Former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny is said to have been "affected" by the Nord Stream sabotage plan to the point that he wanted to "expand" the operation - German newspaper Der Spiegel reported on November 20.
According to Der Spiegel, former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny approved a plan to blow up Russia's TurkStream gas pipeline in the Black Sea. The sabotage incident was said to have occurred simultaneously with the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, but failed, the newspaper said.
Der Spiegel reported earlier that General Zaluzhny had approved the attack on Nord Stream in September 2022. Since then, Western media have repeatedly claimed that a small group of Ukrainian divers were behind the sabotage.
According to Der Spiegel, a group of Ukrainian intelligence officers trained in the US - who have "longstanding ties to the CIA" - developed an initial plan to attack Nord Stream and presented it to Zaluzhny.
The general is said to have "favored the 'Glasses' plan to the point that he even wanted to expand it".
Zaluzhny is said to be targeting the entire Russian gas pipeline TurkStream (Türkiye flow) in the Black Sea - the German magazine quoted sources believed to be involved in the planning activities as saying.
The TurkStream gas pipeline runs from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea, then continues to the Greek border and supplies Russian gas to several other European Union (EU) countries. Last month, Hungary said it had imported record volumes of gas this year via the pipeline.
Der Spiegel did not disclose the reason for the failure of the Black Sea plan, only adding that Kiev's agents had "focused on Nord Stream".
On November 20, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, commenting on a Der Spiegel article, that Moscow was well aware of Kiev's plans to attack the TurkStream pipeline.
Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly spoken about Ukraine's efforts to attack both the pipeline and Blue Stream - another Russian gas pipeline running under the Black Sea to Turkey.
"Yes, that is what President Putin is saying," Peskov said when asked to comment on the article.
In September 2023, President Putin said at a press conference that ships protecting the Russian natural gas pipeline to Turkey were repeatedly attacked by unmanned subscribers launched from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
However, Mr. Peskov has clarified that President Putin only talks about attacks on ships, not the pipelines themselves.
In September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said that "there is information that there are efforts to destroy the pipelines in the Black Sea similar to the way Nord Stream was destroyed".
Mr. Lavrov pointed out that Russia had to deploy naval patrols to those areas and their ships also faced attacks by Ukrainian forces, all of which were successfully repelled.
