Born after a drunken night
The Nord Stream sabotage is very complicated, but the origin of the plot started from a drunken night of a group of Ukrainian military officers and businessmen in May 2022.
"I always laugh when I read media speculation about a major operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites. The whole thing stemmed from one drunken night and the iron determination of a few people brave enough to risk their lives for the country" - an officer participating in the plot said.
Cost 300,000 USD
Although the scale of the Nord Stream sabotage campaign is huge, the cost is only 1/3 of Ukraine's most popular tank - the T-64 tank costs about 1.1 million USD.
The cost for the crew, explosives and rented yacht was only $300,000 to sabotage a gas pipeline worth about $17 billion.
At the meeting in May 2022, the parties agreed that businessmen would self-fund the campaign to destroy Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2.
15m yacht
To suit the disguise, the Nord Stream sabotage was not carried out by a ship suitable for military operations. The pipeline vandals chartered a 15m recreational yacht - the yacht Andromeda - from the German port of Rostok.
The yacht was rented by a Polish tour company. This company is a cover for financial transactions set up by Ukrainian intelligence more than a decade ago.
The President of Ukraine approved and canceled the operation
According to an officer involved in the Nord Stream case and three well-informed sources, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved this operation. Meanwhile, Mr. Valery Zaluzhny - commander in chief of the armed forces - is in charge of this activity.
In June 2022, the Dutch intelligence agency MIVD learned about the plot and informed the CIA. After being approached by the CIA, President Zelensky decided to cancel this operation. However, Mr. Zaluzhny ignored the order and continued to deploy.
Some obstacles
The crew boarded the yacht Andromeda, flew the Ukrainian flag and departed in September 2022. The group carried diving equipment, satellite navigation, mobile sonar, open source maps and HMX explosives. The mission quickly ran into a number of problems, mainly bad weather.
Weather forced the cruise ship to bypass the Swedish port of Sandhamn and there was a brief discussion about whether to cancel the Nord Stream sabotage operation. During this process, a diver also accidentally released an explosive into the sea.
The role of Dutch intelligence
Days after the Nord Stream attack, an unlikely group emerged as one of the main investigators of the plot: Dutch intelligence MIVD. The Netherlands has developed an advanced intelligence network in Ukraine and Russia since MH17 in 2014.
A MIVD report, passed to the CIA and then to German intelligence, reported details of the Nord Stream incident, including the type of vessel used and the routes to the attack sites. Another Dutch report also identified Mr. Zaluzhny and the Ukrainian army as being involved in the attack.
