exklusiv

Nord Stream Attacks Denying All Involvement

Stand: 26.09.2023 17:06 Uhr

One year after the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, German officials have identified several suspects. They all come from Ukraine. According to reporting by ARD, the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and "Die Zeit" most deny having played a part.

By Manuel Bewarder, Pune Djalilevand, Florian Flade, Michael Götschenberg, Georg Heil, Amir Musawy, Stella Peters, Reiko Pinkert, Jonas Schreijäg, Lea Struckmeier and Holger Schmidt

The "Andromeda", 15 meters long and past its prime, is a sailing yacht like countless others. Its many voyages have left their mark. But for investigators with Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and with the Bundespolizei, the country’s federal police force, the vessel is the most promising lead yet in one of the largest criminal cases in Germany’s postwar history: the blowing up of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Ultimately, investigators were able to find traces of explosives on board the boat.

One year ago, in September 2022, eyewitnesses say that several men and one woman set sail from the German port city of Rostock aboard the "Andromeda". Around two weeks later, several explosions destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and part of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines. It marked an unprecedented attack on Germany’s energy supply infrastructure.

But who was responsible? A team of reporters from German public broadcaster ARD, the Munich-based daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (SZ) and the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" spent several months reporting on the spectacular attacks. The story led them to Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine. They followed leads that German officials have also pursued and located people who have been identified as suspects.

The payment for the yacht plays a central role in the investigation. The "Andromeda" was apparently paid for through a Polish shell company, a Warsaw-based firm called Feeria Lwowa, a purported travel agency that has engaged in few verifiable business activities.

As the reporting by ARD, SZ and "Die Zeit" has found, a Ukrainian businessman named Rustem A. is apparently behind Feeria Lwowa, information reflected in Ukrainian court documents. When the team of journalists tracked down Rustem A. in Kyiv to ask him about his possible role in the Nord Stream attacks, he refused to comment. "I don’t want to speak with you," he said. "Look, do you know prostitutes? I associate journalists with prostitutes, you understand? And I don’t meet with prostitutes."

New information has also emerged pertaining to the rental of the sailboat. German investigators believe that the emails to the German boat rental company were sent from the Gmail account of a Ukrainian who is now considered a suspect. The man apparently works in shipping management. In a telephone conversation with reporters, however, he denied the accusations and insisted that he had not rented the "Andromeda". "I have no idea," he said.

To charter the boat, the Ukrainian is suspected of having emailed copies of two falsified passports to the German chartering company, one Romanian, the other Bulgarian. German investigators believe the photo on the Romanian passport, issued in the name of "Stefan Marcu," is that of the Ukrainian national Valeriy K.

The team of reporters from ARD, SZ and "Die Zeit" spoke with Valeriy K.’s brother and grandmother in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. The grandmother said that Valeriy K. is currently fighting on the front lines and only rarely gets in touch by phone. "He is under a lot of pressure," his brother told the reporters. "He hasn’t been home in a long time."

Valeriy K.’s intermittent girlfriend fled to Germany following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is currently living in Frankfurt an der Oder on the German-Polish border. When reporters asked about Valeriy K. and his possible involvement in the Nord Stream attacks, she said: "He is innocent and that will soon be proven." According to all the reporters know, the German investigators have now learned that Valerij K. is protesting his innocence.

Back in May, investigators searched the apartment of his girlfriend in Frankfurt an der Oder, confiscating her mobile phone and taking DNA samples from their child to compare it with traces found on board the "Andromeda". They found no match. Indeed, no evidence has thus far emerged that Valeriy K. had even been on the boat. His possible role in the attacks remains unclear. German security officials cannot currently rule out the possibility that Valeriy K.’s identity was stolen.

As part of the chartering procedure for the "Andromeda" the copy of a Bulgarian passport was apparently also provided. Reporting has revealed that it was issued to "Michail Popov," also apparently a falsified identity. This suspect, thought to have been the skipper of the sailing vessel, was also apparently documented by Polish Coast Guard officials as a crew member during the "Andromeda’s"stopover in Kołobrzeg, Poland.

New reporting has found that shortly before the explosions, the "Andromeda" is thought to have made a stop in the harbor at Sandhamn, Sweden, in addition to the previously known stopovers in Denmark and Poland. This information is based on the accounts of several eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the vessel and its crew in port. One witness, a German sailor, told the team from ARD, SZ and "Die Zeit" that he saw five men and a woman on board. "Two men with short hair, military I’d say," the German sailor said. The woman, he added, was a small, petite brunette. Sources within the German investigation have confirmed the stopover in Sandhamn.

Investigations into the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines are currently underway in several countries, including Denmark, Sweden and Germany. "The identities of the suspects and their motives are the focus of ongoing investigations," the Federal Public Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement in response to questions submitted by the reporters.

Speaking to the German federal parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs, Public Prosecutor General Peter Frank said last week that officials had not yet been able to conclusively identify the "Andromeda’s "crew members. The assumption remains, he reported, that professional divers affixed explosives to the pipelines. Frank told parliament that several experts from the Helmholtz Institute, the German Navy and the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) had concluded that such an operation would have been possible to execute using a sailboat like the "Andromeda".

Yet even as German investigators believe that the "Andromeda" was used for the operation, Polish officials are skeptical. Polish State Secretary Stanislaw Zaryn, who is responsible for the coordination of his country’s intelligence agencies, told the reporting team from ARD, SZ and "Die Zeit": "We have no evidence for this yacht’s participation in the events." The crew, he said, was apparently made up of people "who were looking for fun." The voyage had a "purely touristic character." Nobody appeared "to have anything close to military or sabotage-related training." He did not provide any evidence to back his statements. Zaryn and the Polish government believe it is more likely that Russia was behind the attack. The Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement.

The governments of Germany and Ukraine declined to respond to queries from the three media organizations conducting the reporting.