The German press claims: "The Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged by a group of divers of Ukrainian origin"

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have been partially correct when he said that the Russian Federation was not behind the blowing up of the North Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, but that Ukraine and the US were to blame.

According to an investigation carried out by ARD, Suddeutscher Zeitung and Die Zeit, the destruction by explosion of parts of the North Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which took place on September 26, 2022, was carried out by a group of Ukrainians, for one of them having already been issued an international arrest warrant by the German authorities.

The cited sources claim that the German Federal Prosecutor's Office is investigating three Ukrainian diving instructors and a woman for their involvement in the two explosions. Federal Attorney General Jens Rommel has obtained the first arrest warrant against one of the suspects, identified as Volodymyr Z., who is said to have been spotted recently in Poland, in a town near the capital Warsaw.

According to the investigation, the suspect, like two other people investigated in this case, is a highly qualified diver specializing in diving at great depths. Federal prosecutors allege that in early September 2022, the group, along with two other people, went on an 18-day sea voyage on a German sailing yacht called "Andromeda", with their initial destination somewhere near the Danish island of Bornholm , where the two gas pipelines were located. Shortly after the act of sabotage, the German authorities began an investigation into the "deliberate provocation of an explosion". While Denmark and Sweden closed their investigations in early 2024, Germany continued its investigation to uncover all the details of this complex case. Following cooperation with the intelligence service of an allied country, evidence emerged that led to the issuance of the international arrest warrant for the first suspect, who was known to be living in Poland. However, Polish authorities have not yet made the requested arrest and the suspect has apparently disappeared, but it is not known whether or not he has returned to Ukraine.

The cited sources claim that the suspect disappeared because the authorities in Poland followed the common rules of the European arrest warrant, which provide for detention within 60 days without further examination by the Polish state, a deadline that only expired in August for the warrant issued in June by the German Federal Prosecutor's Office. According to the Prosecutor's Office in Poland, the suspect's departure from that country was possible because the German side had not made an entry in the Schengen register, where those wanted on the basis of the European arrest warrant are kept.

"Wolodymyr Z. crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border before the arrest took place, and the Polish border guard had neither the information nor grounds to arrest him because he is not listed as a wanted person," said the spokesperson of the Polish Prosecutor's Office, according to the dpa press agency.

• Polish complicity in the North Stream case?

According to judicial sources cited by the aforementioned German publications, an important role in issuing the arrest warrant would have been a white van that was abandoned on September 8, 2022 in the town of Rugen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The yacht "Andromeda" was stationed at Rugen, from where the Ukrainians allegedly picked up diving equipment and other materials, possibly the explosives used to destroy the pipelines. The driver of that van identified the suspect in the photos for whom an arrest warrant was issued.

The cited German publications claim that it is unclear whether Ukrainian state authorities were involved in the preparation and implementation of the sabotage. According to the respective sources, the investigations did not reveal any direct connection to the Ukrainian army or the secret services for the three suspects. However, the US daily Wall Street Journal claims that the idea for the attack was conceived during a drunken night and initially had the approval of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but after the CIA had gas pipelines from the Baltic Sea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied any association with those involved in the destruction of the two gas pipelines, claiming that the authorities from Kiev had no involvement in that event. For his part, Kirilo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's intelligence service, told German broadcaster ARD: "I am more than certain that none of the officials in Ukraine could have had anything to do with this."

Under these conditions, the cited sources claim that they took into account a possible support given by Poland to the three suspects, especially since while the German prosecutors claimed that the Andromeda yacht was used as a means of transport for the suspects, the Polish Secretary of State in at that time, Stanislaw Zaren, stated in an interview for ARD: "We did not find any trace of the involvement of this yacht in the events."

According to Polish authorities, the yacht's crew was checked during a stopover in Ko³obrzeg, with no results. The trip was "purely touristic in nature, for fun; no one on board had rudimentary military or sabotage training," Stanislaw Zaren added.

However, the investigative team in Germany questioned the information coming from Poland. German investigators have repeatedly asked their Polish colleagues to provide them with footage from surveillance cameras in the port of Ko³obrzeg, but according to a Polish website cited by German publications, no video was available because the footage had been deleted by law.

• Traces of explosives used by the military, found on the yacht Andromeda

According to the German investigation, in addition to Volodymyr Z., the group that blew up the North Stream 1 and North Stream 2 gas pipelines also includes a couple who run a diving school in Ukraine, where Z. apparently worked as a diving instructor. diving. While Z. is less active in social networks on the Internet, the posts of the couple Yevhen U. and Svetlana U. indicate a clear pro-Ukrainian and patriotic attitude: the Ukrainian is active in various Telegram groups where they discuss aid for refugees from war in Ukraine. Svetlana U. shared information online about her support for the Ukrainian military, including a fundraiser she participated in to purchase night vision devices for the Ukrainian military. According to the cited German publications, Yevhen U. posted several pro-Ukrainian opinions online.

Asked by ARD reporters about the incident in the Baltic Sea, Svetlana U. - who is currently in Kiev - said that neither she nor her husband knew anything about the attack on the North Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. According to her, in September 2022, when the pipeline attacks took place, she was on holiday in Bulgaria. Svetlana also stated that she does not know suspect Z. Instead, Yevhen U., who is the head of the diving school, did not answer the phone, but told German journalists that he would respond in writing to any questions sent to them .

For German investigators, however, things are quite clear two years after the event in the Baltic Sea. They found traces of DNA and fingerprints on board the Andromeda yacht, as well as traces of a special explosive that is mainly used by the military.

Eyewitnesses said that several men and a woman left Rostock on the "Andromeda" in early September 2022. The yacht then stopped in Wiek on Rugen, then on the small Danish island of Christiansø, in Sandhamn in Sweden and in Ko³obrzeg in Poland , before finally returning to Rostock. A sailor claims to have heard in one of the ports that the crew was speaking Ukrainian.

According to the investigation by ARD, Suddeutscher Zeitung and Die Zeit, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) received the crucial information about the suspected Ukrainian divers this spring from an intelligence service in another European country. However, the information came with the restriction that it could not be used directly in the criminal trial, in order to hide its origin and protect the source.