Shortly after mysterious explosions hit the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near Denmark, resulting in leakage in September last year, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allegedly told Belgian secret services that Ukraine could be responsible.
The sabotage occurred at the end of September 2022, and Russia was directly accused of doing it to blackmail Western countries by strangling energy flows.
However, based on well-informed sources, Belgian news media De Tijd reported that several intelligence agencies, including Belgium’s (ADIV-SGRS), received information several months ago from the CIA that Ukraine might be responsible for the sabotage.
De Tijd’s revelations on the potential involvement of Ukraine comes after the Washington Post’s revelations last Tuesday that, three months before sabotage, Joe Biden’s administration learned that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the pipeline and that the divers reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being kept out of the loop.
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the attacks might have been planned in Poland, an allegation currently being investigated by Germany.
Belgian Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder did not wish to comment on De Tijd’s revelations, saying that she would not “communicate on the work of [the Belgian] intelligence service or on the contacts it has with partner services,” her spokesperson told De Tijd.
However, the instigators of the sabotage remain unknown, and Russia is still suspected of being behind it, notably in the face of the revelations made last April by Nordic media on a Russian military programme which aimed to map out offshore wind farms, gas pipelines, and electricity and internet cables in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden’s waters.
Last November, Russian intelligence-gathering ships were also seen in Belgian and Dutch territorial waters.
However, Russia denies having anything to do with intelligence-gathering activities in the North Sea.
Apart from having caused an ecological disaster, these explosions also led to even more instability in the gas market and further price increases.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 had already put Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas in the spotlight, but the sabotage of the Nord Stream hastened the region’s search for other energy suppliers.
Before the war, Germany was heavily reliant on pipeline gas coming from Russia, and the two pipelines – which link Russia and Germany – were built by the state-controlled Russian company Gazprom to transport 110 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas to Germany each year.
The French energy company Engie, the Dutch one Gasunie, and the German one Wintershall had also invested in Nord Stream 1.
(Anne-Sophie Gayet | EURACTIV.com)
Read more with EURACTIV
Poland to build coalition against EU migration pact
Source: euractiv.com
