The Little Spy Agency That Can

The Netherlands' spy agencies keep popping up in counterterrorism cases

The Netherlands’ MIVD warned the CIA about the Nord Stream plot

A passing line about Dutch intelligence in an impressive Wall Street Journal story last week on Ukraine’s 2022 plot to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines caught my eye. And not for the first time.

Within days of Ukraine greenlighting its clandestine scheme to take out the Russian natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, “the Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD learned of the plot and warned the CIA,” the Journal reported, citing “several people familiar with the Dutch report.”  The Americans then tipped off Germany, the major beneficiary of the energy flow. 

The Washington Post had also noted the key role of Netherland’s military intelligence agency in the probe, reporting last November that U.S. officials told Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, that “the United States opposed such an operation.” The Ukrainians went ahead anyway, apparently adopting the hoary adage, “better to apologize than ask permission.” But now the Netherlands will play a key role in any criminal prosecution that arises from the affair. In June, Germany issued an arrest warrant for Volodymyr Zhuravlov, a 44-year-old Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in blowing up three of the four pipelines nearly 300 deep in the sea off Denmark. 

American intelligence officials who have worked with the foreign intelligence-gathering agencies of tiny Holland aren’t surprised at their reach.