According to a report from The Washington Post, the Ukrainian military carried out an attack on Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines last year without President Zelenskyy’s knowledge. The report, published in collaboration with the German news magazine Der Spiegel, identified Ukrainian special forces commander Roman Chervinsky as the main orchestrator of the attack.
Chervinsky, who has extensive intelligence links, reportedly answered to General Valery Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian military’s commander-in-chief. The attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines have been a source of contention and have sparked accusations of involvement from Western, Ukrainian, and Russian entities.
However, Chervinsky denied any involvement in the operation and the Ukrainian military has claimed to have no information about the report. The Kremlin, on the other hand, has expressed “alarm” over the report and sees it as evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the attack.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the fact that President Zelenskyy may not have been aware of the actions of his subordinates is an alarming signal for both Russia and the West. Russia has previously accused the US and UK of involvement in the Nord Stream explosions, and some US and European officials had suggested, also without evidence, that Russia had blown up its own pipelines.
The Nord Stream pipeline allowed Russia to bring its gas into Europe without going through Ukraine, and Gazprom, a state-owned gas firm, owns 51% of the pipeline alongside Western energy firms.