Even Ian Fleming would have rejected the idea as unrealistic. The sabotage of Nord Stream, which occurred in September 2022 and which Ukraine continues to deny, featured Freya, an extraordinary diver who was key to the attack and who, previously, had been an erotic model. The former is revealed by Bojan Panchevski, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal in his book Undermining Nord Stream. The True Story of the Sabotage That Shook Europe (no publication date scheduled in Spain).
In an interview in Bild, reported by several media outlets, Panchevski gives details about Freya. It was she who descended, according to the version he has constructed based on several witnesses, to the bottom of the Baltic Sea to cut off the gas flow to Europe. “She was the bravest of the whole team,” he says. Bild adds a detail: the saboteur was an erotic model in her youth. The German tabloid has identified her among the women who appeared in some Ukrainian erotic magazines around 2004.
Bild adds that this past would also be the alibi, if the team were discovered. Freya would have offered to argue that the operation against Nord Stream was actually a pornographic production — with an unusual budget — set in a submarine.
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Panchevski’s work, in any case, focuses on who knew what before the attack on the pipeline that carries gas from Siberia to Europe. According to what was investigated for the book, Western intelligence services learned of the attack in advance and asked the Ukrainians to abort the operation. The CIA informed the Germans that Zelensky was aware of the plan.
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Journalist Panchevski assures that the then Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Zaluzhnyi, informed Zelensky of the plan. At that point, tensions between the two would have begun. Zelensky dismissed Zaluzhnyi as ambassador to the United Kingdom. The former diplomat’s revenge appears to be political: he wants to be a rival to the Ukrainian president in the next elections.
However, Zelensky continues to deny knowledge of or involvement in the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.
