CIA reports Ukraine role in Nord Stream sabotage to yet another state
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Belgium is the latest European country to be tipped by the CIA of Ukraine's possible involvement in the attack on the massive energy infrastructure.
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The logo of the US Central Intelligence Agency is shown in the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, March 3, 2005 (Reuters)
The United State's spy agency CIA informed Belgian authorities of Ukraine's role in the sabotage attack against the Nord Stream gas pipelines that took place in September 2022, Belgian media said on Saturday, as cited by Sputnik.
The news comes as the latest in a series of reports stating that Washington has notified European countries of Kiev's responsibility in the attack, raising suspicions that the United States is attempting to divert attention from its own role in shutting down the pipeline - a goal which US President Joe Biden has declared last year - in aims to pressure Ukraine into further complying to orders dictated by the White House.
Read more: Seymour Hersh: Biden bombed Nord Stream, 'everyone's on our hit list'
Earlier on Saturday, The Wall Street Journal revealed in an exclusive report that Germany is investigating Poland's involvement in the attack against one of the largest infrastructures in the world and potentially Europe's largest source of energy.
Germany's criminal office found that a Warsaw-based firm Feeria Lwowa - which has been dormant for years and is owned by a Ukrainian citizen - rented a luxury yacht called Andromeda from a German company, located near the pipelines, which was used in the terrorist operation.
Earlier this week, a report by The Washington Post said the CIA knew through a European spy agency three months before the sabotage attack that members of a Ukrainian special operations team intended on blowing up the NordStream pipeline.
The yacht according to the German prosecutors was loaded with explosives and made a deviation from its original route into Polish waters coming from the Danish island of Christianso.
The yacht crew planted the explosives before heading toward Poland, the report added, noting that navigation hardware, satellite, and mobile phones, as well as gmail accounts used by the perpetrators, were discovered on the ship. But the most notable finding was DNA samples that investigators are trying to match with suspected personnel.
In March, WSJ also reported CIA warned the German Federal Intelligence service, BND, about a potential attack that could hit the Nord Stream pipelines months ahead of the attack.
According to the report, the CIA gave information regarding three Ukrainian nationals trying to rent ships in countries bordering the Baltic Sea, such as Sweden, which is currently conducting its own investigation into the blast.
The spy agency's director William Burns and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, among other senior US officials, were considering the possibility that Ukraine was behind the attack back in October.
On the same note, The New York Times cited American officials in March as saying that new intelligence suggested a "pro-Ukrainian group" had carried out the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines.
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched different investigations into the incident, while Russia wasn't given access to their probes.
