A Ukrainian military officer coordinated last year’s attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, as reported by The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the September 2022 attacks, which happened off the Danish island of Bornholm and damaged three of the four lines that used to transport Russian gas to Europe.
Washington and NATO had called it a sabotage, while Moscow referred to it as international terrorism.
Ukrainian Officer’s Involvement
Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in the Ukrainian special operations forces, coordinated the Nord Stream operation, as stated by people familiar with his role.
According to the Washington Post, Chervinsky handled logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under fake identities and used deep-sea diving equipment for placing explosive charges on the gas pipelines.
Sources confirmed that Chervinsky did not act alone and did not plan the operation. Reportedly, the officer followed orders from more senior Ukrainian authorities and eventually reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military commander.
Chervinsky has denied any involvement in the pipeline sabotage. “All speculations about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream are being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis,” Chervinsky claimed in a written response to The Washington Post and Germany’s Der Spiegel, which undertook a joint inquiry into his involvement.
As German and US media reports exposed that a senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the country’s intelligence services allegedly played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last year, experts said on Sunday that various… pic.twitter.com/uinDu1ugWy
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) November 12, 2023
Meanwhile, Chervinsky is currently imprisoned in a Kyiv jail on allegations of misusing his power in connection with a conspiracy to persuade a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022.
Officials claim Chervinsky, who was detained in April, acted without authority, and that the operation revealed the location of a Ukrainian airport, inspiring a Russian rocket strike that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.
“I have devoted my entire life to the defence of Ukraine,” Chervinsky stated, describing the claims against him concerning the Russian aviation operation as “groundless and fanciful, which I will definitely prove in court.”
Nord Stream Blast
The Nord Stream pipeline is a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project developed in two parts by Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM): Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2.
Each stage comprises two concrete-coated steel pipelines around 1,200km long and more than 1m in diameter, installed at 80-110m depth.
Western energy firms, notably those from Germany, France, and the Netherlands, are partners in Nord Stream and have invested billions of dollars in the project, but Gazprom, the state-owned gas conglomerate in Russia, controls 51% of the project.
Russia is deeply concerned by the fact that those responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines remain unidentified at this point, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has told reporters:https://t.co/yBiw1CYIvQ pic.twitter.com/ZL5VX5exYt
— TASS (@tassagency_en) November 9, 2023
In September 2022, three explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which flow from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. As winter approached, just one of the network’s four gas lines remained operational.
A day after the explosions, the German magazine Der Spiegel claimed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had informed Germany in the summer of 2022 about possible attacks on Baltic Sea pipelines.
According to reports, German authorities believe that six persons used fake passports to lease the Andromeda yacht, which transported the explosives and put them on the Baltic Sea seafloor at three separate locations along the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
Sources familiar with the operation said it was meant to keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky out of the loop.
“All of those involved in planning and execution reported directly to [chief of defence] Zaluzhny, so Zelensky wouldn’t have known about it,” sources said, based on intelligence reporting obtained by the CIA.
The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines are considered “Russia’s most important energy corridor.” Both pipelines have a capacity of 110 billion cubic metres, or more than half of Russia’s total gas export volume.