A Western media report has revealed the CIA informed Belgium about Ukraine’s role in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines transferring gas from Russia to Germany.
De Tijd, a Belgian newspaper reporter on Saturday the US intelligence agency informed its Belgian counterpart, the ADIV, about Ukraine’s possible involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
Investigative US journalist Seymour Hersh reported in February that US President Joe Biden was the one who issued the final go-ahead to blow up the pipelines.
The underwater Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea were bombed on September 26, 2022, leading to a further rift between Russian and Europe.
The Washington Post wrote on tuesday that the CIA learned in June 2022 through a European spy agency that a six-person Ukrainian Special Forces team intended to blow up the pipelines.
De Tijd wrote that the CIA provided the information to ADIV on a strictly confidential basis and refrained from revealing its sources, citing the US spy agency’s responsibility to protect its informants.
Belgium, for its part, refrained from publicly speaking about the Ukrainian forces’ alleged role in the sabotage of the energy pipelines, over concerns that it could cause “high tensions” among members in the Western camp amid the conflict with Russia, according to De Tijd.
De Tijd reported that the news “illustrates how Western intelligence services, including the Belgian ones, have known for months that Ukraine probably has a hand in one of the most brutal and dangerous attacks on Europe’s energy infrastructure.”
Following Hersh’s bombshell report about Biden’s involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage, some Western media outlets claimed that a “pro-Ukrainian group” had blown up the pipelines.
Moscow has dismissed the reports about Ukrainian forces’ involvement as an attempt to distract the public from the leading role played by Washington and London in the crisis.
“We have already talked about the data we have about the possible involvement of the Anglo-Saxons in this terrorist attack against international energy infrastructure,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.
“All other details should be revealed in the course of a transparent international investigation, which is not currently taking place, and the Russian side is not allowed to join any attempted investigation.”
The investigations about the blast are being carried out by investigators from Denmark, Germany, and Sweden.
Investigators from Russia have been barred from participating in the probing process which has shown so far that the Nord Stream blasts had been an “intentional sabotage” operation.
The Kremlin says the investigators are delaying the results of the probe to postpone their report to declare the perpetrators of the bombing to the world.
