Nikolai Patrushev, in a September 8 article in Kommersant, “The Baltic Seas as an Arena of Undeclared Hybrid War,” raises the possibility that NATO intelligence forces, and more specifically the British Special Boat Services, which is the special forces unit of the Royal Navy, may have been responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines on September 26, 2022.
Over August 1999-May 2008, Patrushev was the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, succeeding Vladimir Putin, with whom he has worked closely for more than 30 years. From May 2008 through May 2024, he was Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. Today, he is an aide to the President of Russia, and President of the Maritime Board.
Patrushev debunks the absurd story put out by German authorities that a Ukrainian named Sergei Kuznetzov, using a rented yacht, and working with six other alleged saboteurs, blew up the pipelines. He notes that the pier from which this team and the yacht allegedly operated was “located a hundred meters from the NATO naval base in Rostock,” on the Baltic Sea, and that if that team were operating from there, loading onto their yacht diving equipment, several hundred kilograms of explosives, etc., it would have been impossible for NATO not to have noticed them.
Patrushev asserts that the Ukrainian saboteurs lacked the expertise to carry out such a complex operation. He asks, “Was all this activity planned, controlled and executed with the participation of highly professional representatives of NATO intelligence services?” He answers that this is very likely.
