Spiegel: Metadata from yacht allegedly involved in Nord Stream emergency leads to Ukraine
German investigators are increasingly confident that the Andromeda yacht was used to undermine Nord Stream, with traces of the operation leading to Ukraine, the Spiegel newspaper wrote with reference to representatives of the group headed by Prosecutor General Peter Frank.
There is allegedly “more and more data” in favour of this version.
“Metadata from an email that was sent when the “Andromeda” yacht, which was allegedly used to transport explosives, was rented leads to Ukraine,” the publication noted.
Earlier, Spiegel named the model and course of the vessel. The yacht Bavaria Cruiser 50 is assigned to the port of Breguet on the island of Rügen. Unidentified persons rented her through an island charter firm. They started their journey from the port of Rostock-Warnemünde, after which the yacht was moored briefly in the port of Wiek.
For its part, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung earlier published its own investigation carried out jointly with other media.
According to the journalists, Andromeda was leased by Warsaw-based Feeria Lwowa, which was founded in 2016 and registered to two Ukrainians. At the same time, this firm suddenly had €2.8 million in its account in 2020. It is noted that some members of the group, who may be involved in the sabotage, presented the owner of “Andromeda” with forged Bulgarian and Romanian passports. One of them was allegedly a Romanian passport issued in the name of Stefan Marcu.
This man may be a 26-year-old Ukrainian national known to German security authorities. The publications say that his name is also known to the authors of the investigation, but for security reasons the journalists do not reveal it. The man hails from a town southeast of Kiev, and old photos on social media show him in uniform with his comrades and holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. It is presumed that he is now serving in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
At the same time, it is claimed that the media managed to identify another Ukrainian who may be involved in the sabotage – he hails from the outskirts of Odessa and is also known to the investigation. However, according to the media, he did not take an active part in the sabotage, but rather played a supporting role.
The explosions took place on September 26, 2022 simultaneously on two Russian gas export pipelines to Europe – Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2. Germany, Denmark and Sweden did not rule out a targeted sabotage. Nord Stream AG, the operator of Nord Stream, reported that emergencies at the pipelines are unprecedented and the timing of repairs cannot be assessed. The Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office initiated a case of an act of international terrorism.
Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh published his own investigation on February 8 in which he cited a source as saying that explosive devices were planted under Russian gas pipelines in June 2022 under the cover of Baltops exercises by US Navy divers supported by Norwegian specialists. According to Hersh, the decision on the operation was made by US President Joe Biden after nine months of discussions with administration officials dealing with national security issues. The Pentagon later told RIA Novosti that the US had nothing to do with the bombing of the Russian gas pipelines.
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