Months before Russia's Nord Stream pipeline was bombed, President Joe Biden-led administration knew of a detailed Ukrainian plan to sabotage the gas pipeline to Europe, according to a new report.
What Happened: According to documents leaked online, reported by The Washington Post, the U.S. knew of the Ukrainian plan to attack the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines three months before it was damaged last September by underwater explosions.
The report added that the Central Intelligence Agency learned through a European spy agency last June that a Ukrainian six-person team of special operations forces intended to blow up the Russia-to-Germany project. The intel was based on information provided by a Ukrainian national and the CIA shared it with Germany and other European countries in June 2022.
Why It Matters: The intelligence document was part of a series of secret documents that were shared online on Discord, purportedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. He was arrested in April and charged in relation to the leak of sensitive U.S. documents. The publication obtained a copy from one of Teixeira’s online friends.
Meanwhile, White House spokesperson John Kirby said the investigations into the Nord Stream attack were active. “The last thing that we’re going to want to do from this podium is get ahead of those investigations,” Kirby said.
Last year, a series of underwater explosions damaged the Nord Stream 1 and the recently built Nord Stream 2 pipelines, connecting Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea. The U.S. and its NATO allies called the incident “an act of sabotage” and blamed it on Moscow, that invaded Ukraine last year.
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