178. The Plot to Destroy Russia’s Gas Empire (Ep 2)

23:43Gordon:What a slam there on the Dutch boy, who's just sucked out the World Cup.

23:49David:And now they're in Morocco. Yeah, exactly. They got booted out very early. But they have an extremely valuable and capable service, which is essentially the associate member of the Five Eyes, which is incredible. A lot of countries have sort of tried to enter the realm of the Five Eyes, Germany, France, and Japan. They were all denied access. I think that's because the Dutch have something to bring to the table because they've done stuff like hacking into Russian CCD cameras, which are watching Russian hackers and stuff like that to feed back. So they've got some really capable stuff. So they somehow picked up the details of this operation and then they pass it to the Americans.

24:33They picked up the full details of the operation pretty much. they immediately passed it on to the Americans in an encrypted memo. The memo, you know, exploded like a bombshell within the American system. It went all the way up to William Burns and went all the way up to the National Security Council. So a lot of people were informed. And what the American system did is to scramble and try to prevent this from happening because they thought it was foolish, stupid and useless to attack the pipeline, which may damage Germany's energy supply at the time where the American strategic goal of the Biden administration was to get Germany to bear the brunt of the support for Ukraine, which eventually did happen.

25:18In fact, now Germany today is the biggest backer of Ukraine in the whole world. So I think from what I gather, William Burns was thinking if this scandal kind of blows up, it will make it politically difficult for the chancellor to unleash this huge support in a country which had been pacifist for decades, in a country which has been slightly pro-Russian, in a country where people are worried about war, they're wary of supporting Ukraine because they're wary of escalation, etc. So they thought on balance this was a very bad thing for Ukraine. And essentially they warned the Germans and they told them someone's plotting to blow up your pipeline.

25:55They passed on the Dutch note. However, they didn't pass on verbatim. They intervened a little bit, and I describe in the book how that happened. And then they went to the Ukrainians and told them to cease and desist. And they went to one of the masterminds of the plot directly, and they forced him to put it in writing that he will not participate in a plot to blow up the pipeline, which he happily did. He wrote a message to someone senior at the CIA saying, we will not do this and I will certainly play no role in anything like that. And he did it anyway, which is kind of what they tend to do, the Ukrainians, when you try to.

26:33They've done that a number of times. When you try to limit the operation of their weapon systems, they get weapon systems from the West and the US tells them, oh, but don't do this and don't do that. So they are their own people. So they did it anyway. But there are real profound and documented in writing, some of which I've seen myself, efforts by the CIA, and not just by the CIA, but also by the National Security Council to prevent this from happening, right? By warning the Germans and by telling the Ukrainians to stop. So when that happened, the Ukrainians simply postponed the operation. They put it on ice for a couple of months, and they just kind of went ahead with it in late August.

27:16So that's important to know that part of the CIA involvement is crucial because it really shows that from the top onwards, people did try to stop this.

27:28Gordon:So back to the tradecraft then of how they got in position and the cover they used. So what they did is first they got issued a real Ukrainian passports by the intelligence service under fake names, or rather the first name was the right name and the surname was a pseudonym. And the passports were real. And then they used civilian cars to travel to Poland, which is Ukraine's border with the European Union. Poland shares a border with Ukraine and then Westwards shares a border with Germany from where the operation was eventually launched. They traveled to a safe house in Poland, where the teams gathered and stayed for a while until they obtained fake European Union identifications.

28:23And they were told never to use any Ukrainian IDs while on European soil in order not to establish any kind of connection between Ukraine and the attack. So at all times, they were using these fake documents, which were Bulgarian and in one case, Romanian.

28:43Gordon:Do we know how they got those fake documents? At least one of the documents was obtained through their Secret Service connections in a friendly country in Eastern Europe. And the other ones were obtained through a criminal clan in another Eastern European country. Because, as you know, intelligence services do nurture relationships with each other, but also with the criminal underworld. quite often and they tapped these connections so they got their IDs and then from then on they were driven to a small port where they picked up the yacht and the rest of the civilian crew went to another port, a smaller port, much smaller port where there was no CCTV in operation or so they believed and they spent the night there and then they set sail the following morning on a small yacht called Andromeda, which then took them to the sites of where they laid the mines.

29:39And during the entire voyage, they used the fake IDs and their legend was that they are scuba diver enthusiasts on a holiday in the Baltic, which is a fairly plausible legend because the Baltic is full of these small yachts. It's a favorite sailing spot. you know, Northern Europeans, the Swedes, the Dutch, the Germans, the Bolts, they're keen sailors. So there are thousands and thousands of these small sailing boats in any given time.

30:10Gordon:Wasn't one of the potential cover story ideas thrown around that they were all shooting a diving or scuba themed porno film? They decided to abandon that as the cover story, huh? I never found out whether they actually were going to deploy that cover story, but that was the cover story that was given to them by the colonel who thought how useful that we actually do have a woman on board so we can always argue we're making a porn movie.

30:38David:That's a very specific genre. Well, he's over 50 years old now. When he was growing up in the Soviet Union, there was this notorious sort of notion that Germany and Sweden are the mecca for porn movie. And they had this huge porn industry, which was in fact true, but before the internet, right? So that, you know, that now it's a historic fact, maybe a pub quiz kind of thing. But in the mind of the colonel who wasn't up to date with the latest sort of developments in digital porn, you know, it would have been perfectly normal to kind of stop a boat full of people and then, yeah, we're making a porn movie, you know, on the high seas.

31:19So they never, to my knowledge, they never deployed that and they were quite uncomfortable, actually. They laughed at first and then they were sort of having second thoughts about how competent their commanders are because they thought, is this a feasible cover story?

31:33David:So the cover story does hold, though. The Andromeda set sail. The explosives are laid. And then in September, we get this explosion. So let's maybe take a break there and afterwards we'll come back and look at the rather messy and complicated aftermath of the Nord Stream 2 explosion.

31:55Gordon:Hello, everybody. We've got some very exciting news to share with you.

31:59David:That's right. If you're thinking about joining the Declassified Club, becoming what we call a secret squirrel, then you're in luck, as we're currently holding a summer sale.

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32:23David:It is perfect, isn't it, David, for those warmer months. Nothing says relaxing on holiday like geopolitical intrigue and unexplained diplomatic incidents. And we've got brilliant content lined up for the next few months, including a series on the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network and an exclusive insight into the sabotage operation behind the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022.

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33:05David:But the discount won't last forever though, will it? So make the most of it before the end of August. Sign up now and join the club. I'm Mary Beard. And I'm Josephine Quinn. At the Rest is Fest this September, we're putting on a show that can only be described as an iconoclastic romp through the ancient world. We're talking about leaders behaving badly, emperors putting their horses in charge, cities built by asylum seekers and empires getting their comeuppance. There will be some proper myth busting. But we'll also be asking why these myths matter, even when we know they're wrong. So if you love your ancient history and you're free on September the 6th, get your ticket now and join us at London's South Bank Centre.

33:50David:Tickets are on sale now. Just visit southbankcentre.co.uk. That's southbankcentre.co.uk. So welcome back. The Nord Stream pipeline has exploded in the Baltic Sea. And I can remember this very well because there was this question about who did it. And actually, at first, a lot of people did think it was the Russians. I mean, it sounds implausible now why they blow up their own pipeline. It does. It does sound implausible, Gordon. But there were theories because there were theories like that, you know, they were doing it to make a point that they could deny the supply of energy to Europe. But there was some kind of legal reason that they couldn't not supply the gas unless the pipelines had been disabled in that form.

34:35David:But I remember, so my memory of this is then a few, I guess maybe a few weeks or months after the explosion, when it was still quite mysterious, and it was pretty mysterious until Boyan's book really kind of came out and answered it. I remember talking to a, I'll discreetly call them a Western intelligence official. And this Western intelligence official was telling me lots of bad things the Russians were doing and what they got up to. And then I said, well, so what about Nord Stream? And they just went very quiet. I remember thinking to myself, hmm, the fact that you're not pitting this on the Russians, when you've been telling me all the other terrible things the Russians are doing.

35:11David:I remember thinking to myself, hmm, that maybe suggests it wasn't the Russians. But it's interesting, isn't it, Boyan? Because a lot of people did think it was the Russians. And then the theory comes up that it was those dastardly people at the CIA.

35:24Gordon:I was just going to say, I mean, hindsight 2020, obviously. But the most plausible, it feels to me and it's always felt to be like the country that had the greatest interest in blowing the pipeline up was Ukraine. So the fact that the conversation wound up being either it's a Russian sort of false flag or maybe the more Seabor Hirsch, Tucker Carlson end of the spectrum where it's the CIA. I don't know.

35:56David:It just felt crazy. I'm going to defend my own journalism and that my colleagues who didn't immediately, you know, pin it on the Ukrainians and say, I think part of the problem was that the view at the time was that this required a really kind of high level intelligence operation that you needed kind of underwater specialist subs to deliver drones which could plant the explosives or you'd need kind of military level divers deployed by subs, you know. And this was only the stuff that, frankly, the Russians or the CIA could do. Boy, and is that, come on, that's fair, isn't it? That was the assumption.

36:33David:I mean, I agree that assumption proved to be wrong, which is an interesting lesson. But I think that's what guided us, wasn't it? That was the assumption that was also fed by experts who were making mistakes in estimation. So, for example, a lot of experts, explosives experts, but also seismologists, tried to estimate the power of the explosion. and by that proxy estimate how much explosive was required for it. And they initially arrived at the conclusion that you would have needed 500 kilograms, half a ton of TNT or equivalent. And obviously you can't put that on a small boat, right? I mean, so essentially they were like, oh, this was a massive operation.

37:14It required huge submarines, ships, underwater drones, et cetera. But actually they were wrong because what happened was the Ukrainians utilized the skills of a retired professor, an engineering professor, explosives expert from one of the high institutes of learning in Kiev. So this guy devised a very, very simple contraption and the actual weight of the explosive device was not much more than 30 kilograms, all things included. They put it into a diver's tank. So in a bottle, you know, one of these kind of steel bottles. So it was very simple. The idea was that the pipelines are so highly pressurized that the interaction between the pressure at the bottom of the ocean and the pressure inside the pipeline just requires a tiny little trigger, you know, like a sting from a needle.

38:08And then that tiny hole will just kind of rip out everything and rip open the pipeline and trigger this chain reaction that would lead to this enormous explosion, which is exactly what happened. And that, I think the experts were fooled by that. They didn't realize the mechanics of the explosive device and the chain reaction it was designed to trigger. And then I think, I do genuinely believe that anyone in a position of sort of in high office who had any actual knowledge about the operation never for a moment believed it was the Russians. But what they did try to do is to lead journalists and others believe that it was the Russians in order to kind of divert attention because it was politically not entirely opportune.

38:52for the Western Alliance at the time for such a story to come out. I think I was at the receiving end of many briefings from US officials, from other Western officials, from German officials, who were saying, I mean, they never actually said it was the Russia and we know it, but they would say things like, we have no evidence, but you know, why don't you look at Russia? They do this all the time. And here's the motive. And the motive was something very complicated about they had a contract to deliver the gas and they would be penalized if they don't deliver the gas. So in order to declare force majeure in a legal sense, they had to blow up the pipeline.

39:27And then people who didn't really know much about the pipelines and what they meant to Vladimir Putin and his personal investment over 20 years into that project, they would think, well, that kind of makes sense. So I would say it was an amalgamation of some experts getting it a little bit wrong about how the explosives were devised. And then also kind of Russia is a rogue nation. It has become a rogue nation. Russians are invading other countries. They've invaded Georgia. They invaded Ukraine now. They're committing atrocities. They are waging hybrid war on NATO in Europe. They're attacking targets in Great Britain.

40:03They're attacking targets, factories, railway tracks, etc. in Germany, in Poland, shopping centers setting on fire. I broke the story about the DHL incendiary packages. They devised a very clever sort of, you know, clockwork device that was meant to bring down an airliner. They stuffed it into kind of sex toys and massage toys and stuff like that. So it's pretty innovative again, but really kind of frightening. So, you know, the Russians are doing these things. So why wouldn't they blow up a pipeline? It was kind of in keeping with what they actually are doing and have been doing. So it wasn't a difficult story to believe in.

40:45And equally so, the CIA story you mentioned, Cy Hirsch and Tucker, you know, I think Tucker based his conviction on that Hirsch story. And Hirsch published a blog post in which he described how the Americans did it with the help of the Norwegians, which I found particularly funny because I know Norway really well. And I actually knew the Biden administration people who were in that sort of area, you know. The guy at the CIA who would have been overseeing an operation like that, I actually went to him at one point and I asked him, did you have anything to do with this? And he was sort of kind of bewildered at the idea.

41:23He told me, he's now not in office anymore, but he told me, I was busy during the Biden administration. I was busy doing diversity trainings every week, like the idea that we will blow up European infrastructure. It's not Nixon anymore.

41:38Gordon:You know, that's the part of it that never made sense to me is, I mean, the agency does have a history of using covert action programs to destroy critical infrastructure. Right. We did it in Cuba in the 60s. We did it in Nicaragua in the 80s. We might harbors, we blew up fuel depots or use proxies to do it. the thing that all of those have in common is that the infrastructure that is being destroyed is owned and operated by a hostile country. And that's the piece of this that I had a hard time with is just thinking about the way a covert action program ends up being authorized and the immense amount of paperwork and bureaucracy and lawyers that get involved in these things.

42:25Gordon:The idea that the U.S. would be involved in an operation that is destroying a piece of infrastructure that's part owned by a conglomerate of Western European countries feels like a stretch to me. Like, you know, if it were solely owned by the Russians, and if it was like an intra-Russian pipeline that had some kind of strategic importance, I could definitely see that being something that the agency could be involved in. But that's the ownership piece of this is the part that never squared with me. And also, it was never necessary. You know, Exhibit A for the proponents of the theory that the CIA did it was that statement by President Biden when he said, we'll put an end to the pipeline or something to that extent.

43:15If Putin marches into Ukraine, we'll end the pipeline. And people said, aha, well, that's what he meant. In fact, what he meant was sanctions. And his people at the time explained to me in great detail how American extraterritorial sanctions will kill any project in Europe because you're not allowed to do business with Gazprom. You can't buy gas. So it doesn't matter if the pipeline operates or doesn't operate. when you can't actually make use of the gods. And in fact, that's what's happening now. The pipeline is under sanctions. So nobody could ever make use of it until the sanctions are lifted.

43:50So there's absolutely no need to blow it up if you're the United States.

43:56David:Well, I mean, your book brilliantly tells the story of the investigation as well by the Germans. And we won't go into that here and how they uncover, particularly through the Andromeda, through the boat that was used. They uncover who was behind it. And it's a fascinating part of the story. But I guess just to bring us towards the end is the question about, well, the finger points towards Ukraine for having done it. I mean, you've provided lots of evidence. They've got evidence from their investigation. And yet everyone is kind of quite quiet about it. The fallout is really interesting, isn't it?

44:31David:I mean, I guess there's been some consequences for some of the individuals who were on the boat and involved in the operation, because some of them had to almost be extracted, I think, and taken back to Ukraine before they could be arrested. But there's not been any big diplomatic row, has there? The Germans, despite a key piece of their infrastructure being blown up, haven't really said anything or done anything, because I guess it's kind of awkward, isn't it? Well, there are two things to be said about that. The first thing is that the Germans didn't take it on the chin because Germany has decided it is in its strategic national interest to support Ukraine and to fend off Russian aggression in Ukraine, to fortify Ukraine as a buffer zone between an increasingly hostile neo-imperialist Russia and Western and Eastern Europe.

45:20So they've decided that for themselves. The second thing though is that there will be actually a massive trial by the end of the summer, perhaps the the beginning of autumn, a suspect has been apprehended as a result of the German investigation. And the German prosecutor is the Federal Prosecutor General, which is the highest prosecutor in Germany, accuses this man of having been the commander of the unit of the team that blew up North Stream. And he will be put on trial in Hamburg, I think September, October by the latest. and this man is a officer who is now retired but used to serve in the special forces of Ukraine.

46:04Prior to that, he served in the intelligence service. He retired, I believe, with the rank of captain, captain of the army, that is. So the German prosecutors haven't issued the indictment yet, but from what I hear, the indictment will say this was conceived and executed on behalf of the state of Ukraine. So they will not try to claim that this was somehow a private criminal enterprise, but rather that this was a military. They will admit that this was a military operation. Which is interesting, isn't it?

46:38David:Because there's always the ambiguity about it is so interesting, because as you said, you know, it was probably signed off by Zelensky, the president. and through this kind of startup culture, which has given Ukraine a little bit of deniability, but ultimately maybe not enough to avoid the finger being pointed? Ultimately, for the prosecutor, it doesn't really matter whether Zelensky knew or didn't know. I mean, Zeluzny's people will say that Zeluzny at one point briefed the president about several operations, including this operation, that he actually told him about it. This doesn't mean that Zelensky actively approved or was involved in any way.

47:17Zelensky, by the way, denies any involvement or knowledge. And his advisors told me that they were sitting in the room when the pictures came out on the television, and that's how they found out this is their version of events. The truth is also that the CIA, obviously, and not just the CIA, the US government warned Ukraine. And in doing so, they also reached out, they say, to the presidential administration. The presidential administration has no record of that.

47:42David:This reminds me of many intelligence operations, David, where we go back to some of the ones we've done in the past where often when things go wrong, rather than in this case, it works. But when they get exposed, people are like, who signed off on that again? It's like Rainbow Warrior or something like that. You know, it's very much like that, isn't it? For the prosecutors of Germany, it doesn't matter if Zelensky and you didn't know. The fact is, it was a military operation because they gathered evidence on the suspects and they say they can prove the suspects were members of the military. The suspects were issued Ukrainian passports from the intelligence service, which are real passports, but obviously in different names.

48:19They have various other bits and pieces of evidence that points at a state structure behind this. And finally, the man who they have now in prison in Hamburg awaiting trial was a serving officer of the Ukrainian armed forces. and they will argue he was sent to Germany to do this rather than coming here on holiday to blow up the pipelines, which kind of sounds a little bit implausible. So it will be very interesting. But I think the Germans just basically decided they're going to wait for the trial and then they will let the judges speak. So I don't think there will be any political signaling. they've decided to keep quiet about this.

49:06And this is how it's going to end.

49:09Gordon:I wanted to ask you about what you think this says, if anything, about the future of kind of sabotage and this kind of semi-deniable shadow warfare that can happen around critical infrastructure. Because it does seem, on the face of it, I mean,$250 ,000 to run an operation with a pretty small team that has a really massive geopolitical impact. If you look around the globe at other kind of, you know, choke points or pipelines, you could look at, you know, the tables that run under the Bab-a-Mandeb, the Taiwan Straits, you could look at satellite infrastructure. There's a whole bunch of stuff that's not the super scary, like, water transmission and electricity stuff that we normally think of when we talk about sabotage on infrastructure, that's sort of maybe a shade less provocative than that, but still would be highly disruptive.

50:12Gordon:Does this operation, do you think it says something about what could be coming in greater numbers as we look at some of these kind of like choke points and geopolitical hotspots with critical infrastructure overlaid atop them? Oh, yes, of course. I mean, look, this was a watershed moment, I think. And the people in the intelligence world and investigators are well acutely aware of this. Because something like this has never been attempted before. It was kind of a taboo. And now we kind of know how easy it is to do it, you know. Because as you said, there are gas pipelines, oil pipelines, internet cables.

50:51They're absolutely crucial internet cables, by the way, for everything. airports, hospitals, the entire infrastructure relies on the cyber networks. Then you've got electricity cables, you've got all sorts of things, and these things are so long, so complicated, so huge. Offshore wind farms, it's been documented that the Russians have been mapping out all of this infrastructure, in particular around the British Isles, including the offshore wind pipelines, in order to strike them and shut down the power supply in a case of confrontation, or if they want to start a kind of a confrontation below the threshold of a declared war, which is what they increasingly are becoming experts in.

51:36And I think this is a watershed moment because it's become apparent that with a small determined team, people who are willing to risk their lives, you can do it on the shoestring. I've spoken to many experts who are in charge of defending the waters and the region now, which is becoming increasingly a flashpoint in the shadow war with Russia. And they freely admit in private conversations that there's nothing you can really do about it. Publicly, they talk about drones and sensors and increased kind of naval presence and cruisers and destroyers and rocket ships and whatnot. But in fact, there's really nothing you can do.

52:14And I think this really hammers home the North Stream operation, which was known internally as Operation Diameter really shows that anybody can really do it with a skill set and determination. And not to mention non-state actors. Writing the book, I was thinking like, God, what if Al-Qaeda or some next iteration of Islamic State kind of reads the book and thinks, this is something that we should be doing.

52:40Gordon:That's what you made me think when you said it's like a small group of people who might have some particular technical expertise, but maybe more importantly, are so ideologically devoted to this cause. I mean, we'd call it patriotism, Ukrainian patriotism in this case, but you would apply the same sort of analytical lens to a terrorist group, or you'd have the same group of people who might have some set of skills and who are devoted to whatever cause they're devoted to. I mean, the marginal cost of chaos is so low right now. It's really quite frightening. In the same way Al-Qaeda took Mohammed Atta and this Hamburg Circle and his friends and retrained them to become pilots, it's even easier to train someone to become deep sea divers.

53:29I don't know actually which training takes longer now that I think of it. Actually, the diving training takes a little bit longer, I believe. But nonetheless, it's possible.

53:39David:I mean, it's in a way that, you know, they were worried, the FBI, weren't they, about people going to flight schools after, you know, around that time of 9-11. You can imagine now people going around diving schools going, you know, you're trying to carry a very large weight to the bottom of the ocean. That looks a little bit suspicious to me. And you want to know how to attach it to something? Yeah, maybe that's, maybe I need to talk to the FBI about it, but you're right. It's a fascinating story. And as you said, it's a fascinating story in its own right, but also one which I think could be the harbinger of something worrisome to come.

54:14David:And I guess as we end, we should just say it's an amazing book you've written. I mean, I really was totally gripped by it, both the storytelling, but also the investigation that's gone into it. And it's called The Nord Stream Conspiracy, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who really, you know, we've only really kind of scratched the surface, haven't we, David, you know, in this interview about some of the just amazing tradecraft and intelligent details in there. So, so, so Boyan, thank you so much for joining us and for exploring and explaining this, this wild story, because it's been a fascinating journey to the bottom of the Baltic.

54:48David:Thank you so much for inviting me. This was great fun and I enjoyed it immensely. So we, we, we do hope you, you've all enjoyed that. do join us next time remember to join the declassified club if you want to hear more including ad-free listening and be able to to binge listen to some of the episodes and the stories we're telling like this but otherwise thanks for joining and we'll see you next time we'll see you next time