What was Ukraine's involvement in Nord stream 2 pipeline explosions? | Krzysztof Jaworski

[Music] good morning it is 9:00 a.m. local time here in wara and you watching World talks with me S sha according to the Wall Street Journal the nordstream gas pipeline was blown up by a small Ukrainian sabotage team in a clandestine operation initially approved by Vadim zinski himself the article published just 2 days ago was a bombshell and continues to be widely discussed to look into this I am joined by Kristoff yavorski deputy director Institute for security and International Development good morning sir great having you on good morning uh it's great to being here with you so let me uh start uh with a um quote from the article the German investigation is now focusing on Z and his AIDS people familiar with the prob say although they have no evidence that could be presented in court so where do we stand on the issue and how accurate is this article yes uh to start with we need to keep in mind that it is just an article in some newspapers it is not official statement made by any official officials of Germany so having this in mind uh it's uh based on some informations that were probably given to this journalist by German police but at the same time the investigation is not yet concluded Court did not make a sentence so uh it is really irresponsible to uh take this uh forgiven uh and uh uh we need to remember that uh during this time uh when uh there were this sabotage on North pipelines uh the gas wasn't already flowing uh to Europe because of gas prom actions aimed at making bigger pressure on European countries so technically it didn't stop the flow of gas the gas stopped flowing uh earlier uh and uh we need to have in mind as well uh that it is uh possible that this sabotage was in real made by Russia because gas prom uh risked paying a lot of fines because of this uh false excuses of not sending gas to Europe so after destroying uh three of four uh pipelines of northstream it was this risk was taken off from gas prom so so uh it is uh I think that we shouldn't U take this uh new uh New Revelations as something that is uh well possible right so what you're saying is that there were some uh possible positive outcomes for the Russian propaganda the Russian narrative but if we were to take a look at Ukraine what were the benefits of um of this um of disruption of of the workings of nordstream 2 for Ukraine because there were some yes so on the one hand uh there weren't a huge change because this gas wasn't already flowing to Europe because of Acts taken by Russia already in the moment of sabotage however uh some narratives taken this as a really good move don't precising who made this move which will stop and which will uh make it impossible to get back to business usual because this uh nordstream uh pipelines were broadly criticized by Ukraine and by Eastern European countries for uh being a political project between Russia and Germany because prices of this gas were lower than in normal Market circumstances and uh Germany used it to uh gain competitive Advantage for its own economy because of low prices of natural gas from Russia and Russia aimed for gaining political uh benefits and uh being able to put pressure on European countries especially Germany and being able to not to transmiss not to send this gas uh by Ukraine and by Eastern European countries for example Poland and at the same time uh not to pay uh to these countries for uh trans of their gas so yes it is in some uh aspect beneficial for uh for Ukraine or Eastern European countries that there isn't uh any flow of gas by nor stream pipelines but uh at the same time we need to keep in mind that the same outcome will be gained by uh sanctions which were already implemented on Russian gas and Russian oil so uh from this point of view I think that there is a lot of risk of making such an action and at the same time this benefits of this action were already gained by sanctions right but there's no doubt that Germany took a hit as a result German economy so uh my question is how uh will this situation these new Revelations affect the German Ukrainian relations and POS and possibly German polish relations as well yes we don't have have uh precise information about all uh Revelations from this investigation we got some uh newspaper uh information about it so it is uh hard to uh precisely say how it will uh impact German Ukraine relations however and I think it's another uh argument for the thesis that it could be made by Russian actually it makes some divisions among allies in NATO it makes divisions between Germany and Ukraine which could impact German T toward Ukraine war effort and helping Ukraine so uh on the one hand uh without any doubt it is already used by Russian propaganda but uh even if it's not just a Russian propaganda it could impact Germany Ukraine relations which is uh rather dangerous from our perspective right and many people are wondering why was this revealed just now because some of the results of these investigations both by uh German police but also by uh intelligence were available earlier so is there do you think there's some uh strategy to to sort of publishing this now or is it just a coincidence yes this time coincidence is uh actually uh really interesting because it happens uh a few days after huge change at Ukrainian Russian front lines because of Ukrainian operation in ksk oblast and uh from this point of view it could be something that helps uh Russian uh disinformation in U making their position a bit better in damage control of uh this uh new outcomes of Ukrainian operation which is uh really devastating for Russia in this inform information sphere so maybe it could be something that was initiated but by some uh Russian um acts but not to go too far in speculation uh I could just stop and concluding that this coincidence helped Russian disinformation and uh if we look at uh who is um talking about uh uh this as well it's a former Chief of German intelligence who is connected to Gerhard Shredder former chancellor who is uh now lobbyist for uh Russian companies uh and he is cooperating with them even uh he uh member of board uh uh supervisory Board of uh one of these companies I think uh it is indeed uh helping Russian disinformation so we should be uh really cautious and we should uh take it really uh really um as something that uh could uh serve Russian disinformation right so uh do you think there will be um any further actions following this article will these findings be corroborated by some other entity what shall we do with this information what will be done in other words it seems that German investigation is still ongoing so we should uh wait for the official statements we should wait for the uh final outcome of this investigation uh at the same time we should remember that there were two more investigations that started just after the sabotage on on on northstream it was investigations by Denmark and by Sweden and uh they were already concluded with without uh uh pointing at any individuals responsible for it as well without pointing any countries responsible for it so uh it is uh indeed possible that we will never get the uh final uh outcome of this investigation because it could be just impossible to well to find who made it but at the same time if uh such Revelations uh based on uh rather weak U on rather weak information are now hugely discussed it is something which is really risky and at the same time I think it is uh really irresponsible by uh this uh journalist who made this look like uh it is uh like really one possible option that is now discussed it is not indeed and there are a lot of other arguments which are for example pointing at this hypothesis of Russian Act of sabotage and I think it's uh really good uh based on the fact that they just saved some money on fines for not sending gas to European countries and uh when it comes to uh these benefits of for example Ukraine and Eastern European countries these benefits were already gained so uh this is my uh conclusion uh when it comes to U what will happen next with this investigation right and there's also a Polish angle to all of this right one of one of the people was was supposed to be residing in Poland there was also a Polish Poland registered travel agency apparently um used to to um to lease that uh that vessel so my question is how is Poland dealing with all of this what is the Polish rhetoric what is the polish stands and what can we expect from our politicians in the near future yes uh so as for now polish uh denied this accusations at the same time there is this uh Germany uh accusation of not uh giving them information of not or not arresting uh this uh individual from Ukraine who is Accused by Germany of being part of this plot to sabotage nor stream D norre stream and as for now uh it was uh already stated by uh polish uh officials uh that we could not uh find a precise loc location of this person so we could not act so I think uh this line should be uh keep we should keep this line and uh we should uh point at this other possibilities at this other uh actors who may stay behind this sabotage and at the same time we should maintain uh rather good relations uh with Germany even if there are some tensions now but at the same time we need to remember that it's Germany who is responsible for a lot of problems with ongoing uh Russian Russian invasion on Ukraine because it's Germany politics aimed at gaining their own economy competitive Advantage based on low natural gas prices from Russ Russia uh which costed huge political and uh as well uh economic uh costs for whole Europe so Germany uh is uh in part responsible for the situation we are in now Krish yorski thank you sir for being with us this morning and for insights much appreciated thank you very much and thank you for watching World talks be seting for more here on BP world