Former Defense Minister Ollongren probably knew about Nord Stream sabotage plan

Investigations by the Wall Street Journal last week revealed that Ukraine was involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022. However, President Zelenskyy vehemently denied this. The information about the planned sabotage of the gas pipelines came from the Dutch secret service at the time. Now Geert Wilders and other PVV politicians want to know from Prime Minister Schoof and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense who else in the Netherlands was aware of the sabotage, NRC reported.

The Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) is said to have informed the Americans about the sabotage plan shortly before the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The MIVD claims the information came from a Ukrainian source. According to Zelenskyy's advisor, Mychailo Podoljak, Russia was responsible for the attack, he told the news agency Reuters on Thursday.

The American newspaper's investigation into the sabotage of the pipelines puts the Dutch government, especially the political leadership of the Minister of Defense and his right-hand man, the Secretary-General, in trouble, as they must have known about the sabotage plan in advance. This is according to historian Bob de Graaf, who published a book on the history of the MIVD in 2022 and was one of the few to be granted access to the service's archives for his research.

After his lengthy research for the book, De Graaf has insights into the Secret Service's correspondence with Dutch politicians. The history expert assumes that three politicians must have known about the Ukrainian sabotage plans and their implementation "with a high degree of probability." This concerns former Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren (D66), the Ministry's Secretary General, and the former head of the MIVD, Jan Swillens.

In addition, former Prime Minister Mark Rutte is also very likely to have known about the Ukrainian government's involvement in the sabotage, as Rutte was personally involved in the Ukraine dossier at the time, according to De Graaff. "As the head of the MIVD, you must have a weakly tuned political antenna if you do not tell your political superior about such a plan. The foreseeable geopolitical, diplomatic, and economic implications and sensitivities were simply too great for that," he told NRC.

De Graaf concludes from the analysis of the correspondence between the political leaders in the Dutch government and the MIVD that Ollongren knew at the time how to interpret the usual formulations of the head of the MIVD about the degree of probability of the news about Kyiv's involvement and the reliability of the Ukrainian source of the Dutch intelligence service.

"Furthermore, the Secretary General of Defence (Gea van Craaikamp in 2022, ​​since August 2023 Maarten Schurink] is the first point of contact for the MIVD in daily dealings within the department. As a person closely involved in the ins and outs of that service, Van Craaikamp was very likely also aware of the information from Ukraine," De Graaf said in an interview with NRC.

Nevertheless, based on his research for his book on the MIVD, the expert was unable to say how much more and what exactly those politically responsible at the time knew about the planned sabotage and Ukraine's involvement.