Kremlin says report on Zelenskiy's alleged ignorance of Nord Stream attack is 'alarming'

Reuters
Mon, November 13, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: Gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 leak reaching surface of the Baltic sea in the area shows disturbance of well over one kilometre diameter near Bornholm

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that a Washington Post report that a Ukrainian military officer coordinated the attack on Russia's Nord Stream pipelines was especially alarming given the newspaper also said Ukraine's president had not known about it.

No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system that delivers Russian gas to Europe.

The Washington Post reported that Roman Chervinsky, a senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to Ukraine's intelligence services, was the coordinator of the attack and cited unidentified people familiar with the operation as saying President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was kept out of the loop.

Chervinsky took orders from senior Ukrainian officials who ultimately reported to Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi, the Post said.

A spokesperson for Ukraine's military told Reuters on Sunday he had "no information" about the report.

"Traces of Ukraine in this sabotage, this terrorist act, are increasingly appearing in reports, investigations and media reports," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"It says that President Zelenskiy may not have been aware of such actions by his subordinates from the security agencies. This is a very alarming signal not only for us, but also for the countries of the collective West," Peskov said.

"If the Kyiv regime is no longer in control of the situation in its own country, then this is alarming and should also be taken into account."

A sharp pressure drop on the pipelines under the Baltic Sea was registered on Sept. 26 and seismologists detected explosions, triggering a wave of speculation about who sabotaged the multibillion-dollar project that carried Russian gas to Germany.

Some U.S. and European officials initially suggested, without evidence, that Russia had blown up its own pipelines, an assertion dismissed as idiotic by President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has repeatedly said, without providing evidence, that the West was behind the Nord Stream blasts - particularly the United States and Britain, which both deny involvement.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have reported that Ukraine - which has repeatedly denied involvement, was behind the attack.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has reported that U.S. navy divers destroyed the pipelines, a report dismissed by Washington.

In a blog post, entitled "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline", Hersh said the plan was hatched in 2021 at the highest levels in the United States. The White House said the blog was "utterly false and complete fiction."

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)