President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Wednesday that Kyiv had no knowledge of a plan to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, despite mounting rumors that Ukraine was responsible for the explosion.
Zelensky stated in an interview with the German newspaper Bild that Zelensky has the authority to issue instructions as president.
“I did nothing like that. I would never do that,” he said, according to a German interpreter.
“I believe that our army and our intelligence services did nothing like that,” he said, adding that he would “like to see proof”.
“We know nothing about it, one hundred percent,” he said.
According to a Tuesday Washington Post article, a European intelligence organization informed the CIA that it was aware of a plan by a Ukrainian special operations unit to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
According to the paper, the warning came three months before explosions last year crippled the subsea system.
The publication referenced US intelligence that was purportedly disclosed earlier this year by a low-level computer technician in the US Air National Guard who had access to a significant amount of highly sensitive information.
The exposed records showed that in June 2022, four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, an unknown European intelligence agency informed the US spy agency that Ukrainian military divers directly under the authority of the nation’s military commander-in-chief were preparing the operation.
On September 26, underwater explosions rocked the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were constructed to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. This rendered them worthless and cut off a potential source of billions of euros in revenue for Russia.
The suspected sabotage, which cut off vital energy supplies for Europe just as the price of oil was increasing due to the war, triggered a regional emergency.
Several nations, including Russia, the United States, and Ukraine, were accused, although they all denied guilt.
