The defense minister of Ukraine stated on Wednesday that the country’s government was not involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year.
In response to a report in The New York Times on Tuesday that U.S. officials had seen new intelligence indicating that a “pro-Ukrainian group” was responsible for the sabotage, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told reporters in Stockholm ahead of a meeting with European Union defense ministers, “This is not our activity.”
The Times report said that U.S. officials didn’t have any evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was involved in the pipeline bombing, and it didn’t say where the intelligence came from or who was involved.
However, Russia’s ability to profit millions of dollars by selling natural gas to Western Europe was severely harmed by the attack, which was to Ukraine’s advantage.
Additionally, it contributed to the rise in energy costs, which weighed on Germany, a key ally of Ukraine.
According to the Times report, the intelligence suggested that the saboteurs were “opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.”
“Ukraine has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and has no information about ‘pro-Ukraine sabotage groups,'” Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential adviser in Ukraine, wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.
Subsea explosives blew up the pipelines at the end of September, seven months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
The incident has prompted inquiries to be opened by authorities in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark.
Separate reports from German media suggest that the unidentified group consisted of five men and one woman who rented a boat and set sail from the northern German port of Rostock with professionally forged passports.
According to the report that was provided by the weekly magazine Die Zeit and German broadcasters ARD and SWR, investigators from Germany discovered evidence of explosives on the table in the boat’s cabin.
