A riveting exposé of the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, the largest act of sabotage in modern history, told through unprecedented access and deep investigative reporting - part geopolitical thriller, part true-crime detective story, part gritty war chronicle.

In September 2022, Scandinavian seismologists detected what seemed to be an undersea earthquake near the Danish Island of Bornholm. Instead, several powerful explosions had destroyed Nord Stream, the $20 billion pipeline system that transported cheap Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The mysterious blasts shifted global geopolitics, disrupted European economies, and triggered a manhunt that strained relations within the NATO alliance.

Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, award-winning Wall Street Journal correspondent Bojan Pancevski presents the definitive, behind-the-scenes account of this audacious operation. He secured exclusive access to the German investigators and their political overseers, as well as the Ukrainian operatives who executed the attack—a team of intelligence officers, military personnel, and civilian divers. The saboteurs, operating on a shoestring budget, used a small, rented yacht with a seven-member crew, and the plot also involved a failed attack on another key Russian pipeline in the Black Sea. Moreover, according to Pancevski's sources, the mission was authorized at the highest levels of Ukraine’s leadership: President Volodymyr Zelensky and then commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, at least initially, approved the mission.

The Nord Stream Conspiracy addresses the two leading theories about who was responsible, Russia or the U.S., and explains how these narratives developed, including the popular U.S. theory involving the C.I.A (which knew about the plot) endorsed by prominent political and media figures. This gripping account exposes the human stories and moral complexities behind one of the most remarkable geopolitical mysteries of our time, which redefined modern warfare.

*Note: This is an ongoing, and developing story. Readers and media who wish to have the most updated version of the e-galley can reach out to us.