WP: Colonel Lured Wagnerites To Belarus And Coordinated Nord Stream Pipeline Attack

Chervinsky denies his participation in the operation.

Col. Roman Chervinsky is a former GUR (the Ukrainian Defence Intelligence) senior officer and former commander of one of the military units of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces. He personally led the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipeline attack operation last year, The Washington Post reported citing sources closely familiar with the situation.

The publication also adds that the 48-year-old Ukrainian officer acted on the orders of other Ukrainian officials, who reported on the progress of the operation to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny.

“Roman Chervinsky managed logistics and support for a six-person team that rented a sailboat under false identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the gas pipelines.

Chervinsky did not plan the operation alone. The officer took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer,” sources told The Washington Post on condition of anonymity.

Chervinsky himself denies his participation in coordinating the Nord Stream explosions.

At the same time, as The Washington Post notes, Roman Chervinsky commanded another operation. In 2020, he tried to lure mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner PMC into Belarus to catch them on their way to other countries. However, the operation failed when the KGB and Lukashenka’s security forces intervened, arresting the Wagnerites first and then releasing them to Russia.

At the moment, Roman Chervinsky is in a Ukrainian pre-trial detention center for the fact that in the summer of 2022, during an operation to lure a Russian fighter pilot into the territory of Ukraine, he revealed the coordinates of one of the Ukrainian airfields, at which Russia then launched a missile strike, killing one and injuring 17 Ukrainian soldiers.

Chervinsky is charged with abuse of power, which could result in 8 to 12 years in prison. The Ukrainian leadership claims that the officer during the operation with the Russian plane acted without notifying the command, but Chervinsky, on the contrary, claims that there was an order to act and they simply want to remove him.