Investigation of the Nord Stream attack: All evidence points to Kyiv – German Spiegel published an investigative article jointly with the public broadcaster ZDF, 444 notes.
According to the article, the bombs could have been planted on the Nord Stream gas pipeline from the Andromeda, an old, dilapidated, 75-horsepower and foul-smelling diesel ship. According to the publication, Andromeda could be an excellent disguise: according to the findings of the investigation, a team of divers and explosives specialists rented Andromeda almost a year ago. According to the publication, all signs point to the fact that Ukraine is behind the action on September 26 last year, which Germany called “an attack on the internal security of the state.”
The Spiegel article also shows that there are many questions in the case, mainly because no materials from the investigation can be published, and the investigation itself is currently being conducted against an unknown perpetrator.
Spiegel and the ZDF commissioned more than two dozen journalists to track the available evidence for six months. The result took me in many directions: from the Republic of Moldova to the USA, from Stockholm to Kyiv and Prague to Romania and France. The newspaper also notes that all the evidence now points to Kiev: however, some of their informants and politicians believe that the explosion could have been a false flag operation, that is, an attack that deliberately looks like it was carried out by someone else. “All the evidence points too clearly to Kyiv (…) it seems too perfect to be true,” adds Spiegel, also representing the site.
1. Rent
The investigation revealed, among other things, that the ship can be easily rented with a deposit of 1,500 euros, that Andromeda was paid for by a Warsaw travel agency in the name of a 54-year-old Kiev woman at that time. attacks. They took us on the ship with a Romanian passport, but the passport was fake, the name and photo did not match. The photo was finally identified by the police, according to the article, it probably shows a man from Dnepr, Valery K., who is now serving in Ukraine, in the 93rd mechanized brigade.
2. Reservation
The ship docked at Vic on 7 September and workers saw five men and one woman on board. Andromeda then disappeared and a few days later was near the explosion site. The ship then went to Poland and then back to Germany. Three days before the explosion, they took the Andromeda back to the port of Rostock, handed over the key and left: the article says why they didn’t sink the ship with traces, they would have found them earlier. At first, the police looked for suspicious evidence after the explosion, and the Andromeda was thus no more than one yacht among many.
3. Germany would be hurt if it were Ukraine.
Before the explosion, the Dutch military intelligence sent a letter to German intelligence, in a confidential material, it was said that an attack on the Nord Stream was planned – six Ukrainian soldiers, with false names and chartered ships, without the knowledge of Zelensky. The warning said that the explosion was planned for the duration of the NATO exercise, but since the letter arrived after the exercise – and the Germans believed that it contained many inaccuracies – German intelligence did not take any action.
However, this could create a difficult situation for German diplomacy: Germany cannot ignore an attack of this caliber, but it cannot stop Kiev’s support for Russia either. The motives are clear, the evidence also points to Ukraine – while there are theories that Russia orchestrated the whole thing, there are pros and cons. In any case, according to the Spiegel article, Russia knew about the attack. On the other hand, by its own admission, the government of Ukraine does not do this either.
Earlier, American and German investigations also came to the conclusion that the Nord Stream explosion could be connected with Ukraine – we wrote about this in detail here.