(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Wall Street Journal published a report Thursday that implicates Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the 2022 attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines that run between Russia and Germany—one of the worst ecoterrorism incidents in world history.
The WSJ report is one of many accounts of what happened with the Nord Stream attack. This writer has put the most stock in the reporting from Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh, who has blamed the CIA.
But according to the WSJ, the CIA actually tried preventing the attack after it was initially greenlit by Zelenskyy.
Citing four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot, the WSJ said the plan was initially hatched after Russia’s invasion stalled in early 2022.
“In May of 2022, a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen had gathered to toast their country’s remarkable success in halting the Russian invasion. Buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervor, somebody suggested a radical next step: destroying Nord Stream,” the newspaper reported.
“Within days, Zelensky approved the plan, according to the four people familiar with the plot. All arrangements were made verbally, leaving no paper trail.”
According to the WSJ, the CIA found out about the plot and tried to stop it. The CIA reportedly warned Zelenskyy to halt the operation.
However, a top Ukrainian general reportedly told Zelenskyy that the sabotage team, once dispatched, went incommunicado and couldn’t be called off because any contact with them could compromise the operation.
“He was told it’s like a torpedo—once you fire it at the enemy, you can’t pull it back again, it just keeps going until it goes ‘boom,’” a senior officer told the WSJ.
The WSJ report comes on the heels of news that Germany issued its first arrest warrant over the attack against a Ukrainian man believed to have resided until recently in Poland. German authorities have reportedly been referring to their target as “Volodymyr Z”—an obvious reference to Zelenskyy.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
