The Nord Stream Conspiracy

About this book

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE A riveting exposé of the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, the largest act of sabotage in modern history, told through unprecedented access and deep investigative reporting--part geopolitical thriller, part true-crime detective story, part gritty war chronicle In September 2022, Scandinavian seismologists detected what seemed to be an undersea earthquake near the Danish island of Bornholm. Instead, several powerful explosions had destroyed Nord Stream, the $20 billion pipeline system that transported cheap Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The mysterious blasts shifted global geopolitics, disrupted European economies, and triggered a manhunt that strained relations within the NATO alliance. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, award-winning Wall Street Journal correspondent Bojan Pancevski presents the definitive, behind-the-scenes account of this audacious operation. Authorized at the highest levels of Ukraine's leadership, the mission was ostensibly unofficial and conducted with the utmost secrecy. Pancevski secured exclusive access to the German investigators and their political overseers as well as the Ukrainian agents who executed the attack--a team of intelligence officers, military personnel, and civilian divers. The saboteurs operated on a shoestring budget, using a small rented yacht with a seven-member crew to conduct the strike at great risk in extremely turbulent waters. The Nord Stream Conspiracy addresses the two leading theories about who was responsible, Russia or the US, and explains how these narratives developed, including the popular US theory involving the CIA, which knew about the plot. This gripping account exposes the human stories and moral complexities behind one of the most remarkable geopolitical mysteries of our time, one that redefined modern warfare.