Investigators reconstructed the two-week journey of a 50-foot yacht suspected of involvement in the gas pipeline sabotage, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Investigators in Germany are examining evidence suggesting a sabotage team used Poland as a base to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
The researchers reconstructed the two-week journey of the Andromeda, a 50-foot yacht believed to have been involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. said the newspaper.
The Journal on Saturday cited people familiar with the voyage as suggesting that the sabotage crew had placed deep-sea explosives on Nord Stream 1 before setting the ship on course for Poland. It added that Germany was trying to link the DNA samples found on the ship to “at least one Ukrainian soldier”.
The evidence included data from the Andromeda’s radio and navigation equipment, as well as satellite and cell phones and Gmail accounts allegedly used by the perpetrators, WSJ reported.
“Taken together, the details show that the boat sailed around each of the sites where the blasts later occurred – evidence that strengthened investigators’ belief that the Andromeda played a major role in the destruction of the pipeline last year,” he said. it said.
Investigators began watching the ship after a tip from a Western intelligence agency, the paper said.
The German Federal Investigation Service and the spokesman for the Polish government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Information about Polish or Ukrainian indications for the destruction of NS1 and NS2, repeated in the media space, is consistently used by the Russian influence apparatus to give the impression/assumption in the recipients that Warsaw and Kiev were behind this incident,” said Stanislaw. Zaryn, deputy coordinator of Poland’s special services minister, wrote on Twitter.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 put Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas in the political spotlight. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines accelerated the region’s switch to other energy suppliers.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the US government learned from a European intelligence agency of a secret plan by the Ukrainian military to attack the pipelines using divers, who reported directly to the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military three months before the September attacks. armed forces. 2022 explosions.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied his government’s involvement in the sabotage of the gas pipelines.
“I am the president and I give orders accordingly. Ukraine has done nothing of the sort. I would never act like that,” Zelenskyy said, asking for evidence of Ukrainian involvement.
German media identified in March the possible involvement of a yacht belonging to a Polish-based company owned by Ukrainian citizens in the attack.