A recent Washington Post article alleges a disgraced Ukrainian officer coordinated a sabotage attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. Former CIA officer Larry Johnson dismisses the report as absurd, emphasizing a concealed MI6/CIA dispute within Ukraine.
In an effort to deflect attention away from Washington’s accusation that Ukraine was responsible for the assaults in September 2022, US legacy media has added yet another layer of ambiguity and complexity to the Nord Stream cover narrative.
Expanding upon earlier reports this year that a mysterious “pro-Ukrainian group” rented a sailboat to carry out the attacks—which were made public following Sy Hersh’s shocking report linking the US Navy to the terrorist acts—the Washington Post story on Saturday claimed that colonel Roman Chervinsky of Ukrainian special operations forces was the coordinator of the “brazen sabotage operation.”
Chervinsky, WaPo’s story goes, “was the coordinator of the Nord Stream operation,” “managing logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines.”
But in a new twist on an old narrative, the newspaper ‘revealed’ that Chervinsky, who is presently rotting in a Kiev jail on abuse of power charges, “took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials” reporting to Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny.
This development is in stark contrast to earlier MSM reporting on the Nord Stream attacks, which emphasized that the alleged Ukrainian perpetrators had no affiliation whatsoever with Ukraine’s government or military. The original reporting on the attacks took place during the highly publicized spat between Zaluzhny and President Volodymyr Zelensky over the commander’s remarks earlier this month that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had reached a “stalemate.”
According to sources WaPo used in its story on Saturday, “the Nord Stream operation was designed to keep Zelensky out of the loop.”
The newspaper’s narrative was described by Duma deputy Alexey Chepa as an attempt by the US and NATO to cover up their own responsibility for the Nord Stream attacks, therefore Russian officials are not buying the new version of events.
A recent study has revealed that the fallout from the depleted uranium explosion in Ukraine reached England with a rise of approximately 600 ng/cubic meter in uranium levels in the air in southeast England due to particles released from the Khmelnitsky explosion.
The report’s assertion that Zelensky was kept in the dark, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, should be “a very alarming sign” for both Russia and the West as a whole. “Because if the Kiev regime no longer controls the situation in the country, this is alarming and should also be taken into account.”
‘Silly Beyond Belief’
Larry Johnson, a former State Department employee, and retired CIA intelligence officer, rejects the latest interpretation of the “Ukraine did Nord Stream” narrative and emphasizes the need for a much wider perspective.
“You have to take this as an example of CIA propaganda to identify this individual, who has zero experience in underwater demolition operations, as sort of the mastermind of an underwater demolition operation, as just ridiculous beyond belief, as the Washington Post is normally the preferred mouthpiece of the CIA,” Johnson said.
“All of this has to be viewed in the context of the growing conflict between General Zaluzhny and President Zelensky,” Johnson emphasized. “He basically has been seen as a competitor to Zelensky. The fact that he was featured in The Economist to me indicates that this is British intelligence signaling that they think this Zaluzhny is their boy. And the CIA is pushing back, saying ‘no, no, no, it’s got to be Zelensky.’ So Chervinsky is just a sideshow. When you look at the picture here, there’s nothing at all about him that would suggest an operative with any kind of competence.”
Johnson thinks that Washington’s attempts to shift the blame for the Nord Stream attacks onto Ukraine make sense in light of the Biden administration’s progressive “abandonment” of Kiev.
“This has happened to Afghanistan. It happened in Vietnam. It’s going to happen to Kiev. They’re not winning the war. The United States is preoccupied with the war in Israel. And the United States does not have the money nor the weapons to keep Ukraine in the fight. So we’re looking for exit strategies. And right now the question is whether or not Zelensky will survive. Will he be replaced by Zaluzhny? Will there be a military coup? I think that we’re into that territory now because Ukraine has experienced absolutely zero success on the battlefield,” the observer explained.
When asked about Germany’s stance on the Nord Stream scandal, which directly links Washington, Kiev, or both to attacks on Germany’s energy infrastructure, Johnson stated that Berlin’s approach up to this point has been to arm and finance Ukraine rather than to watch out for its best interests.
Is that a logical statement? Nope. This is not a rational policy. This makes no sense. We’re dealing with insane individuals here. Because Germany should immediately sever all ties and dealings with Ukraine and declare Ukraine to be an enemy of the German people if they truly believed this information to be accurate and were acting in Germany’s best interests. However, they won’t act in such a manner. Instead, he noted, Berlin continues “to portray Russia as their enemy.”
“Except, you know, we now know that [German Chancellor] Olaf Scholz is talking about talks with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. So it’s a policy in disarray because they’re watching. They’re all bent on the fact that United States would be in this to the end and that the United States’ military might and economic clout would be sufficient to bring victory to Ukraine. And they now realize that’s fool’s gold. It’s not going to happen,” Johnson summed up.