How Ukraine Planned to Disguise $20Bn Nord Stream Sabotage Mission As a Porn Film

Ukrainian military saboteurs prepared a bizarre cover story involving an aquatic-themed pornographic film to disguise their high-stakes mission to destroy the $20 billion Nord Stream gas pipelines.

The undercover team, consisting of four men and one woman, was deployed to Germany's Baltic coast in autumn 2022.

Under the direction of a Soviet-era military intelligence officer, the team was instructed to tell authorities they were filming an adult movie if they were intercepted by police.

Operation Diameter

The commander behind the operation, who possessed limited experience in Western Europe, insisted the erotic film alibi would avoid suspicion in Germany or Sweden.

While the bizarre cover story was ultimately abandoned at a late stage in favor of a narrative about leisure diving, it underscored the unorthodox planning behind the multi-billion-dollar operation.

The team's real objective was to descend 80 meters below the Baltic Sea's surface to destroy the four 750-mile conduits.

The infrastructure project was originally designed to transport cheap Russian natural gas directly to Germany.

Details of the operation, codenamed "Operation Diameter," have emerged in a new book, The Nord Stream Conspiracy, by investigative journalist Bojan Pancevski.

The account relies on direct testimony from the Ukrainian conspirators themselves, who spoke to the author while still being tracked by German prosecutors, according to The Telegraph.

Deep-State Network

The plot was orchestrated by two senior Ukrainian military officials identified only as "the General" and "the Colonel."

According to the planners, the operation was run by a small deep-state network acting largely on its own initiative rather than under direct orders from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

To execute the deep-sea dive, the commanders recruited specialized civilian divers from Ukraine’s patriotic Black Sea diving fraternity.

The selected group included a female civilian diver, codenamed "Freya," who had previously appeared on the cover of an erotic magazine.

The team conducted secret training exercises in disused Ukrainian quarries, where they practiced concealing explosives inside their oxygen canisters.

They subsequently traveled to Germany, utilized a beige Citroën van, and rented a boat from a local marina under the guise of exploring shipwrecks.

Perpetrators at Large

On September 26, 2022, the timed explosives detonated at four separate locations off the coast of Bornholm, a Danish island.

The resulting blasts ruptured three of the four pipelines beyond repair and released 350,000 tons of methane gas into the atmosphere.

The incident triggered a major geopolitical investigation, with initial public suspicions directed toward both the Kremlin and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

However, German police investigations eventually linked the attack back to the Ukrainian diving team after analyzing marina footage and thousands of local speed-camera photos.

Political appetite for prosecution remains constrained in Berlin, which has become a primary military backer of Ukraine.

German authorities have detained only one suspect, a skipper arrested in Italy, while Poland has actively resisted assisting German prosecutors with additional arrest warrants.