WSJ: investigators have restored the path of a yacht carrying explosives for the Northern Streams
German investigators have restored the two-week journey of the yacht, which could carry explosives for the "Northern Streams", reports The Wall Street Journal. Now they have to find out whether Poland could serve as a springboard for an attack on the Russian gas pipeline.
Bojan Pancevski
In Germany, investigators are studying evidence indicating that a group of saboteurs used Poland — a member state of the European Union and NATO - as an operational base to undermine the Nord Stream gas pipeline, through which Russian gas was supplied to Europe via the Baltic Sea.
The German Federal Criminal Police Department is trying to find out why the yacht, which, in their opinion, was used for the operation, entered Polish waters. Other evidence points to the fact that Poland was used as a logistics and financing center for sabotage on the "Nord Streams", which broke the strongest thread connecting Berlin and Moscow. Poland, which is conducting its own investigation, has been trying for several months to find out exactly what Germany managed to find out.
German investigators managed to fully restore the entire two—week journey of the Andromeda, a 15-meter-long white pleasure yacht that may have been involved in one of the largest acts of sabotage in Europe since World War II. They found out that the yacht deviated from its route and temporarily entered Polish waters.
The evidence they found, which had not been previously reported, was combined with data from Andromeda's radio and navigation equipment, with data obtained from satellite and mobile phones, as well as from Gmail accounts used by criminals, and with DNA samples left on board the yacht, which Germany tried to match with DNA of at least one Ukrainian soldier.
The collected data indicate that the yacht was located near each of the places where the explosions later occurred. This is what strengthened the investigators in the opinion that Andromeda played an important role in the undermining of pipelines. They concluded that a refractory explosive, also known as an octogen, was used in the operation – a colorless substance that is well suited for detonating underwater objects.
According to German investigators, they are also investigating why the yacht was rented through a Warsaw travel agency, which, apparently, is part of a network of Ukrainian shell companies associated with Ukrainian intelligence. And although the new data seems to have strengthened the investigators in the opinion that Ukrainians are behind the undermining of the Nord Stream, they are also finding out whether the territory of Poland could have been used to carry out the attack. During the investigation, it became known that the white van, which was caught on surveillance cameras in the German port and which was seen by witnesses, had Polish license plates and was used to supply the yacht's crew, as reported by sources familiar with the investigation.
Officials of both countries stated that the German side kept the Polish government in the dark about the progress of the investigation of the Andromeda's movements and the composition of its crew, and that the Polish authorities learned about it from press reports. This is a rather unusual situation for EU members, where there are common legal instruments for conducting cross-border investigations. After the news about the yacht appeared, the Polish authorities requested additional information from Germany. It was only in mid-May, that is, five months after Berlin managed to identify Andromeda, that the two countries held a "working meeting" on this issue, as a representative of the Polish Ministry of Justice put it.
Investigators found this yacht thanks to an October tip from Western intelligence services. The information about her came from a certain person located in Ukraine, who is collecting intelligence for a small European country. Since then, officials of this European state have been wondering why the larger powers, with powerful surveillance capabilities and an extensive network of agents, could not find out in advance about the upcoming sabotage, or why they did not warn the others if they did know about it.
This investigation may increase tensions within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which will further aggravate relations between Poland and Germany. Poland and many of its neighbors, as well as the United States, strongly opposed the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which they viewed as a geopolitical weapon that would allow Russian leader Vladimir Putin to make Europe dependent on Russian energy resources.
A spokeswoman for the German Prosecutor General, who is leading the investigation, declined to comment on whether the investigation extends to Poland and whether the Polish authorities have been contacted for help. Other German officials familiar with the investigation said they had no evidence that the Polish government was involved in the sabotage.
Polish officials recognize that the country's long Baltic coast, its long border with Ukraine and the large Ukrainian population give obvious advantages to the organizers of the attack. But these officials stressed that the Polish government played no role in undermining the "Northern Streams".
"I can assure you that no Polish institution is involved in this story, and this is not a state matter. But I cannot rule out that some Polish company is involved in this case," said one senior Polish national security official.
Another senior Polish official said Warsaw's own more limited investigation had not yet identified any suspects. "In political terms, all options are still being considered," the official added. The Polish authorities question the involvement of Andromeda in the operation and continue to assert that Russia could well have organized a diversion to frame Ukraine.
Nord Stream, launched in 2011 thanks to the efforts of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was a very big bet on cheap Russian gas. The second branch of the gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, was built after the reunification of Crimea with Russia, despite the resistance of the United States and almost all of Germany's eastern neighbors. After the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Berlin, faced with pressure from these countries, was forced to abandon the launch of this gas pipeline.
On September 26, 2022, three explosions thundered on the "Northern Streams", as a result of which powerful bubbling geysers appeared there, because of which more greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere than Poland emits in a whole year.
Since then, investigators from Germany, Sweden, Denmark and other Western countries have been trying to find out who was behind the explosion of gas pipelines and how exactly it was committed. Unlike the situation with Poland, Germany worked closely with these and other countries in the course of its investigation. They classified the results of their investigations, and German officials recalled that under the law for disclosing details could face imprisonment.
This article is based on interviews with representatives of the security services of seven European countries, as well as data on the movements of the yacht "Andromeda" in September last year.
One of the recent conclusions made by the German investigation was that this single-masted yacht, loaded with military explosives, headed south into Polish waters from the Danish island of Kristianso.
Interviews with sources familiar with the investigation materials show that the sabotage group did half of its work by laying deep-sea explosives on the threads of the Nord Stream-1, and then set off on their Bavaria 50 Cruiser type yacht towards Poland.
According to sources, it is unknown whether the yacht reached the shores of Poland or whether it met with some other vessel in Polish waters. But the investigators managed to establish that the Andromeda, which a few days earlier had been leased from a German company based near the place where the pipelines run, sailed back to the north – presumably in an attempt to complete its mission and plant explosives on the Nord Stream-2.
The Feeria Lwowa travel agency, registered in Poland but owned by Ukrainians, through which the saboteurs managed to rent a yacht in Germany, was practically inactive in previous years. According to the company's reports, in previous years Feeria Lwowa received relatively little or no profit, and only one of its employees received about $3.5 million in revenue in 2020 – the very year when the global tourism industry was seriously affected by the pandemic.
A Wall Street Journal reporter tried to find this company at its legal address in a dilapidated office building in Warsaw. However, there was no one there, there were no signs on the doors, and an office worker from another company in this building said that she had never heard of Feeria Lwowa, which, by the way, did not respond to any of our emails.
The Ukrainian government continues to deny its involvement in the sabotage on the "Northern Streams". On Wednesday, June 7, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine had not done anything like this and that he would never have given such an order.
"I believe that our military and our intelligence did not do this. And if someone claims the opposite, I would like to have evidence presented to us," Zelensky said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild.
The first clear warning about the impending attack of Ukrainians on pipelines came from the intelligence service of a European country back in June 2022. This service informed the US Central Intelligence Agency that a small group of servicemen of the armed forces of Ukraine planned to sabotage the pipeline in the same month.
The CIA relayed this warning to Germany and other allies, but by early September, several governments had concluded that the threat had passed, according to officials familiar with the situation.
And immediately after the sabotage, these officials began to look towards Kiev.
According to sources, in October, shortly after the September 26 sabotage, the above-mentioned European country, which warned the CIA, transmitted directly to Germany detailed information that helped investigators identify Andromeda. At about the same time, CIA Director William Burns was asked at a meeting with a European ally whether Ukraine was responsible. "I hope not," he said, adding that the available data do not allow us to say that it was Russia. This was announced by an official of that European country who was personally present at that meeting.
German authorities who searched the boat in January found traces of octogen. According to one European official, the relatively small amount needed to blow up pipelines would easily fit on the Andromeda.
Since German investigators were dealing with this case without direct assistance from Poland or Ukraine, they had to rely on decrypted electronic messages, Western intelligence reports and luck.
It was a fortunate coincidence that the yacht's passengers returned it to the port without first washing it. This allowed investigators to find traces of explosives, DNA and fingerprints.
Investigators are investigating whether at least part of the DNA found could belong to one Ukrainian soldier whom they managed to identify. They are based on the hypothesis that at least some of the criminals should be associated with units of the Ukrainian armed forces.
In May, German investigators took a DNA sample from the soldier's son – it turned out that the boy lives with the soldier's ex-girlfriend in refugee status in the German city of Frankfurt an der Oder. Investigators hope to establish whether the boy's father was on the Andromeda yacht. They searched the woman's apartment for clues and collected data from her mobile phone, which helped them expand the investigation beyond Germany.
In addition, it turned out that the suspects communicated through regular Gmail accounts, which made it easy for investigators to access their emails.
A spokeswoman for the German prosecutor's office said that the investigation is working to gather enough evidence to obtain international arrest warrants.
"In a democracy, it is impossible to hide anything, and the full results of the investigation — as well as the truth about what exactly happened – will eventually become known," said one German politician with knowledge of the investigation. "Our investigators are very meticulous, and we just need to let them do their job."