NOS: Dutch military intel intercepted info on Ukraine’s Nord Stream sabotage months before explosion

A few months before the September sabotage on Nord Stream, the Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) found out that Ukraine was planning to execute a similar operation in June, according to a joint investigation by Dutch media outlets NOS and Nieuwsuur, as well as Germany’s Die Zeit and ARD.

The investigation says the MIVD learned about Ukraine’s plans in early June from an unnamed Ukrainian source. It is alleged that Valery Zaluzhnyi, the country’s chief of military, was to be in charge of the operation. According to the sabotage scenario that the MIVD managed to intercept, a small group of divers were supposed to approach the Nord Stream pipelines on a sailboat and blow the facility up in mid-June. It is alleged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was unaware of the plot.

After receiving the information, the Dutch intelligence contacted the CIA, which, in turn, warned Ukraine against executing the plot. As a result, there was no explosion in mid-June, but someone carried out a sabotage at Nord Stream in September, using the same scenario the Dutch intelligence found out about in June.

The MIVD refused to comment on the matter. However, according to NOS sources, if the Dutch intelligence did indeed learn about Ukraine’s plans to carry out sabotage, Defence Minister Kaisa Ollongren was inevitably aware of this, as well as, most likely, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the CIA had learned about Ukraine’s plans to carry out sabotage at Nord Stream in June. WSJ’s article said that the US learned about this from an unknown European intelligence service.