of it and asked Kyiv to abandon the operation, the repot said, quoting sources.

However, the saboteurs went ahead anyway — Zaluzhnyi told Zelenskyy that the team had already been dispatched, and was incommunicado.

“Armed only with diving equipment, satellite navigation, a portable sonar and open-source maps of the seabed charting the position of the pipelines, the crew set out. The four divers worked in pairs… Operating in pitch-dark, icy waters, they handled a powerful explosive known as HMX that was wired to timer-controlled detonators. A small amount of the light explosive would be sufficient to rip open the high-pressure pipes,” The WSJ report said.

The attack, which the report said could amount to an act of war in international law, resulted in a surge in energy prices across Europe.

And what did Hersh report?

Hersh cited an anonymous source who had “direct knowledge of the operational planning”. This source claimed that as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine became imminent in December 2021, the US began to fear that as long as Germany and much of Western Europe were dependent on the Nord Stream pipelines for cheap supply of gas, they would be hesitant to provide aid and arms to Kyiv.

President Joe Biden authorised the action after “more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community”, Hersh reported.

To execute the mission successfully, the US sought help from Norway, and in March 2022, a hand-picked team of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) flew to Europe to discuss the operation with the Norwegian Secret Service and Navy, according to Hersh’s report.

Around three months later, a team of deep-sea divers from the US Navy’s Diving and Salvage Centre in Panama City, Florida, the largest diving facility in the world, planted C4 explosives alongside the pipeline, which were later triggered by a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane on September 26, 2022.

Are there any other theories about the attack?

The bombing has been investigated by three countries — Germany, Denmark, and Sweden.

The investigations by Denmark and Sweden are believed to have focused on the suspicious movement of Russian vessels near the blast site of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage days before the explosions took place. However, the investigators later dropped the case, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to hold anyone accountable for the sabotage.

The evidence gathered by Germany during its investigation suggested that Ukraine was behind the attack. The German authorities found the yacht that was allegedly used by the sabotage team to blow up the pipelines, and discovered traces of the explosive octogen, which can be used underwater, on board. Witnesses told the German authorities that they had seen five men and a woman aboard the yacht, accounts that appear to corroborate the claims of the sources cited by The WSJ report.

On August 14, Western media reported that German authorities had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diver instructor identified as “Volodymyr Z”. A resident of Poland, the suspect is alleged to have dived to the seabed to attach the explosive devices to the pipeline. However, “Volodymyr Z” could not be detained as he had left Poland in July this year, according to the Polish authorities.