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A senior Ukrainian military officer with close ties to the country’s intelligence services played a central role in the bombing of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline last year, according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe and other people familiar with the details of the covert operation.
The officer’s role provides the most direct evidence yet linking Ukraine’s military and security leadership to a controversial act of sabotage that has led to multiple criminal investigations and that U.S. and Western officials describe as a dangerous attack on Europe’s energy infrastructure have designated.
Roman Chervinsky, a highly decorated 48 year old Colonel, who served in Ukraine’s special operations forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role said. He led the logistics and support of a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to plant explosive charges on gas pipes. On September 26, 2022, three explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The attack left only one of the four gas connections in the network intact as winter approached.
Chervinsky did not act alone or plan the operation, say people familiar with his role, which has not been previously reported. The officer took orders from higher-ranking Ukrainian officials who eventually reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, people familiar with the operation’s conduct said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details about the bombing, which has strained diplomatic ties with Ukraine and drawn objections from U.S. officials.
Ukraine has launched many daring and secret operations against Russian forces. But the Nord Stream attack was directed against civil infrastructure that was built to supply energy to millions of people in Europe. While Gazprom, the Russian state gas company, owns 51 percent of Nord Stream, Western energy companies, including from Germany, France and the Netherlands, are partners and have invested billions in the project. Ukraine had long complained that Nord Stream would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kiev of huge transit revenues.
Through his lawyer, Chervinsky denied any involvement in the pipeline sabotage. “All speculation about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream is being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis,” Chervinsky said in a written statement to The Washington Post and Spiegel, which conducted a joint investigation into his role.
Ukrainian government spokesmen did not respond to a list of questions about Chervinsky’s participation.
Chervinsky’s role illustrates the complex dynamics and internal rivalries of the wartime government in Kiev, where Ukraine’s intelligence and military establishment are often in tension with its political leadership.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Chervinsky served in a unit of Ukraine’s special forces, focusing on resistance activities in Russian-occupied areas of the country, people familiar with his duties said. He was subordinate to Major General Viktor Hanushchak, an experienced and respected officer who communicated directly with Zaluzhny.
Chervinsky was well suited to help carry out a covert mission aimed at concealing Ukraine’s responsibility. He has held senior positions in the country’s military intelligence service and the Ukrainian security service SBU and is professionally and personally close to key military and security leaders.
He has also helped carry out other clandestine operations.
In 2020, Chervinsky led a complex plan to lure fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner to Belarus with the aim of capturing them and taking them to Ukraine, where they will face charges. In his statement to the Post and Der Spiegel, Chervinsky said he also “planned and carried out” operations to kill pro-Russian separatist leaders in Ukraine and “hijacked a witness” to the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Donbas Russia could confirm region in 2014, which killed all 298 passengers and crew on board. Last year, a Dutch court convicted two Russians and a Ukrainian of murder in the shoot-down caused by a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile.
Chervinsky is being held in a Kiev prison on allegations that he abused his power to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and the operation leaked the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, triggering a Russian missile attack that killed one soldier and injured 17 others.
Hanushchak, who no longer serves in the Special Operations Forces, has publicly stated that the operation was approved from the armed forces and declined to comment for this article.
Chervinsky said he was not responsible for the Russian attack and that he was acting on orders in trying to convince the pilot to fly to Ukraine and hand over his plane. He describes his arrest and prosecution as political retaliation for his criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government. Chervinsky has publicly stated that he suspects Andriy Yermak, one of Zelensky’s closest advisers, of spying for Russia. He also accused the Zelensky government of failing to adequately prepare the country for the Russian invasion.
“The operation to recruit the Russian pilot involved SBU, Air Force and special forces units,” Chervinsky said in his written statement to The Post and Der Spiegel. “The operation was approved by Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny.”
Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream bombing contradicts Zelensky’s public denials that his country was involved. “I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in a press interview in June, responding to a Post report that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.
“Ukraine has done nothing of the kind. “I would never behave like that,” Zelensky said.
But the Nord Stream operation was designed to take Zelensky out of circulation, people familiar with the operation said.
“Everyone involved in the planning and execution reported directly to [chief of defense] Zaluzhnyy, so Zelensky wouldn’t have known about it,” said an intelligence report obtained by the CIA and allegedly shared by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, on the chat platform Discord. Officials in several countries have privately said they are confident Zelensky did not personally authorize the Nord Stream attack.
Other secret Ukrainian operations against Russian forces, including the Russian aircraft operation, were also designed to bypass the Ukrainian president, people familiar with their planning said.
Chervinsky blamed Yermak and several others Other Zelensky advisers were accused of botching a plan to seduce Wagner fighters after their trip to Belarus in 2020. This covert operation failed, Chervinsky said in a press interview in 2021, because something found out from Zelenksy’s inner circle.
“It’s not just a ‘mole’ [in Zelensky’s administration]“It’s a bunch of people,” Chervinsky said, naming Yermak and two other Zelensky advisers. He accused government officials of being “afraid to challenge Russia.”
U.S. officials have at times privately reprimanded Ukrainian intelligence and military officials for launching attacks that could provoke Russia to escalate its war against Ukraine. But Washington’s unease has not always stopped Kiev.
In June 2022, the Dutch military intelligence service MIVD received information that Ukraine may be planning an attack on Nord Stream. CIA officials told Zaluzhny through an intermediary that the United States opposed such an operation, according to people familiar with those conversations.
US officials believed the attack had been called off. But it turned out that it was only postponed until three months later, using a different starting point than originally planned. Key elements of the plan, including the number of people in the bomb team and the use of a rented boat, diving equipment and fake identities, remained the same.
In an interview with The Post in June this year, Zaluzhny said the CIA never directly questioned him about an attack on Nord Stream. He said that after the explosions in September 2022, he received a call from then-U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark A. Milley. “He asked me, ‘Did you have anything to do with it?’ I said no.’ Many operations are planned, many operations are ongoing, but we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.”
Zaluzhny suggested in the interview that Russian propagandists had tried to link him and the Ukrainian military to the operation.
Dutch military intelligence also reported to the Americans that the Ukrainians were planning an attack on another pipeline in the Black Sea called TurkStream. It is not clear why this operation was never performed. In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that his country’s security services had prevented a Ukrainian attack on TurkStream. However, Russian authorities have provided few details and are not known to have charged anyone over the alleged plot.
Russian news agency Tass reported: “It is known that the attack was planned by an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on behalf of the Ukrainian special services.”
Some of those who described Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraine’s best interests. They argued that the bombing of the pipelines helped prevent Russia from filling its coffers with natural gas sales and deprived Putin of the opportunity to use the natural gas flow for political influence.
The Russian leader had shown that he was willing to use energy as a tool of retaliation. Nearly a month before the explosions, Gazprom halted the flow of Nord Stream 1, hours after the Group of Seven industrialized nations announced an impending announcement A price cap on Russian oil was introduced, a move intended to strain the Kremlin’s treasury.
The German government refused final approval for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after months of pressure from Washington. Before the war, Germany sourced half of its natural gas from Russia and had long campaigned for the Nord Stream project despite opposition from other European allies.
Chervinsky’s supporters have appeared in court to defend him; Some wore a T-shirt with his face and the hashtag #FREECHERVINSKY. For some, he is a symbol of the Ukrainian military’s willingness to make difficult decisions in the fight for the country’s survival.
In his statement, Chervinsky said: “I have dedicated my entire life to the defense of Ukraine.” He called the allegations against him in connection with the Russian aircraft operation “baseless and far-fetched, which I will definitely do.” prove it in court.”
Khurshudyan reported from Kyiv. Souad Mekhennet in Washington and Samuel Oakford in New York contributed to this report.
The Post and Spiegel collaborated on reporting and wrote separate articles that the news organizations planned to publish at the same time.