Media reports Germany knowing in advance about Nord Stream assault
Date
11/24/2024 7:13:27 AM
(MENAFN) Germany's federal Intelligence Service (BND) was reportedly alerted in advance about a planned attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, receiving multiple warnings from partner agencies such as the CIA, yet failed to inform the German government or take preventive action. According to a report by Der Spiegel, these warnings, which included detailed intelligence, were ignored or dismissed by the BND. As early as June 2022, Western intelligence agencies were informed by a Swedish source that a sabotage operation targeting the pipelines was being prepared. The BND reportedly received encrypted messages about the operation from both the Dutch intelligence service and the CIA during the same month, outlining a plan involving Ukrainian commandos who were allegedly going to rent a vessel, dive to the pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, and plant explosives.
The reports even suggested that the operation had been authorized by Ukraine's top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, and was planned to coincide with NATO’s BALTOPS naval exercises in the Baltic Sea from June 5-17, 2022. However, the BND only passed on this intelligence to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office after the naval exercises had ended, by which point the government reportedly dismissed the information as irrelevant, believing it to be inaccurate because no incident had occurred during the drills. At the time, many security officials in Berlin viewed the warnings as false, and no preparatory steps were taken to prevent an attack later on. Notably, Germany’s federal police, Navy, and counterterrorism agencies were not informed about the potential threat.
It wasn’t until the actual sabotage occurred in September 2022 that a criminal investigation was launched. In August 2024, reports indicated that German authorities had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national allegedly involved in the sabotage. This lack of response from Berlin has raised questions, particularly from opposition politicians such as Sahra Wagenknecht, who criticized the government's silence and called for an independent parliamentary inquiry into the incident. Meanwhile, skepticism persists about the narrative of a small Ukrainian team carrying out such a large-scale operation, with some experts arguing that the scale of the explosions would have required a much larger operation than the small team suggested. Furthermore, recent revelations have suggested that US Navy warships were operating near the pipeline before the explosions, adding to the ongoing doubts surrounding the official story.
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