Germany did not warn the navy, federal police or counter-terrorism agencies about a potential act of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported.
On November 20, Der Spiegel reported that Germany had received several warnings from other Western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, about an alleged Ukrainian attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline about three months before the incident. However, Berlin simply dismissed the information as “false” and failed to respond in a timely manner.
According to Der Spiegel, several Western intelligence agencies were reportedly informed by a Swedish spy that a sabotage operation was being prepared as early as June 2022.
The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) received encrypted messages from foreign colleagues, including the Dutch intelligence agency and the CIA, that same month.
The German magazine said the warnings contained details of an impending attack. According to Der Spiegel, the BND was informed that at least six Ukrainian commandos with false identities were planning to “hire a ship, dive into the pipes at the bottom of the Baltic Sea with special equipment and blow them up.”
The operation was green-lighted by then-Ukrainian commander General Valery Zaluzhny. The attack was timed to coincide with NATO's BALTOPS maritime exercise, scheduled to take place in the Baltic Sea from June 5-17, 2022.
According to Der Spiegel, the BND only passed the information to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's office after the exercises were over. The German government considered the information "irrelevant" because nothing happened during the exercises.
“At the time, the dominant view in the security bureaucracy was that this information was false. Despite the warnings, the German side was not prepared to prevent a possible attack. The federal police, the navy and the federal and regional anti-terrorism agencies were not informed,” the magazine wrote.
Berlin has opened a criminal investigation into the incident after gas pipelines were damaged in late September 2022. German authorities have yet to provide any official information about the investigation.
In August, German media reported that law enforcement officials had issued the first arrest warrant in the case, allegedly for a Ukrainian citizen identified as “Vladimir Z.” According to Der Spiegel, the man was one of the divers involved in the sabotage operation.
Meanwhile, Russia has denied reports that a small group of Ukrainians were responsible for the Nord Stream sabotage. Last month, Danish media reported that US Navy warships were operating near the Nord Stream pipeline shortly before the explosion.
Skepticism about the “small Ukrainian group” story also persists in Germany. A prominent German diving expert, Dr. Sven Thomas, has questioned the ability of a small group to carry out a large-scale attack earlier this month.
He argued that seabed mines with a yield equivalent to 1,260kg of TNT would be needed to carry out explosions of that scale. He said that placing such devices would require a large ship, not the yacht that is believed to have been used.
