The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi proposed to blow up not only the "Northern" but also the "Turkish Stream" in the Black Sea, writes the German Der Spiegel. However, the operation was unsuccessful. This was reported by the German publication Der Spiegel with reference to its own sources.
The publication describes in detail the details of the undermining of the pipeline in the Baltic Sea.
It is stated that the attack was carried out by about 12 Ukrainians (including one woman) - military and civilians, trained by a group that has repeatedly planned and carried out secret operations for the Ukrainian special services. The operation was called "Diameter" and cost up to 300,000 euros.
Spiegel says he knows their names but won't name them for security reasons. And also claims that there is a lot of evidence of the involvement of Ukraine in this sabotage.
They used special explosives disguised as an air balloon. It was helped to prepare by a retired expert in the demolition of "Grandfather" houses. The bomb was placed near the seams of the pipes, where they have weaker protection. Delivered on a rented yacht, which can accommodate up to 12 people in five cabins.
Spiegel talked in Kyiv with a kind of special forces expert Andriy, who said that he was close to preparing the operation. One of the organizers of the attack is once again called the intelligence officer Roman Chervinsky, who once underwent training at the CIA.
Training was held in a lake in Ukraine and a flooded mine. Volunteers applied themselves to perform the operation - amateur divers, air conditioning specialists, IT administrators. Out of 20, 5 were selected. Among them was the already mentioned Volodymyr Zh.
In April 2022, the operation was brought to the head committee for approval. He was satisfied that Zelensky was not informed - "these people would not trust the president and his entourage." Zaluzhn liked the operation so much that he proposed to expand it to the Black Sea - to the Turkish Stream. But this attack "later fails."
In June, Western intelligence learned about the operation and a representative of the CIA came to see Zelenskyi - that's how the president learned about the preparation. A cancellation order was given. The leaders of the operation decided to wait, and in August the divers with the bomb went to Poland. There they waited for forged documents from Bulgaria and Romania, very nervous that they would end up in prison.
In the sea, the saboteurs managed a maximum of one dive per day, faced a lot of difficulties, got seasick, the girl turned out to be the bravest - she "had the biggest eggs of all." In the Polish port, they were checked and the data was recorded, but the crew was lucky.
They ended up planting six bombs, but one failed to explode, leaving Nord Stream 2's B pipe intact.
Earlier, other German and Western publications also wrote about Zaluzhnyi's role in undermining Potoky.
Ukraine denies any involvement in this action.
