Fmr Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Can Be Prosecuted – Nord Stream Sabotage
Jeffrey Brodsky
21st Century Wire
General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer at the time of the attack and current ambassador to the UK, is not immune from prosecution, say legal scholars, bringing to light a critical omission in mainstream media reporting, as new revelations reinforce the idea of a US cover-up.
The Wall Street Journal reported in August that Ukraine carried out the largest act of industrial sabotage in history and the most pressing geopolitical mystery of the century: the attack on the $20 billion Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that carried Russian natural gas to Europe across the Baltic Sea.
But the WSJ, according to six legal scholars who spoke on the record to 21st Century Wire, has omitted a key component of the story.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, “was later appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, a position that grants him immunity from prosecution,” the paper states.
Yet is it accurate that General Zaluzhniy, Ukraine’s senior military officer at the time the underwater explosions ruptured the pipelines, has immunity from prosecution as an ambassador?
According to six legal experts, who have expertise in diplomatic and consular law, the answer is “no,” highlighting a critical omission in the WSJ’s reporting. This crucial oversight has not been previously reported.
General Zaluzhniy “is not immune from criminal prosecution,” says John B. Quigley, author of over a dozen books on international law, “only in the UK.”
The WSJ’s seemingly bombshell Nord Stream article exonerates President Volodymyr Zelensky, reporting that “four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot” allege he initially sanctioned the plan but later tried to stop it at the behest of the CIA. Yet Gen. Zaluzhniy, who was overseeing the operation, greenlighted the attack.
As such, Gen. Zaluzhniy appears to be assigned the role of fall guy for both Zelensky and the CIA. But the paper, if its reporting can be taken at face value, is all too quick to claim that Gen. Zaluzhniy’s ambassadorship permits him to dodge accountability.
Andrew Sanger, a legal scholar whose research includes the law of immunity, agreed with Quigley’s assessment. The “obligation on states to grant immunity from prosecution applies to the receiving State [the UK] (i.e., the State in which the ambassador is located and acts as such),” he wrote in an email.
Whether or not one believes the Wall Street Journal’s report of a Ukrainian sabotage operation, the story has already set in motion in a series of scheming diplomatic maneuvers, as part of a wider high-stakes geopolitical chess match involving multiple NATO member states, Ukraine, and Russia.
Can Germany bring Zaluzhniy to justice?
Gazprom, the state-run Russian energy giant, owns 51% of Nord Stream 1, alongside four European companies, and 100% of Nord Stream 2. The 1,224-kilometer Nord Stream pipelines run from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany. In September 2022, leaks were detected in three of the four lines in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark.
Following the detection of the leaks, Germany, Sweden and Denmark each initiated separate criminal probes. Both Sweden and Denmark terminated their investigations without unmasking the perpetrator(s). The German investigation is allegedly ongoing. Mainstream media reports surfaced in August that Berlin had obtained an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diver suspected of being part of the team directed by Gen. Zaluzhniy to execute the sabotage. Russia, the majority owner of the pipelines, was excluded from all three countries’ investigations. In February 2023, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report based on a source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning” that the sabotage was a covert operation by the CIA.
Four days after the leaks were detected, former President Biden said that the US would “be sending divers down to find out exactly what happened.” However, at the time of writing, the US has not taken any public measures to identify the perpetrators or bring them to justice.
There is ample incentive for Germany to bring the saboteurs to justice, even at the risk of precipitating a dramatic diplomatic struggle with Ukraine, Poland or other Western allies. Among the European energy firms that owned 49% of Nord Stream 1, two are German: Wintershall and E.ON. The German economy may never fully recover from the loss of cost-effective Russian natural gas as it accounted for as much as a staggering 66% of Germany’s gas consumption, and 42% of its supply. Both the IMF and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have projected the German economy to be the worst-performing among advanced economies for the second consecutive year. An Associated Press analysis called the loss of Russia natural gas “an unprecedented shock to Germany’s energy-intensive industries, long the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe.”
So could Germany pursue a criminal case against Gen. Zaluzhniy?
Aligned with the readings of both Quigley and Sanger, the interpretation of Marko Novaković, an expert in diplomatic and consular law, converges on the reality that WSJ’s article contains a crucial oversight.
IMAGE: Former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi has taken up duties as ambassador to Great Britain (Image source: babel.ua)
“Diplomatic immunity protects diplomats from the jurisdiction of the host state – the UK in this case – as outlined in the Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” Novaković said. “However, this immunity generally applies only to the actions of the diplomat in the receiving State.”
“Thus,” Novaković added, “Zaluzhniy, as an ambassador to the UK, would enjoy immunity from prosecution in the UK, but not necessarily in Germany or other states unless those states have a bilateral agreement with the UK extending that immunity.”
The resulting question arises: Does Germany have a bilateral immunity agreement with the UK or Ukraine?
“No,” said Stefan Talmon, a legal scholar with expertise in international and European Union law.
Matthias Hartwig, a German and international law scholar, echoed Talmon’s assessment.
“There is no treaty between Germany and the UK which grants immunity to diplomats who are received by the UK,” Hartwig said. “If Mr. Zaluzhniy travels back to Ukraine or from Ukraine to the UK via Germany, he will enjoy immunity; if he visits Germany for holidays, he does not enjoy immunity.”
Novaković agreed. “Diplomatic immunity cannot shield them from legal consequences when their actions violate the laws of the countries they traverse or the principles of international law,” he said.
What about extradition? Could Germany request Zaluzhniy be extradited to face trial there?
The answer is “yes,” according to legal experts.
“If Ukraine waived the ambassador’s immunity,” said William Dodge, an expert on international dispute resolution, “he could be extradited from the UK to Germany.”
A prerequisite to Zaluzhniy’s potential extradition to Germany is that his immunity must be waived. For proceedings in UK courts to take place, it is the UK, not Germany, that must request the immunity waiver from Ukraine, according to experts. But Dodge and other scholars cautioned legal and geopolitical hurdles remain.
“In this instance, there are no bilateral extradition treaties between Germany and Ukraine, so even if immunity were not a factor, Ukraine would still not extradite Zaluzhniy in this [geopolitical] situation,” Novaković said.
Ukraine is unlikely to acquiesce to a potential German extradition petition. But the Crown Prosecution Service, the foremost agency responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in England and Wales, may ask the UK government to request that Ukraine waives Zaluzhniy’s immunity.
“The UK can ask [Ukraine] for a waiver of immunity,” Sanger said in an email.
“The FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] may request a waiver of a person’s diplomatic immunity in order to arrest, interview under caution and, if appropriate, bring charges,” according to the Crown Prosecution Service website.
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) also provides that Germany may ask the British government to do so.
“If Germany seeks to prosecute, it could request that the UK waive Zaluzhniy’s immunity under the Vienna Convention,” Novaković said.
“This step,” Dodge added, “might bring some pressure on the UK government to respond.”
Quigley’s assessment comported with those of Dodge, Novaković and Sanger, though a significant caveat was added. “A sending State can waive immunity for one of its diplomats,” he said. But “a receiving State cannot force this upon a sending State.”
This means “Germany could not force Ukraine to waive his UK immunity,” continued Quigley. (Emphasis added.)
Neither is it likely the UK would request an immunity waiver nor that Ukraine – the sending State – would grant one. Among European countries, the UK ranks second only to Germany in military aid allocated to Ukraine since the war began in February 2022 – a fact in itself which seems to cast doubt on Germany’s willingness to pursue a criminal case against Zaluzhniy.
“The geopolitical situation and the ongoing war in Ukraine would make such efforts a Sisyphean task at the moment,” said Novaković. But “the receiving State can request that the diplomat return to the sending State, where they could be tried if certain legal conditions are met.”
The likelihood that the UK will request Zaluzhniy return to Ukraine appears doubtful. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at November’s G20 summit that the UK would “ensure Ukraine has what is needed for as long as needed.” Starmer has kept his word, permitting Ukraine to launch British Storm Shadow missiles at targets inside Russia for the first time that same month. The volley of missiles came only a day after the prime minister told Russian President Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine.”
Still, with President Trump having promised to swiftly end the war, a greater appetite for unraveling the Nord Stream mystery may be forthcoming despite the dimensional tension among allied nations that such resolution could beget. The recent collapse of the German governing coalition and expected election of a new chancellor may also galvanize the incoming government into action. Novaković and other scholars believe that even the prevailing geopolitical dynamics do not completely preclude an immunity waiver by Ukraine. “Generally, cases of waiving immunity by the sending State occur more often than one might think,” he said, citing an instance as precedent.
“Germany can still pursue a criminal investigation against Zaluzhniy, despite his diplomatic status in the UK, particularly for acts committed before he became a diplomat,” Novaković added. “A good example involving Germany is the case of Asadollah Assadi, with the controversial follow-up.”
A declaration of persona non grata?
Another recourse available to the British government is a declaration of persona non grata, a diplomatic designation that would facilitate Zaluzhniy’s expulsion from the UK. Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) states that the “receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata.” (In October, Canada and India expelled six of each other’s diplomats from their respective countries, declaring them personae non gratae.)
“The UK cannot force Ukraine” to waive the ambassador’s diplomatic immunity, “although it could declare the ambassador persona non grata, forcing him to leave the UK,” said Dodge. “Germany would play no formal role in this, though…it could ask the UK to PNG [persona non grata] the ambassador.”
“If Ukraine waived the ambassador’s immunity, he could be extradited from the UK to Germany,” added Dodge. “Alternatively, if he were declared persona non grata and returned to Ukraine, Ukraine could extradite him to Germany.”
There is also additional legal recourse available to the UK, should Germany exert any pressure on it. Article 9 of the VCDR allows the receiving State to declare any member of the diplomatic mission persona non grata. “If the sending State refuses or fails within a reasonable period to carry out its obligations under paragraph 1 of this article, the receiving State may refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the mission,” the article states.
This absence of diplomatic recognition would allow a German prosecution to go ahead, or at least occasion an interview of Zaluzhniy under oath, the individual who allegedly oversaw the operation. After all, the brazen attack prompted the European Union to warn that “any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response.” And three days after the leaks in the pipelines were detected, a NATO press release stated that “this is the result of deliberate, reckless, and irresponsible acts of sabotage.” At the time of writing, neither NATO nor the EU has taken public measures to unmask the perpetrators or bring them to justice.
Further motive for the possibility that Zaluzhniy may be formally charged with the crime is found in Ukrainian domestic politics. Numerous reports have detailed the political rivalry between Zelensky and Zaluzhniy. The two men often clashed over Ukraine’s military strategy, and Zaluzhniy, a hugely popular figure among his troops, officers and the Ukrainian people, was viewed as the top challenger to Zelensky for the presidency.
So perhaps, in a crude Machiavellian machination, Zelensky would waive Zaluzhniy’s immunity and facilitate his extradition to Germany where he could be forced to testify?
Germany’s legal Recourse with Poland
Germany has accused Poland of failing to execute an arrest warrant for one of the suspected saboteurs, a Ukrainian diver who had been living outside of Warsaw before fleeing to Ukraine, igniting a diplomatic row at the highest levels of government.
Following the August WSJ article and last summer’s reporting in European mainstream media that Germany had obtained an arrest warrant for the Ukrainian national, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk chided Berlin in a post on X. “To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2,” he wrote, “the only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s X post catalyzed a dispute between Poland and Germany.
To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet.
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) August 17, 2024
German security officials were “horrified,” according to a November report in Der Spiegel. When the German officials asked their Polish counterparts why the suspect was allowed to escape, they were told: “Why should we arrest him? He’s a hero to us!”
The day after the WSJ disclosures, August Hanning, the former head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence, made a shocking statement to the German outlet WELT AM SONNTAG: “The Polish government obviously let him [the Ukrainian diver] go in order to cover up its own involvement in the attack on the pipelines.” The outlet reported that Hanning is “convinced” both Warsaw and Kyiv knew about the planning. “Operations of such dimensions are inconceivable without the approval of the political leaders of the countries involved,” said Hanning.
A German official familiar with the country’s investigation accused Poland of deliberately subverting it, and a separate WELT AM SONNTAG source described the Polish actions as an “obstruction of justice.” Whether the behind-the-scenes drama between Poland and Germany will break out publicly remains to be seen.
The sabotage team, according to the WSJ and other mainstream media outlets, used Poland as a logistical base. Poland, alongside Ukraine, has been a fierce opponent of the Nord Stream project. And so both the past and present offer rationale for both country’s involvement in the planning or execution of the attack, as well as subsequently protecting its perpetrators.
So what legal recourse is available to Germany with Poland?
According to legal scholars, Berlin has options with Warsaw, as it does with Kyiv. But the energy of Germany’s legal efforts may be leached by present-time geopolitics.
“If Germany believes that Poland is deliberately obstructing the investigation, Germany could file a complaint with the European Court of Justice (ECJ), arguing that Poland is violating EU law by not cooperating in a cross-border criminal investigation,” Novaković said in an email. Germany could also “use diplomatic action through EU channels or even sanctions within the EU legal framework if there’s clear non-compliance with mutual legal assistance obligations.”
At the same time, Novaković attached a proviso to the prospect Germany takes action against Poland. “This is only a theoretical possibility; in practice it is very hard to imagine that it would occur in the current situation,” he said in an email.
What role could the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court play in addressing Nord Stream disputes?
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and one the world’s highest-profile tribunals. Germany could also file a complaint against Poland or Ukraine there – and so could Russia. But this is a “complex,” “time-consuming” and “expensive task,” according to legal scholars.
“The difficulty is that you would have to show that Poland [or Ukraine] breached a rule of international law (a customary international law rule or a treaty) and that Poland [or Ukraine] consents to the proceedings,” Sanger said in an email. “Russia would face similar challenges,” he added. (Notably, 2023 marked the first time in the ICJ’s 78-year history that a Russian justice has not served on the bench.)
As for the International Criminal Court (ICC), it is not empowered to address disputes between states relating to the Nord Stream sabotage, according to legal scholars.
“The ICC has jurisdiction over certain core international crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression,” Novaković said in an email. “Sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines would not easily fit within these categories, as the ICC does not cover crimes like infrastructure sabotage unless they are linked to an armed conflict or meet the threshold of crimes against humanity or war crimes,” adding that “it would take a Houdini’s approach to link this with any of those categories.”
Novaković went on to explain that for “the Rome Statute, which governs the ICC, the sole act of sabotage is rather broad term. Consequently, the ICC does not recognize sabotage as a standalone crime per se.”
Russia’s legal recourse
Russia does not have access to the ECJ as a nonmember of the European Union, and its legal recourse at the ICC is “limited,” according to scholars.
“Cases at the ICC can be initiated one of three ways: by a state who is party to the Rome Statute (by nationality or territoriality); by a referral from the UN Security Council; by the ICC Prosecutor choosing to investigate a certain case,” Novaković explained.
Russia may thus need to resort to “exerting diplomatic pressure on Germany, invoking international obligations under counter-terrorism conventions such as the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997), arguing that sabotaging energy infrastructure falls under acts of terrorism,” he said in an email.
Sweden, however, may be subject to more than mere diplomatic pressure by Russia, according to Said Mahmoudi, a legal scholar with expertise in law of the sea, international environmental law, use of force, international organizations and state immunity.
“Although the area is the [Swedish] economic zone, it’s free for navigation of other countries’ ships. Sweden sort of established a security zone around these pipelines at the place where the explosions happened and excluded all the other countries’ access to this place for the purpose of carrying out its own investigation,” Mahmoudi said. “In my view, as I can interpret the law of the sea, there was no basis for this in international law.”
In February 2024, Sweden closed its investigation, refusing to unmask the perpetrator. The Swedish Security Service’s press 220-word Orwellian press release stated, “The investigation resulted in an overall determination that Sweden does not have the jurisdiction to investigate this matter further.” That same month, Denmark colluded with Sweden on silent inaction, citing the lack of “sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case.”
Not only was the Swedish navy in violation of international law when it blocked off the crime scenes, but it also sent a vessel capable of “advanced diving missions” that would have likely removed inculpatory evidence. It is telling that Sweden ‘cleaned-up’ the crime scene on at least two occasions.
Trond Larsen is a submersible drone operator. His images of one of the pipelines were commissioned by Expressen, a Swedish newspaper, and later by the BBC. “When Expressen released those pictures, media attention picked up again,” he said. “I don’t know why, but the Swedes closed off the area for some days and did some more investigations after that point. But it was just a few short days after us.”
Larsen believes Sweden had removed material and debris from the crime scene “because of the amount of steel and concrete in these pipes and the damages we saw – it was after the first dive [with Expressen] – it was my assumption that material had to have been removed because we saw very little small debris. We saw some bigger parts, but no small ones.”
“I think that the main portion of that pipe has probably been removed, so going in and saying where the explosion started and how it happened,” he added. “I would be surprised if the Swedes haven’t taken the actual materials needed to figure that out,” he added.
Such apparently illegal actions by Sweden appear to undermine a priori the premise and results of its vapidly performative investigation: Stockholm first prevents Russian and other nations’ vessels from accessing the blast sites. Then it claims to lack “jurisdiction.”
“Western countries, they had no interest and they were sort of considering Swedish activity and the investigation as something desirable,” said Mahmoudi. “So there was no country which, at least publicly, had any, let’s say, any objection.”
It is important to note that by failing to provide one shred of evidence, Sweden and Denmark may have solidified their roles as client states in the US-led, “rules-based” global order – and this geopolitical arrangement has, again, trumped any proclaimed adherence to international law.
“These are rather clear issues in international law,” Mahmoudi said. “But then how, in reality, things were done in this situation is, as in many other cases, was probably mostly the political understandings of the states, which was decisive for what they did.”
Novaković and Mahmoudi, like the other legal scholars, nevertheless believe the viability of Russia’s legal options vis-à-vis Sweden and Germany is constrained by the current geopolitical climate, draining energy from any Russian efforts to hold the West, as well as Zaluzhniy, accountable.
Interestingly, just this week Denmark’s energy agency has granted Nord Stream 2 AG corporation, a unit of Russia’s Gazprom, “permission to conduct preservation work on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, which was damaged in a series of blasts in 2022.” According to the permit issued by the Danish authorities, this would give Nord Stream 2 AG approximately three weeks to survey the site, collect data, and plug the damaged ends “to reduce environment, safety risks”.
Prosecuting only Zaluzhniy and the Ukrainian fugitive would be profoundly incomplete
IMAGE: The boot was spotted by the expedition’s drone some five meters from the small leak site in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Swedish exclusive economic zone.
A modicum of potential for justice against Zaluzhniy can be gleaned from mainstream media reporting on the sabotage. Outlets such as The Telegraph, Washington Post and WSJ have made an effort to absolve Zelensky while inculpating Zaluzhniy. Their reporting often contains information divulged to reporters, who subsequently propagate a narrative publicly palatable to Downing Street, the White House, and British and American security and intelligence services. It can be reasonably averred that Zaluzhniy, who remains satisfactory enough to Western powers to serve as ambassador to the UK but is no longer deemed worthy of commanding Ukraine’s armed forces, may be apportioned blame for the sabotage. But prosecuting only Zaluzhniy and the Ukrainian diver who allegedly fled from Poland to Ukraine would be profoundly incomplete.
Pinning the blame solely on these two individuals would unwarrantedly exonerate the US from its likely shared culpability or, at the very least, its role in covering up the crime. The author of the WSJ article has acknowledged the US originally developed an operational plan to blow up the pipelines. Der Spiegel’s report claims that “those responsible for the largest act of sabotage in the history of Europe were around a dozen men and one woman from Ukraine,” and that “some of the perpetrators have long-standing links to the CIA.” These assertions strengthen the theory that casting blame on only Zaluzhniy and the Ukrainian diver would unjustifiably absolve the attack’s backers, other planners and the rest of the saboteurs.
Unforeseen developments now lend renewed credence to the idea that the US was involved in planning the attack and covering up the truth behind it, bolstering the numerous, convincing and detailed findings of American complicity already publicly available. A new piece of compelling information has surfaced, pointing to an American as well as Norwegian cover-up. (Hersh, notably, reported that Norway, whose gas exports to Europe have boomed since the attack, assisted the CIA in the covert operation.)
During the May 2023 expedition (in which I participated), a diver’s boot was spotted some five meters from the small leak site in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Swedish exclusive economic zone. According to Erik Andersson, a Swedish engineer who led our investigative expedition to the blast sites, the boot is part of a “backstory about Norway and its dirty business with the USA,” and is believed to have was lost on November 26, 2022, by a Norwegian diver contracted by the United States. According to Andersson, “It has nothing to do with the perpetrators [of the Nord Stream sabotage], but the American involvement is still interesting since it’s not been reported at all.”
“In the UNSC [United Nations Security Council], they [the US] praised the Swedes, Danes and Germans, and [twice] blocked an international investigation,” Andersson said, “but they themselves chartered a ship full of divers and went to the crime scenes.”
An important new revelation
Amid the revelation of the origin of the boot, the recent eyewitness account of John Anker Nielsen, the harbormaster on the Danish island of Christiansø, has emerged.
I was “not allowed to say a thing,” Nielsen told a Danish paper.
The “thing” Nielsen was not permitted to discuss publicly may turn out to demonstrate US involvement. Four or five days before the bombs exploded, harbormaster Nielsen was out on the Baltic Sea with Christiansø’s rescue service to see why vessels in the area had their radios turned off. The vessels Nielsen and his crew encountered were American warships. He and his crew were told by US Naval Command to turn back.
Asked for comment, Nielsen said, “I have nothing else to add from what I said to the Danish newspaper.”
The USS Kearsarge, Gunston Hall and Arlington comprised the conspicuous convoy of American warships that alerted Nielsen. The first two of these vessels participated in the June 2022 BALTOPS, the annual military exercise sponsored by United States Naval Forces Europe in the Baltic Sea. Hersh reported that US “Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines.”
“Kearsarge, Gunston Hall and USS Arlington, all with capabilities to bring a midget submarine with divers down to the pipelines, also appeared in the area of the pipelines east of [the Danish island of] Bornholm around 20-21 September, days before the explosions, and with their AIS [automatic identification system] turned off,” wrote Ola Tunander, author of numerous books on security policy and naval strategy. “There seems to have been a significant U.S. Navy presence with capabilities for deep sea divers over the area of the upcoming explosions both during the BALTOPS exercise and during the very days preceding the explosions.”
Irrefutable proof of US ships operating in the area in the weeks and months following the blasts also exists. Among those vessels is the USS Paul Ignatius. Research done by Andersson showed that the Paul Ignatius operated near the explosion sites in early October 2022. When the Paul Ignatius turned on its AIS, it “masqueraded as the Greek container ship Elona,” wrote Andersson. “Looking at the adventures of Elona in MarineTraffic [a maritime analytics provider that offers information on the ship movements] over the period since June last year reveals it’s been extensively used as a cover for US warships.”
Hersh reported that an American warship recovered an unexploded mine. Gumshoe research done by open-source intelligence investigators may demonstrate which ship and when the undetonated bomb was retrieved. The US chartered the Norwegian offshore vessel Normand Frontier to investigate a blast site from November 20 to 30, 2022. The Normand Frontier was “guarded by the American USCGS Hamilton,” according to Tunander. This is the Norwegian vessel that is said to have carried the Norwegian diver who is said to have lost his boot. Open-source intelligence investigator Michael Kobs has not only tracked the Normand Frontier’s movements, but also demonstrated that it is likely the Normand Frontier that blocked the access to the site of a Russian ship, Nefrit.
Reporting in mainstream media does not inquire about how the US immediately knew exactly where to send its vessels or about the suspicious movements of a US ship. To date, no mainstream reporter has challenged former President Biden or his CIA in what appears to be a blatant deception on their part. Even mainstream outlets, from The Washington Post to Der Spiegel, acknowledge that Western intelligence services were aware of Ukrainian plans to blow up the pipelines as early as June 2022. Whether one subscribes to the Ukrainian plot or not, it further underlines how all the shoulder-shrugging in Washington and London about the perpetrators was a dishonest farce, and suggestions of Russian involvement were spurious from the outset.
When the undisguised propaganda from multiple “experts” quoted in the mainstream press and on television news programs failed to hold up, US and European security officials began leaking curated information to select journalists about a team of six Ukrainians who allegedly traveled aboard Andromeda, a 15-meter sailing yacht, to execute the sabotage operation. The “coordinator” of the sabotage team, according to mainstream media, was Roman Chervinsky, a colonel who served in Ukraine’s special operations forces. Chervinsky is now allegedly on 24-hour house arrest after being released on bail for an indictment by the Ukrainian State Security Service in April 2023 for abuse of power.
Such seemingly gift-wrapped information about alleged Ukrainian culpability fed to favored mainstream outlets cannot be verified or refuted, and it contains no incontrovertible evidence of who planned and executed the attack. In fact, the silver-plattered leaks invite a further question: Do certain aspects of the Andromeda mission suggest its purpose was merely to provide plausible deniability and cover for the attack’s true perpetrators?
For one, 80-meter-deep blast sites were chosen, although there are numerous places along the 1,200-kilometer pipelines with depths of only 20 meters. Furthermore, the explosives could have been planted at locations where all four lines of Nord Stream 1 and 2 run close to one another and even cross. Instead, the bombs went off at locations approximately 75 kilometers apart. So why did the saboteurs risk being spotted while traveling such a long distance? And why not reduce the depth for the divers? This surely would have made the operation safer, faster and easier to execute, as well lessened the possibility of being caught.
Second, renting a boat from a Polish harbor would have put them much closer to the blast sites instead of the German coast from which they originally set sail.
Third, the saboteurs were (willfully?) careless and brazen. They somehow forgot to clean the boat, allowing German investigators to find traces of explosives, fingerprints and DNA samples. It has also been reported that they paid with bundles of cash, carried sloppily falsified passports and drew attention to themselves by refusing to assist a sole sailor in mooring safely. Additionally, the Andromeda, boldly, was “the only boat with a small Ukrainian flag hoisted on its mast.”
Fourth, the WSJ and other mainstream outlets that were the recipients of the leaked information have not addressed a constellation of unknown technical aspects of the sabotage operation. For example, the time of the explosions is known, but exactly when the bombs that failed to rupture the lines went off remains undisclosed. It is also known that the saboteurs exploited the highly pressurized pipelines to maximize damage; however, because some of the bombs detonated 17 hours after the others, when the ruptured lines had been depressurized, they weren’t punctured in those locations. This suggests that the timers were off or mistakenly set, causing some bombs to be ineffective, especially since at least one bomb wasn’t placed on the seam or “field joint,” which is easier to perforate, as it is made of only rigid polyurethane foam. In contrast, the pipelines are steel with 4.1-centimeter walls coated with another 6 to 11 centimeters of steel-reinforced concrete. So why position a bomb and set a timer if it is understood that the explosives wouldn’t compromise the line? (In the exclusive economic zone of Sweden, there is a mere “dent” on Nord Stream 1 Line B.)
Fifth, the WSJ reported that the “operation cost around $300,000.” But this figure conflicts not only with what former Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach told 21st Century Wire, but also with those ascribed responsibility for the attack. “They [the alleged Ukrainian saboteurs] were used blindly, as a cover, in a planned operation to deflect charges,” Derkach said. “We even know that less than half of the promised reward of $1 million was reported (attributed) to them.” The precise tracing of funding for this clandestine operations has yet to be publicly disclosed, but according to Derkach the funds were presumably paid through Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and its GUR (Defense Intelligence Unit), through select military contractors, and as with most everything to do with the country’s military operations – money and resources are likely to have come via Washington and its NATO allies as part of their ongoing sponsorship of Ukraine.
Finally, among the numerous and compelling reasons to believe that Andromeda’s crew was seemingly making an effort to be discovered – fulfilling the mission’s possible role of a red herring – is their use of mobile phones and an Iridium satellite phone. “That data allowed them [German investigators] to reconstruct the entire journey of the boat,” reported the WSJ.
Zaluzhniy said, according to the WSJ, that the sabotage team “went incommunicado and couldn’t be called off because any contact with them could compromise the operation.” But that may be contradictory because if Andromeda’s route was allegedly reconstructed using phone data, then these saboteurs weren’t “incommunicado” at all.
‘Irresponsible behavior’ and ‘a prerequisite for good diplomatic relations’
Regardless of whether the veracity of the WSJ article and the European mainstream media reports goes unquestioned, their reporting has thus far proved inconsequential to the resolution of this enormous global crime.
At the time of writing, there is no definitive proof of whether Ukrainian or American divers carried out the attack and ultimately planted the bombs on the pipelines. But even if Ukraine’s role was merely to provide plausible deniability for the US and the six Ukrainians aboard Andromeda were simply patsies who never actually rigged the pipelines with bombs, Ukraine is doubtlessly implicated and, at a minimum, an accessory to the crime. Meanwhile, the US provided diplomatic cover and concealed evidence – a crime in itself. Neither country warrants exoneration.
The nationality of the backers, planners and executors of the operation carries little significance. The sabotage stands as a galactically illegal attack perpetrated by the West not only on Russia but also constitutes a major West-on-West international crime, the resolution of which may come down to “a gesture made by the Sending state when a case is severe,” as Novaković said.
“The purpose of diplomatic immunity is,” Novaković went on to emphasize, “to enable diplomats to carry out their duties effectively, fostering international relations (particularly between sending and host State), rather than undermining them through irresponsible behavior.”
As the largest act of industrial sabotage in history, the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines positively qualifies as “severe” and “irresponsible behavior,” and it should not so be difficult for purported allies to work together in the name of justice.
“In my opinion, waiving immunity in justified cases is crucial for maintaining the integrity and respect of diplomatic immunity overall,” said Novaković. “This is a prerequisite for good diplomatic relations, cooperation, and the prevention of escalation in countless situations, which is one of the main goals of diplomacy.”
***
Jeffrey Brodsky is an author and investigative independent journalist based in Europe. See his previous work on the Nord Stream sabotage incident published at The Grayzone. His writing has appeared in Jacobin, Discourse, In These Times, La Vanguardia (in Spanish and Catalan), El País and The Copperfield Review, among others. Follow him on X @JeffreyBrodsky5 and his Substack.
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