The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reportedly warned Ukraine not to sabotage the Nord Stream undersea gas pipelines last year after receiving a tip from the Netherlands’ intelligence agency that a plot was under way.
The reports by several European and U.S. media outlets deepen the mystery of the Baltic Sea pipeline, which was mostly destroyed in September in explosions that remain under investigation.
In the aftermath of the blasts, Western officials blamed Russia for the September 26 incident, which all but destroyed the twin pipelines at a spot just east of a Danish island called Bornholm. The explosions were discovered as residual gas in the pipelines bubbled up to the surface.
The Ukrainian government has repeatedly denied responsibility for the attack.
The pipelines were built by Russia to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany and Europe while bypassing Ukraine, Poland, and other nations that had hostile ties with Moscow.
While the first pipeline was operational, the second had yet to receive final approval from German regulators. The United States had warned for years that the pipelines were a security risk for Germany and other European nations as they would make the countries beholden to Russian energy exports.
SEE ALSO: 'Cost Of War': Czech President Says Russians In West Should Be 'Monitored'In the months that followed the blasts, the mystery over who was responsible deepened, with a spate of reports by European media organizations that focused on a yacht called the Andromeda that had been rented at a German port by a group of people, some of whom showed Bulgarian passports. German investigators reportedly found traces of explosives on the Andromeda, which had been reported in Bornholm prior to the explosions.
Other reports focused on the presence of a Greek-flagged tanker that had been seen drifting around the site of the blasts and later continued on to a Russian port.
Last month, the German newspaper Die Zeit and The Wall Street Journal reported that German police raided an apartment in the eastern German city of Frankfurt an der Oder, investigating a woman whose former boyfriend was a Ukrainian soldier. According to the reports, the soldier was among the crew members on the Andromeda prior to the blasts.
On June 13, Dutch public broadcaster NOS, along with German newspaper Die Ziet and public broadcaster ARD, reported that in June a year earlier, the main Dutch intelligence agency received a tip that a secret plot by Ukrainian operatives was under way to target the pipelines.
The Dutch agency forwarded the tip to the CIA, which then warned Ukrainian officials not to carry out the effort.
That reporting was later corroborated by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. officials. U.S. officials were reportedly told by Ukrainian counterparts that the plot had been aborted.
Then, in September, the explosions took place.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that German investigators were examining evidence that suggested the sabotage team had used Poland as a conduit or base for carrying out the attack.
A top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Mykhaylo Podolyak, called the latest reporting "endless anonymous sources [that are] artificially fueling the disinformation campaign about Ukraine's alleged involvement in the destruction of the Nord Stream."
It "should be viewed as a deliberate campaign to undermine Ukraine's credibility, reputation, and voice in the global arena," Podolyak said in a post on Twitter on June 13.
U.S. and European media have said the group that carried out of the attack may have done so without the knowledge of Zelenskiy or other top officials.