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- [00:00]
A
She's got a breakaway.
- [00:01]
B
She's all alone. She's going. She's going.
- [00:05]
C
Oh, no.
- [00:06]
B
Wrong goal, kiddo. It's chaos out there. Their stomachs don't have to be introducing culturel kids probiotics. Plus electrolytes. Sugar free, more hydrating than water alone. From the number one pediatrician recommended brand. Youth soccer is never boring, but your kid's stomach should be cultural probiotics. The the science of a boring gut. See website for details. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today@aura.com remove protect yourself now@aura.com remove MSW media. Spy Talk, a podcast at the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy, national security and military operations.
- [01:50]
A
Hi there. I'm Jeff Stein.
- [01:51]
D
I'm Michael Isgov.
- [01:53]
A
Karen Greenberg is off this week. Lucky her. Off somewhere in California enjoying herself. Anyway, we have a fabulous new guest today, Bojan Paneski, who is the Wall Street Journal's chief European correspondent, who has written this absolutely riveting book called the Nord Stream Conspiracy, which is about, of course, the blowing up of that pipeline. But meanwhile, current developments in our part of the world. Jay Clayton has been confirmed by the Senate to be the next Director of National Intelligence. But the current acting holder of the job, Bill Pulte, is making noises about not wanting to leave.
- [02:35]
D
He's a squatter. He's a squatter. He doesn't want to leave. Clayton is going to have to call in the cops to convict him. From the Liberty Crossing, the ODNI headquarters.
- [02:49]
A
He wants to keep that buzzsaw going. He. He announced just before the vote in the Senate that He had made a fifth round of cuts. So that's over 200 people. He's. He's cut, I think maybe lots more than 200 people that he sent packing since he arrived in June out at Liberty Crossing, which is the headquarters of the Office of National Intelligence out in the Virginia suburbs. So more chaos. It seems to me that the benefit to all this chaos at the odni, of course, is John Ratcliffe over at CIA with, with a couple of. Especially with Bill Pulteino, who's just there to carry out continue Trump's retribution campaign, it seems.
- [03:41]
D
I wonder if Radcliffe is sort of de fact becoming the dci, as it used to be called, which is, you know, the CIA director until the creation of odni, was dual hatted. He was the director of the agency, the CIA, but also director of all intelligence agencies. That was broken up, you know, in the aftermath of 9 11. But it looks like Radcliffe is essentially assuming the role because of all the chaos at odni. I mean, the big question for Clayton and Pulte, if he's still there, is, among other things, given Trump's obsession about election security and the inadequacy or the potential compromise of elections. Not potential, in Trump's mind. He believes it's happened interfering against him. What steps, if any, are they going to take to sort of assist any interference by the Trump administration in the congressional midterms? And I know that has a lot of people nervous.
- [04:54]
A
As everybody knows, a number of Democrats were very supportive of the Clayton nomination because, one, he wasn't Bill Bolte. Two, they wanted to pass this Section 702 surveillance law. And so they were willing to accept a guy who seemed on the level at least As a former SEC commissioner and U.S. attorney for the, this powerful Southern District of New York. So even though he didn't fit the bill in terms of what the law requires of a directive national intelligence, it was like, okay, we'll take this guy. But then he wobbled on this election balloting issue and seemed to be hinting that, that he could go down the same path as Tulsi Gabbard and start what, looking into ballot counting? Not good.
- [05:45]
D
We. Yeah, we don't know. And, and of course, there's the FBI investigation down in Fulton county, which Gabbard flew down to be a part of or, you know, observe, and where that's going, if anywhere, is hard to see. But, you know, at the same time Clayton is getting confirmed, Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General, doesn't seem to be making it through the confirmation Gauntlet in the Senate. The, the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting to confirm him has been postponed apparently because two Republican senators have objected that he cannot give in writing a firm commitment that the, the, the, the payout fund that originally floated to pay off hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump's. To Trump's allies who have been convicted of crimes or investigated for crimes was going to be stopped altog the immunity, the perpetual immunity for Trump's family from audits from the IRS would not proceed. So as a result, you know, it doesn't seem that Blanche is going to get going to get confirmed anytime soon.
- [07:07]
A
No, he's caught between a rock and a hard place. I mean, the Senate's not going to confirm unless he commits in writing did not going forward with this program, you know, this defense, whatever they call it, to compensate January 6th defendants and to ensure that Trump won't be audited for his taxes. And if he does, if he does sign that, I mean, Trump will maybe withdraw the nomination. In fact, he's made some noises in that direction.
- [07:38]
D
But look, you know, as, as outrageous as those two items are, it seems to me that there are many other reasons to question blanch his qualifications to stay on as Attorney General. And you know, exhibit A in my book is all the ridiculous prosecutions that have been brought under his leadership that seem to fall apart in court whenever a microscope is put on them. And, you know, the Comey case, what we learned this week about the lengths that they went to try to convict the former or to try to indict the former FBI director for that silly 8647 Seashell post he put on Instagram.
- [08:24]
A
Seashell conspiracy.
- [08:25]
D
The Seashell conspiracy. And the idea, I mean, you know, we've said this so many times that like, you know, the Trump era is just made for farce. You know, what did we learn this week?
- [08:37]
A
It'd be funny if it weren't so serious.
- [08:39]
D
Yeah, Sammy the Bull Gravano was one of the witnesses they went to to try to confirm that, get testimony that 86 meant to kill. Now, Sammy the P. And for the mob, I think what 19 murders he committed, you know, convicted, then turned state's evidence. But the idea. And of course, Sammy the Bull Gravano said, well, yeah, it could mean that, but, you know, I never heard it. It never came up in any.
- [09:12]
A
86 is a restaurant term.
- [09:14]
D
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I. Look, we'll see how DOJ responds to what the Comey lawyers put on the public record based on the evidence they had gotten for, you know, for this case. But I mean, man, it's, it's just hard to imagine anything more laughable.
- [09:33]
A
Something is not laughable. Is you, you were talking with me about this morning was this new secret court.
- [09:41]
D
Oh, yeah.
- [09:42]
A
What's going on with that, Mike?
- [09:43]
D
Yeah, well, look there, there was a. In the 90s under Bill Clinton, there was created by statute, the Justice Department created this secret terror for immigration purposes where the government could charge some immigrant in the United States or whether undocumented or documented, I believe, with a terrorist crime all under seal, all in secret. No opportunity for the public to know what they were doing, to see the evidence, to challenge the evidence. It would all be done. And this court has for good reason never been used since the 90s. I think it was created in like 96 or something.
- [10:33]
A
And now it's kind of a Soviet smack to it.
- [10:36]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Star chamber, I think is the phrase that one would use for a court of this proceed with these characteristics. And the Trump administration has revived it and says they're going to use this court. We'll see how far that goes. But man, the civil liberties questions around a secret court charging people in secret with terrorism with no opportunity for the public to examine what is being done or even know about what's being done, seems, you know, pretty unsettling to say the least.
- [11:14]
A
At the least. And parallel to that is their effort to define antifa as an international terrorist organization, which is so way off basis, not an organization, much less a terrorist organization, and they could get swept. You know, it's essential, essentially. Well, it stands for anti fascist. And that simply amounts really these days to being anti Trump. So who knows whether they will make a long leap into trying to arrest and charge and try simple critics of Trump and a court and maybe one of these secret courts. So.
- [11:57]
D
Yeah, well, remember we did that show with the Pennsylvania congresswoman who was asking for details. Who are the antifa targets, who you are investigating here? Who are the people who could fall within the purview of antifa prosecutions? And she didn't get any answers. I'm not sure we ever will. Certainly with Todd Blanche at the helm of the Justice Department, which he will continue to be if he's not confirmed, because he can stay as acting U.S. attorney at least well into next year.
- [12:35]
A
Well, boy, what a mess. Speaking of secret conspiracies.
- [12:39]
D
Yes. We got a good one to talk about today.
- [12:43]
A
Bojan Panchevsky has written a great book, the Nord Stream Conspiracy, about the pipeline blow up, in which he details with unassailable Reporting how this group of Ukrainians, intelligence officers and other kind of rebels and rogues put together this operation to blow up the Russian pipeline in the North Sea or in the Baltic, I should say. Anyway, for those who don't know, Bojan is the Wall Street Journal's chief European political correspondent, covering European and global affairs. Highly decorated reporter, he produces major investigations, agenda setting scoops, analyses of politics, diplomacy, and deeply reported features about extraordinary people and events. His recent writing has focused on the Russian aggression in Ukraine. Of course, he's long been in Europe. The Kremlin's clandestine operations is another thing he's covered. And escalating shadow war of espionage and sabotage between Russia and the rest. You can look him up online. I, I don't, we don't have another hour to go into all the awards that have been bestowed on Bojan, but he's, he's just terrific. And we expect this to be a very lively discussion. So without further delay, let's bring Bojan aboard. Bojan Panjeski, welcome to Spy Talk. So grand to have you here today. A reviewer for the New York Times called your book the Nord Stream Conspiracy, a spectacular feat of investigative journalism built on your intimate access to the senior Ukrainian intelligence chiefs who say they hatched the idea and to the German police officials who eventually track them down. I couldn't agree more. Tell us all about this group of Ukrainian chiefs who you dubbed the Startup in a conversation with them. And they like that idea. They weren't a unit or an organization, they were more like a startup. Tell us about them.
- [14:55]
C
Yeah, well, first of all, thank you very much for having me on. So the people I call the Startup are not that unusual within the system of military and intelligence agencies of Ukraine. They are veterans of intelligence and counterintelligence work. They've, you know, some of them have been around for 25 years in that, in that field. And others are soldiers, officers, military officers who've been fighting against Russia since 2014, when Vladimir Putin first invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. So they're a group of people extremely experienced in their respective fields. And as soon as this full scale invasion was launched on their country in February 2022, they all joined the army, the armed forces, because that was the sort of the best way to, to utilize their experience and their skill sets and defend the country. In that particular case, they were, they were defending Kyiv. They were fighting in the Battle of Kiev for a month, the capital. So they were integrated in this elite unit of the Ukrainian special Forces. And without that unit, they kind of Carved up their fiefdom. And that's why I call them the startup, because they've got a history of semi rogues.
- [16:21]
A
Really.
- [16:22]
C
Well, you know, it's, it sounds to you that they are rogues, but you know, if you told an Ukrainian insider, they wouldn't be surprised because in Ukraine the system is quite fragmented. You know, these are two adversaries, Russia and Ukraine then come from the same, from the Soviet Union. They both derived from the same Soviet Union. They both have their different and obviously traditions before that. But you know, Russia is, is a, is an autocracy that, that is vertically run, very, very rigidly, vertically run from a sort of an autocrat. The power stems downwards. In Ukraine, things are a little bit more fractal than that. Essentially within the intelligence community, which is vast, you have groups of people and officials at a very senior level who are being sponsored or patronized by oligarchs, by business interests, by politicians, by political parties. So no matter who's in power or what the elections may bring, these people are on beneath the surface. It's always the same folks, right, in that kind of security establishment. And they form networks, you know, sometimes ad hoc, sometimes more permanently. And so it's not very unusual to have a group of people who are operating under the command, under the central command of the military and who are obviously answering to, to the political masters, but only to a certain point. You know, there are moments when they do their own thing and perhaps they don't report everything they do, but they, they can always fall back on the resources of the state. It's a very difficult thing to explain to an American or a British person or a German person for that matter, where things are much more.
- [18:01]
A
Yeah, you make a case that they're really more deep sea, but I want to clear out some underbrush right away. The CIA was blamed for carrying out this operation. The Russians were blamed for carrying out. There were cast of characters blame for calling. You make an airtight case and the Germans are prosecuting a case that it was this group of Ukrainians. Right? No question whatsoever.
- [18:26]
C
That's right. That's exactly right. I spent three years investigating the case. My investigation largely kind of is corroborated by the findings of, of the German investigation. The Germans have found evidence, they say, that that kind of implicates people connected to this group. They have found traces of explosives, they have found DNA, they have found fingerprints, et cetera. And you know, I've looked into all the theories, I've spoken to the top leadership of the CIA at The time that was in charge. At the time, I spoke to people in the National Security Council who essentially act as a link between the CIA and the White House who were also relevant for this. They were dealing with the case. In fact, I spoke to field agents. I spoke to tons of people in the American system, in the German system, in the Ukrainian system, in the Russian system even. I still have some pretty good sources up there. And it all kind of matches, you know, like the CIA was indeed informed about preparations for an operation like that. And as soon as the leadership found out, they tried to stop it. That is the truth. That is the actual sort of involvement of the CIA in the North Stream operation is that as soon as they found out it was underfoot, they A, warned the Germans and they told them, someone's trying to blow up your pipeline and B, they told the Ukrainians to cease and desist. So I've looked into that theory. Unfortunately, there was a lot of reporting which is entirely wrong about the CIA involvement. But it's sort of, kind of caught on and it catches on. And there's a group of people, a pretty big group of people who's willing to believe in it because it's quite convenient to blame the CIA for everything if you come from a certain political perspective. But it's also the case that there's not been official communication about this. Right. What I'm reporting is exclusive because it is the product of my, my investigation. It will eventually come out during the trial, during the investigation, that the kind of the end of the investigation that you mentioned. But for now we don't have official communication and people just have to choose what they want to believe in. And so you have some people who believe in, in the theory that the CIA did it and others believe that Russia did it. It. And so it goes like always. There is a kind of issues of great interest generated, a lot of theories.
- [20:51]
D
So this was the, I think you're right, the biggest industrial sabotage in history, I believe. I mean, these characters who you're writing blew up a pipeline that did devastating damage. And we can get to that. And it seemed to me that the people you're writing about fall into this gray zone of, you know, not quite official, but not quite entirely rogue either. Walk us through the story of how this came about to begin with and who came up with the idea for such an audacious operation such as this. And then in the aftermath, who knew what when about how it was going to be carried out.
- [21:44]
C
Right. Well, to summarize, as soon as the full scale invasion started. The people I talked about, the people I called, the startup intelligence operatives, senior officers, soldiers, etc. They joined the special forces of the Ukrainian military. They fought in the battle of Kyiv. They won the Battle of Kyiv. And as soon as that was done, around a month into the full scale invasion, they kind of sat down one night in, in, in the office of, of one of the backers, financial backers of this group, because I failed to mention earlier, you know, a lot of units in the Ukrainian armed forces are privately funded which, which make again come as a surprise to a Western kind of audience. But to this day, especially for example, the drone units, they just kind of, sometimes they're crowded, crowdfunded, sometimes they're funded by the business community, sometimes they have to take care of their own business. So it's, it's, it's the case that they do have financial backers. So they sat down in the office of one of these financial backers.
- [22:49]
D
And could you say who that financial backer was?
- [22:52]
C
I don't name anyone by their actual name in the book. I call him the, the Walking Lawsuit because he's, he's, he's had the encounters with the law in various shapes and forms, although he himself served in government at a very senior position.
- [23:06]
D
So one of those sketch oligarchs who
- [23:09]
C
we've heard much about, Minigarch, I would say, is not, it's not a major class oligarch, but it's sufficiently rich. I mean, he would be fabulously rich in America, you know.
- [23:18]
D
Okay, sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.
- [23:20]
C
Yeah, so, and they kind of drafted a list of, they made a decision to dedicate their work after the defense of Kiev to what they actually do best, which is hybrid warfare, economic warfare, asymmetric warfare, clandestine operations. This is what they've been doing for a very long time, you know, at least since 2014. So they drafted a list of targets which they thought would be relevant for, for cutting the revenues that Vladimir Putin was, was deriving from Europe for his war machine that was kind of grinding down their country. And pretty much all of them had to do with the export or the exploitation of hydrocarbons, you know, oil and gas. Because that's, that's essentially, that was the main, one of the main sources of revenues for the state budget of Russia was and I think remains Germany was
- [24:14]
A
supplying them with, with billions of dollars buying Russian oil.
- [24:19]
C
That's right. Germany and the European Union were, were sending incredible amounts of money, tons of billions of, of euros in the direction of the Kremlin long after the start of the full scale invasion. Because, you know, once you become reliant on a supplier of oil and gas, which is a strategic commodity, you can't just kind of shift. For oil is much easier. For gas is very difficult because gas travels by pipelines or it travels by sea. And if you don't have certain terminals to receive gas traveling by sea, then you're in a pickle. And that's where the Germans found themselves. So long after the, the, the start of the long scale, the full scale invasion, they were sending literal billions to, to Vladimir Putin, which is extraordinary if you think that Germany and the EU were sending money and weapons to Ukraine to basically kill the Russian invaders. At the same time they were sending billions to Russia, which Russia used to equip this army and kill Ukrainians. So it's a, it's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a kind of a very convoluted thing that was happening at the time. So cut a long story short, the Ukrainians who were planning this decided they need to put an end to that, that and put a dent into those revenues. So they had a list of about a dozen targets, and one of them was the Nord Stream pipeline system, which they had known and hated for a very long time. It was an extremely controversial project in Europe. We have to explain a little bit about the background. Nord Stream is the biggest offshore pipeline system in the world. It was, it took around 16, 15 years to construct. To build it cost around $20 billion. And it was controversial from the inception because to Germany and its Western European sort of neighbors, it was just a source of cheap gas. And what's not to like for countries like the United States, Great Britain, Poland and Ukraine, it was actually a dangerous geopolitical instrument devised by Vladimir Putin to, to kind of bind Europe closer to himself and make Europe reliant, if not addicted, to Russian energy exports.
- [26:32]
D
With the help of a former German politician.
- [26:39]
C
Well, yeah, I mean, the, the CEO of Nord Stream was a former German spy from eastern Germany. He worked with the Russians, he, he worked for the notorious German secret service. And then after the collapse of the, you know, Iron Curtain at the end of the Cold War, he, he kind of became a banker, he became an investor, he, he became friends with Vladimir Putin. And then he kind of rose up to become the CEO of, of, of Nord Stream, which, which is quite, quite interesting to have a CEO, a colorful figure, he's extremely able and competent guy. But as, as well as having been a spook back in the days of the Cold War. So, so essentially it was a controversial pipeline. It was a controversial, but it went ahead nonetheless. Nord Stream, it consists of two pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. NordStream 1 came online 2011. Nord Stream 2 never came online because it was completed in October 2021. And then it never came online because of the full scale invasion and the controversy around that. All American presidents, starting from George W. Bush, Bush, Bush Jr. Opposed the pipeline. They warned their German allies not to do it, but the Germans did it nonetheless because they felt it was in their national interest to obtain cheap gas for households and for the industry. And so in a way, both sides of the arguments were right. You know, the proponents were right because it was cheap gas and it did fuel a booming German economy. And not just German economy. Dutch, French as well, et cetera, Austrian. But then when the full scale invasion came, you know, it did turn out in to be a geopolitical weapon because they found themselves addicted to Russian gas. So they couldn't stop sending money to Russia and eventually they had to pay enormous amounts of money in, in terms of trying to kind of emancipate themselves from Russia as, as their primary supply. Anyway, long story short, the, the people who decided to put a target on Nord Stream did that because they wanted to cut the revenues and because they wanted to break that geopolitical bond between Western Europe and Russia, especially between Berlin and Moscow, because when they were planning the attack, and that was sometime in March, March or April to 2022, Germany was still not able to support Ukraine like it is supporting Ukraine now, Germany was still hesitating. It was still kind of addicted to Russian energy exports. And they felt, you know, Germany is the Europe, Europe's biggest economy. Once they get like, once they kind of kick off this addiction to Russian energy, they will be able to help us for real. So that was the reasoning behind it.
- [29:29]
A
I want to talk about a couple of the colorful characters in your books as part of the sabotage team. And also I'm interested in the CIA's role. So, such as it was in this attack, but we have to step away for a minute. She's got a breakaway.
- [29:45]
B
She's all alone. She's going. She's going. Oh no. Wrong goal, kiddo. It's chaos out there. Their stomachs don't have to be introducing culturel kids Probiotics plan plus electrolytes. Sugar free, more hydrating than water alone. From the number one pediatrician recommended brand. Youth soccer is never boring, but your kid's stomach should be culturel Probiotics. The science of a boring gut. See website for details. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold. Every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today@aura.com Remove. Protect yourself now@aura.com Remove
- [31:17]
A
okay, we're back. Bojan, tell us about this. As a headline put it, the mysterious woman behind the Nord Stream explosion, a civilian diving instructor from Ukraine.
- [31:32]
C
So the people who actually laid the mines onto the pipeline were civilians. This is very interesting. The plan was conceived and carried out by, as I said, group of intelligence and military operatives. But they couldn't find deep sea divers who could go to the bottom of the ocean, which is around 80 meters below the surface. They couldn't find people, combat divers in their special forces with that skill set. Because these people are quite rare. Typically special forces like the Navy seals or the Special Boat Service in Great Britain, they don't do that. They don't operate at the bottom of the ocean. They, they, they kind of, they put mines onto ships or cross rivers or, or kind of swim in the sea at a, at a very shallow level. It's not their job to do that. That's the job of engineers and the like. So they decided to recruit civilians because Ukraine had a pretty significant community of deep sea divers, so called technical divers, people who can go that deep. And among these people who ended up being recruited for the operation was the soul woman who was part of the team, team of the sabotage team. And she too, like the rest of them, was a internationally certified deep sea diver instructor. Right? She was, she had, I think at that point almost 20 years, around 15 to 20 years of experience in deep sea diving.
- [32:54]
A
So her background did not exactly cut her out to be involved in this kind of military operation. Right.
- [33:00]
C
Well, like all of them, she's an extremely interesting figure. Right. When she was young, I don't want to reduce her to that, but that, that's what editors focus on. It was a sent in my book. But when she was around 20, she posed for kind of erotic magazine covers and stuff like that. That was around the time when she discovered diving actually. So. But that was a long time ago. That, that wasn't her profession for a long time. It's just something she did in her youth. But you know, she was an erotic model and, and, and then, you know, a lot of them have a very, very colorful background. All of them pretty much. I mean, these characters are extremely interesting. And the reason why I decided to write a book is when I found out who did it it and then when I found out who are the German detectives who are hunting them, I realized these people are larger than life. You know, these characters just, you know, to do justice to their story, you have to write a book. So she was part of the crew that was selected to blow up the pipelines. And they used a sailing yacht as a cover, a small sailing yacht called Andromeda, which they rented out in Germany brazenly. So they set sail from German shores and they had initially a crew of six, three military officers and three deep sea divers, including the woman. Later on, three days before the end of the operation, another diver joined them. So they, in total they had a crew of seven towards the end of the operation.
- [34:22]
A
And she was first into the water.
- [34:25]
C
Right. She turned out to be the most motivated and she kind of showed leadership in difficult situations because they ran into a storm. You know, they were diving towards the end of September, which is a, A can be a stormy period in the Baltic region. You know, weather's not really nice at that time of the year. And they ran out in. They ran into a pretty serious gale for storm. They had to take shelter in Sweden unexpectedly. And without having planned that in advance, they. They were kind of washed over, you know, upwards towards south, South Sweden where. Where they spent four days, I think in port sheltering and the storm just wouldn't subside.
- [35:04]
A
Right.
- [35:04]
C
So eventually they set sail into the storm and, and they did their, their job in the storm. And it was the woman who motivated the ma. The all male crew to go ahead because they were not quite sure whether they, I mean they were already risking their lives in what they were doing. But that seemed a little bit over the Top going into in the Storm.
- [35:22]
A
It's going to be a great movie.
- [35:24]
D
I was just thinking this is made for Hollywood perhaps.
- [35:28]
A
Yeah, maybe one of their re that New York Times reviewer said his only problem with the book is it sounds like a movie.
- [35:36]
C
Yeah, yeah. Well that's not my fault.
- [35:38]
A
Let me ask you this. As I hinted before, the CIA was on to this, they knew what was going on, how Deep was the CIA's knowledge and monitoring of this operation.
- [35:51]
C
So this is what happened. The people who planned the operation were very seasoned intelligence operatives from Ukraine and they had worked closely with the CIA since around 2014. 15. Because in 2014 there was a big revolution in Ukraine. The pro Russian government was swept away. And ever since Ukraine has never had a pro Russian government again. And it kind of opened the doors to western agencies including the CIA to help them defend themselves from the Russians. So these guys, they were very closely sort of working with the CIA to the point that they even visited Langley, Virginia, the headquarters of the agency. That's I think in 2018 if I'm not mistaken. So they. And also they had been doing the same with Polish, with Swedish, with other kind of Western, British, etc intelligence services. So when they sat down to plan the technicalities of the operation and figure out the trade craft, they realized they had never worked at the bottom of the sea. So they sought advice and guidance from friendly field agents from these agencies, including the CIA. So they approached a guy with whom they had friendly relations who worked for the CIA and asked them how to do something like this, whether he had any experience and whatever. So this guy was approached privately. So it wasn't the agency talking. Right. It was a guy who gave them a kind couple of pointers and a couple of guidelines and they were entirely useless because what he had proposed would have cost them millions of dollars involving undersea drones and ships and things like that. That's the way the Americans would do it, right? With high tech and etc, lots of money. Well, that's right.
- [37:36]
A
We're good at that.
- [37:37]
C
Yeah, well, yeah. And Ukrainians were. Thank you very much. You know, we don't have these resources. How about we just use a small yacht and a bunch of civilians? And that's what they did in the end. But in the midst of their planning, shortly before they were about to execute the operation, it was initially planned to be executed on 19 June 2022. The Dutch military intelligence service got wind of the project. And the Dutch military intelligence service is an extremely capable, very small but very capable outfit, especially in that Part of the world. They go, they got human intelligence about the project and they notified the CIA in a kind of encrypted memoir where they outlined the plan and even named some of the personalities involved. So then the CIA as an agency was notified. And as soon as that happened, it was kind of, it went all the way up to the top to William Burns, who was head of the agency at the time. And I think he personally and others ordered that this be stopped and that the Germans be warned about what was happening because they thought this was a terrible idea.
- [38:42]
A
Why did they think it was a terrible idea?
- [38:45]
C
Well, because at the time, Burns was tasked by President Biden to get the German Chancellor, who at the time was a guy called Olaf Scholz, to actually unleash a kind of a much more substantial help for Ukraine because Germany is A, the biggest economy in Europe. B, it had at the time the so called Leopard tanks. If you remember, perhaps you'll remember vaguely there was a big debate about Leopard tanks because at that stage of, of the war, before the drones came, tanks were important, armor was important for, for, you know, for the front line, for defending and for, for attacking. And, and, and the Germans had stockpiles of these Leopard tanks which I think are the sort of the best in the world. The Germans typically make things that are, tend to be the best in the world.
- [39:31]
A
They're good at tanks.
- [39:32]
C
And, and Bayern was trying to get them to send these tanks and, and he specifically tasked William Burns, who was a frequent visitor to Berlin, and he even had meetings with the Chancellor to kind of lobby him to do this. So when they found out if someone's trying to blow up the pipeline, they realized if this happens and word gets around, the Chancellor will be under pressure politically to not help Ukraine because they blew up the pipeline which is, which is relevant for the economy of Germany. And therefore they thought it's not worth paying that price. It's absolutely not worth it. It's much more important to get Germany on board as a reliable ally to shoulder the burden financially and in terms of material rather than blow up the pipeline. That was a decision made and immediately they did warn the Germans. And this is documented. You know, there's not, there are no conspiracy theories that can kind of argue with this. This is documented. You know, they warned the, the external intelligence agency called BND and they also warned the, the Internal Security Agency, both of them are communicating with the CIA. And then they went to the Ukrainians and warned them not to do it. They even went as far as to target specifically A senior officer who was involved in the plot. A four star general who was personally approached by the CAA and told to commit in writing that he will not do this, that this operation will not go ahead and which he promptly did. He committed in writing. But then they went ahead and did it anyway and they ignored it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So that, that was the involvement of the CIA. As soon as the CIA as an agency found out about it, as an administration, you know, wheels kicked in motion, started rolling and they start, they tried to, to prevent it and then afterwards
- [41:17]
A
they put out a lot of lies about or encouraged lies that the Russians had done it.
- [41:21]
C
Well, that's the, that's the other chapter of the story. You're quite right. There was a lot of so called, you know, there's a lot of talk about disinformation and misinformation and whatnot. But it has to be said Germany, America and other Western allies were very quick off the bat to point the finger at Russia, although they knew it wasn't Russia or they, they had pretty credible.
- [41:41]
D
So if this went to such senior levels that the director of the CIA is, is, is personally trying to put a stop to this and that this is, and the United States government is warning the Ukrainians don't do it, telling them not to do it. It's hard to believe this wouldn't have gone to the top and that Zelenskyy himself would have been aware of this operation in advance. No.
- [42:12]
C
So Zelenskyy denies any knowledge of the operation. He says he was never notified by the military or by the Americans or by anyone. His advisors tell the same. I spoke to one of his adv who's kind of in charge of the Nord Stream portfolio now, and he told me that he had looked into this and Americans never contacted the presidential administration. So he said they maybe contacted our services. Maybe they called at a technical level. Maybe some official called some other official. But he never reached the presidential office. It never reached us. I did not know.
- [42:47]
D
Does that strike you as credible? If the director of the CIA himself is personally involved in trying to put a stop to this, how could it
- [42:55]
C
not have gone to the President? You know, let's say anything's possible. It's hard to imagine. I, I think it's, it's, you know,
- [43:02]
A
look, while, Is it possible, Is it possible, Boyan, that Zelensky said don't tell me anything I don't want to know about?
- [43:11]
C
Hey, look, anything's possible. Zelensky is on the record hating the pipeline like Pretty much all Ukrainian officials, etc. I mean he, he had, he had a beef with Angela Merkel, the, the former former German Chancellor over Nord Stream 2, the second pipeline, the second part of the pipeline. And he was very much lobbying her not to do it. She did it anyway. So you know, his position on the pipeline was pretty clear. The people. So the most senior official, or rather officer who approved the operation was the then head of the armed forces, General Valeris Alujni, who is now ambassador to Great Britain.
- [43:46]
D
Britain.
- [43:48]
C
People around Zaluzhny, senior military officers say that he had at one point notified the President Zelensky about what was happening, that he briefed him on a series of operations including the Nordstrom operation. This doesn't mean that Zelensky approved it or that Zelensky sort of was involved in it or that he was a kind of a driving force in it, that he was notified. Zelensky denies that and his people deny that, that in very strong terms. So you know, we'll see. We, we might find out more about this because Zaluzhny wants to run for president. So if there ever is a presidential kind of campaign where these two men will come head to head, the subject of Nord Stream might be, might be raised I think on both sides, who knows. So we'll, we'll see.
- [44:35]
D
But for now, and I do want to just point out, you know, the magnitude of what was done here and one passage in your book, book like leapt out at me, more colossal geysers erupted in the Baltic sea, unleashing nearly 500,000 metric tons of methane, the largest ever human caused gas release into the atmosphere, matching the annual carbon footprint of a small industrial nation. The power of the blast equaled the thermal output of a major nuclear reactor. Marine life perished for miles. Dissolved gas spread over 14% of the Baltic. I, I, I'm, I'm just trying to contemplate the, the, the amount of explosives that were needed to pull this off.
- [45:23]
C
But I mean that's the interesting bit. A lot of experts made initial error to estimate that 500kg of TNT would have been required to cause that level of damage because the explosion was incredibly violent. I mean it was first registered by the early warning system for earthquakes as an earthquake. So then experts, seismologists kind of poured over it and they realized this doesn't look, the pattern doesn't look like an earthquake, it looks like an explosion because they are trained to distinguish. But you know, it actually, the truth is it was an ingenious device constructed by a retired professor of engineering in Ukraine, whom the people who planned the attack tapped. And he came up with this idea. He studied how pipelines work and he said essentially the pipeline is highly pressurized, around 160 bombs are. Then you've got the pressure of the, of the water on top of the pipeline. You only need a tiny amount of explosion to kind of cut a slice into, into the pipeline to kind of open a little hole. And then the interaction of the pressure will do the rest. It will be a violent chain reaction that will tear it apart entirely. And that's exactly what happened. It's a little bit. If you shake a, a tin of Coke, you know, a can of Coke, and then you pierce it with a screwdriver, you know, there will be a, a sort of coke gashing out of it. It's more or less the same kind of effect, but you know, like we
- [46:47]
A
see when a house blows up from a gas leak.
- [46:50]
C
Well, exactly.
- [46:51]
A
So, so it's a, puts it into wood chips.
- [46:54]
C
So it's a, it's, you know, actually the amount of explosives they used, one explosive device was around 30, 40 kilograms. I don't know, was that in pounds? But it's, it's not much. You know, it's something you can carry.
- [47:05]
A
£75? Yeah, probably.
- [47:07]
C
Yeah, it's something you can carry on your bag. They were concealed in, in, in, in sort of canisters, in kind of divers bottles, oxygen bottles. So actually it was, you know, it was very scientific. What, what they did, they need, they needed a tiny little pier, like piercing a balloon. That's what happened. But the, the event was incredibly violent. I mean, the explosion was incredibly violent. And then gas kept pouring out for over a week. It was visible from a satellite, the gas output.
- [47:35]
D
So the idea that the CIA was behind this or a part of, seems to me comes from two separate indicia. One is Biden himself. He was president at the time when the question of the Nordstrom pipeline came up. He said, that's not going to happen. We're going to stop that.
- [47:55]
C
Right.
- [47:56]
D
So that seemed to give motivation to the US Government. It was committed to, to stopping this pipeline. And then one of the legendary investigative reporters of all time, Seymour Hersh, wrote a lengthy article claiming to have inside sources saying that this was all approved at the White House by the National Security Council. And that obviously fueled a lot of. The CIA was behind the, this thinking. Talk about those two facts. You know, Biden's comment and CIA and Seymour Hersh's article and why, why they were, why they should not be seen as evidence. Of a CIA fingerprint.
- [48:47]
A
You could start by talking. You had a meeting with Hirsch, you describe in your book.
- [48:52]
C
We had a very long phone call. Yeah. So look, starting with Biden, that's the most more important thing. Biden was the President of the United States. In January 2022, he had a joint press conference with the then Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, in the Oval, I think, and he was asked about Nordstrom 2, because Nordstrom 2 was about to get certified and come online just before the full scale invasion. And he said, you know, if Putin, I can't quote, I'm quoting from memory, but he said, if Putin marches into Ukraine, Ukraine will put an end to it. And then it was a follow up question, how will you do that? And he said, don't worry, we'll do it. We'll put an end to it. What he meant was sanctions. He didn't mean to blow it up. There's no need to blow up a pipeline if you're the United States of America. The pipeline at this very moment is dead as dodo because not because it's blown up, the Russians can fix it. It's because it's sanctioned by the United States and by the European Union. Union, and it's never been certified as a result. So sanctions are more powerful than explosives. Ever since the incident, Putin has been trying to repair the pipelines and to bring them back online, but that's not possible because they are under sanctions. So American sanctions are extremely effective. So called secondary sanctions. They, they basically, they mean that the pipeline can sell gas, but there's nobody to buy it. Because if you are at the German end and you buy the gas, you become affected by the sanctions. And no company in Europe will ever do that. Right. I mean, Chinese companies might do that, or Iranian companies might do that. Certainly no European companies who operate, you know, legally on the market. So the sanctions on the pipeline are now preventing Vladimir Putin from even fixing them. Like the owner of the pipelines, Gazprom, the, the state owned energy giant of Russia, has been trying hard to conserve, to close the holes, to fix the pipelines, to at least stop the rot, the corrosion, et cetera. And even that is not possible or extremely difficult under the sanctions. Repairing them is absolutely impossible. You can't touch them. They're basically untouchable because of these sanctions. So it's kind of lunacy to think that Biden would go on television and say, we'll blow up the wifi. You know, why? Why would he do that? Right.
- [51:11]
D
And your conversation with Sy Hersh Well,
- [51:14]
C
Sy Hersh, yeah, that was a bit of a disappointment, I have to say. You know, obviously he's a legendary figure and much respected and, and you know, he's got great merit in, in as a reporter, but he seems to have one source. He, he published this on Substack. He published the kind of a blog post relying on one source. He made claims which are entirely outlandish. You know, none of that is true. It's just simply, absolutely every single bit of that report is not true. And I, I don't understand why. You know, when I asked him things, he would say, you know, he said like, the only thing I'm not sure about is whether or not the German Chancellor was in on the conspiracy. Sort of, you know, I can't like quote him now. I don't, but I, you know, he said basically, I just don't, I'm not sure if the Chancellor was in on it. And that betrayed to me like enormous ignorance, first of all, who the Chancellor is, what Germany is. You know, the idea the Chancellor was a champion of north like he was, he didn't want them blown up. I mean the idea that he would be sort of a patsy for the CIA to, you know, it's just these are just like caricatures of reality, you know, and, and you know, that notwithstanding even the factual sort of, you know, he named certain ships and vessels and assets in his reporting and these kind of open source investig investigators found that these ships were elsewhere at the time. They were not even there where they were meant to be. So that's rather disappointing. I can't, I don't know how. Maybe he was misled by a source. Maybe he was, he was a rogue source potentially. I mean, who knows? Certainly there is no source. I've spoken to and I've spoken to a dozen of people who were serving in very high level in the CIA, in, in the nsc, in the, in, in the White House, in the government. You know, know, it's just, you know, and they are, it's important to note they come from both parties. Right. So there's nothing President Trump would presumably like better than expose President Biden for having blown something up or done something wrong. You know, I mean, remember the, the auto pan? You know, he keeps banging on about the auto pan that Biden was signing things with the Autobahn. Imagine he had five. Oh, look, Biden blew up the pipeline in a kind of a terror attack against Germany. I mean, this will be all over the news. You know what I mean? People on both Sides of the political divide are saying the same thing, right? That by A, Biden meant sanctions, and B, they had nothing to do with it. In fact, as soon as they found out, they tried to stop it. So it's, it's rather unfortunate. And also in journalism, there are no stories that cannot be corroborated. Like, it's been three years now almost since he published that blog post, and none of the investigative journalists of this world were managed to, to manage to match his story. I mean, alone, that should be slightly worrying. You know, my story is matched by the German prosecutor. Right?
- [54:08]
D
I mean, yeah, I, I just want to say, just to, to wrap up here, tell us about the German police investigation, where that stands, who's in custody, who's not in custody, and where. How high up the chain can this go? If there were senior people in the Ukrainian government who signed off on this, had knowledge of it, it would seem that they would orbit of this investigation.
- [54:36]
C
So the investigation, I mean, the investigation relies exclusively on very, very hard evidence. So what's happened so far is that the German prosecutor issued international arrest warrants for the seven people they claim were on the sabotage boat who were part of the sabotage crew. For some of them, they have fingerprints, they have DNA samples, they have pictures taken by speed cameras, they have witnesses, testimonies in some cases. So that's hard evidence. They have arrested a man in Italy who was there on holiday with his family, and he was since transferred to Germany and he's awaiting trial. He's been charged for having been the leader of the sabotage group group, and he's been charged with several counts, including war crimes. Now, that's interesting. It's a very severe charge. Why war crimes? It's because I think the prosecutors of Germany are trying to preempt the defense, saying this was a military operation and therefore this individual cannot be tried in a civilian court of law because he has what is known as combatant immunity. The German prosecutor jumps over that argument and says, okay, this was war. It was an illegitimate target. This is a pipeline that was servicing us. It's not Russian pipeline, it's away from the front line, etc. They have a bunch of legal arguments, and therefore this is a war crime, and we will charge this man with a war crime. So you can't claim immunity. We'll see what happens. Obviously, in the court arena, I mean, this will be a trial like unlike any other. And I don't think these arguments have ever been tested in a court of law. How far up the chain of command can they go, well, they can't really go far because like I said, they need hard evidence. From what I gather, there are no documents left that would could be used as evidence from the Ukrainian system. All the documents that refer to the operation were destroyed at the time. German prosecutors have no jurisdiction in Ukraine. German police cannot go and investigate outside of the national borders of their country. So I, I don't think they can get far. But what is now interestingly happening is that prosecutors in Ukraine have also opened the case. And this is a very political issue. Nobody quite understands what, what they want to do with this. But there is a theory that President Zelensky would be keen on General Zaluzhny being fingered as part of this operation. If Zaluzhny becomes a candidate who would challenge him for the office of the president Right. In the presidential elections. So there is a theory that the investigation on the Ukrainian side might be designed to kind of roll up people under Zaluzhny and eventually get to him in order to prevent him from running for president. So in that scenario, I don't know if the Ukrainians would then share whatever information they can get with their German counterparts. What I do know is when I put this to the Luzhni's people, they said, bring it on, let them do it. And if they do it, we'll put it on billboards before the election. Because whoever blew up the pipeline will be a hero to the voters in Ukraine and they will vote him into the presidential office. So that's, that's the kind of sentiment there. We'll see what happens.
- [58:16]
A
I haven't seen any reporting on that. Bojan, about the Ukrainian side of this investigation, have you reported on that?
- [58:25]
C
No, that's quite fresh. It happened in the last week or so.
- [58:29]
A
Well, well, we have to leave it at that. I mean, there's so much more we could discuss, like the CIA's relationship with Ukraine under the Biden, under. Under the Biden administration and Trump. It's still going strong, right?
- [58:44]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:45]
A
So the CIA is collaborating, or CIA and other special services of the US are collaborating in Ukraine strikes on Russia. Absolutely. Very deep now. Spectacular, you might even say. And, well, we'll be calling you again probably to come back on the podcast and talk about that.
- [59:07]
C
With great pleasure. It's.
- [59:08]
A
This has been great talk. Thank you.
- [59:10]
D
Thank you. Fascinating.
- [59:11]
C
Thank you so much.
- [59:13]
A
And that's it for this week's Spy Talk. Be sure to check out our complete podcast archive on Apple or wherever you get your podcast. And if you haven't already, do check out the Spy Talk Co news site on Substack, where we offer steady diet of scoops and original announcements policies from the intersection of intelligence, foreign policy and military operations. Just Google Spy Talk and you'll quickly find your way there. This edition of the Spy Talk Podcast was smoothly produced as always by Kanai and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media. That's it. See you around. I'm Jeff Stein.
- [59:52]
D
I'm Mike Lisigoff.
- [59:54]
A
Thanks for listening.
- [59:56]
B
For more original reporting and insights like this, subscribe to SpyTalk Co on substack and follow us on Twitter at Talkspy. If you enjoyed our podcast, subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Msw media. Want to spin more and win bigger?
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