The first Russian assault on the capital of Ukraine had only recently been repelled when, in the spring of 2022, operatives from the CIA, America's foreign intelligence agency, met with Ukrainian specialists in covert sabotage operations in the Podil district of Kyiv. The group was apparently familiar with each other – they had known each other for years.

The Ukrainians, according to people familiar with the meeting, had brought an idea along with them: They wanted to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines, the tubes that transported several billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to Germany, thereby providing a source of financing for Moscow's war against their country. The Americans appeared to like the plan, Ukrainian participants in the meeting would later tell confidants.

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Additional meetings between the CIA representatives and the masterminds of the attacks on the gas pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea are said to have followed. DER SPIEGEL was able to speak with several individuals in Ukraine who provided details about the meetings. According to their accounts, the Americans knew about the attack plans far earlier than previously known.