The Biden administration was forewarned through the CIA that the Ukraine military planned a covert attack on the undersea Nord Stream pipeline a full three months before the sabotage took place, a report Tuesday claims.
According to the Washington Post an elite six-man team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces was responsible. They used a chartered yacht gained through fake passports and left a port in Germany before planting explosives that severed the pipelines.
The report, complied by Shane Harris and Souad Mekhennet, claims the intelligence information was widely shared within the White House and beyond. It states:
Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.
The European intelligence reporting was shared on the chat platform Discord, allegedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. The Washington Post obtained a copy from one of Teixeira’s online friends.
The Post story goes further to pinpoint more sources for the leak that set out how the Russia-to-Germany natural gas project was sabotaged by Ukraine.
It builds on claims made back in February that no evidence exists that Moscow was involved in the demise of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, as Breitbart London reported.
No Evidence Russia Involved in Nord Stream Blasts Found So Far, German Investigators Admit https://t.co/a70TQmJ04o
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 4, 2023
It states the intelligence report was based on information “obtained from an individual in Ukraine,” adding “The source’s information could not immediately be corroborated, but the CIA shared the report with Germany and other European countries last June, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence operations and diplomatic discussions. ”
The highly specific details including numbers of operatives and methods of sabotage show “for nearly a year Western allies had a basis to suspect Kyiv in the sabotage. That assessment has only strengthened in recent months as German law enforcement investigators uncovered evidence about the bombing that bears striking similarities to what the European service said Ukraine was planning,” the Post report summarises.
In the immediate aftermath of the September explosions, Western figures such as U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and German economy minister Robert Habeck argued the opposite and pointed the finger at Russia.
Germany Now Investigating Whether Ukraine Bombed Nord Stream Pipes, Reports Say https://t.co/wMZIEFgEF6
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 23, 2023
The Kremlin, for its part, previously cast blame on the British, claiming — without presenting evidence — the Royal Navy took part in the “planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea” to destroy the pipelines.
The British government rebutted the suggestion of British involvement as “false claims of an epic scale”.
Officials have since said the cost of repairing the pipelines will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com
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