Zelensky tried to stop Nord Stream attack at CIA's request, diver disobeyed order

(Patria) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved a plan to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, but later, at the request of the CIA, tried to cancel it, without success, reports the "Wall Street Journal" (WSJ), citing four unnamed senior Ukrainian officials.

As reported by Politico, Valeriy Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief of Ukrainian forces who led the sabotage, "ignored the order" from Zelensky and "continued on" with the plan to destroy the pipelines through which Russian gas is transported to Germany, reports Nova.

In response to WSJ questions, Zaluzhny, who is now Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom and has diplomatic immunity, denied responsibility for the attack.

A senior official of the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU did the same, also rejecting the claim that Zelensky approved the plan at all.

Zelensky himself insisted last year that his country was not behind the attack from September 2022, saying he "would never have acted that way."

Politico also reports on the writing of the German newspaper "Zeit" that Volodymyr Zhuravlev, a Ukrainian diving instructor wanted by German authorities on suspicion of being responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, was last seen in Poland, which is why Germany sent an arrest warrant for him to that country in June. However, he managed to escape to Ukraine.

In addition to Zhuravlev, German media named two other people as suspects: Svitlana and Yevhen Uspensky, a married couple who run a diving school in Ukraine and for whom, it is stated, Zhuravlev worked as a diver.

In an interview with Politico yesterday, Svitlana Uspenska denied that she or her husband were involved in the attack, insisting that she was in Kyiv when the attack occurred.

Uspenska confirmed that she is a diver, but said the maximum depth she dives to is 30 meters. The explosions on Nord Stream occurred at a depth of 70-80 meters, writes Politico.

German intelligence officials told Politico and "Welt am Sonntag" that they doubt Ukraine is actually responsible for the attack and are considering the possibility of a "false flag operation" aimed at concealing Russian involvement. This theory is particularly popular in Polish security circles. Poland sent a document with the names of Russian suspects to the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). However, they did not convince German investigators, so prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Zhuravlev, Politico reports.

An advisor to the Ukrainian president, Mykhailo Podolyak, denied his country's involvement in the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and instead "pointed the finger" at Russia.

"Such an act can only be carried out with significant technical and financial resources... and who possessed all that at the time of the bombing? Only Russia," Podolyak told Reuters.

The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which transport gas under the Baltic Sea, were destroyed by a series of explosions in September 2022, seven months after the start of the war in Ukraine.

Polish prosecutors announced yesterday that Poland had received a European arrest warrant issued by Berlin in connection with the attack, but the suspect, a Ukrainian named Volodymyr Z., had already left Poland.

Last Friday, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that top Ukrainian officials were involved in the explosion.